Rainy morning linkpost

I have, as usual, too many tabs open, so this post is an attempt to close them. I'm sharing a bunch of links, some for stuff on Dreamwidth, some elsewhere.

I appreciated this interview with Kate Elliott setting out the changes she's witnessed in the publishing industry across the three decades she's been a professional author.

I missed it this year (I don't like to start these kinds of things midway through), but the June Something is a fun set of posting prompts that I've been enjoying reading when they pop up in my feed, so I'll share the details in case anyone is interested.

sunshine_challenge is coming up for another year. I've taken part in the past, and may do so this year, although the timing coincides with my mum's annual visit. In any case, you can see all the prompts at the comm.

A couple of generous offers, spotted via various posts on my feed:

petra and others have offered to pay the OTW membership fees for anyone who isn't financially able to do so but would like to vote in the upcoming OTW Board elections. Details here.

theladyscribe is running a raffle to pay for a paid Dreamwidth account for the winner (or for someone else on the winner's behalf). Details here; the raffle closes on 24th June.

Finally, an old post by Amal El-Mohtar, a sort of unpacking of her thought processes behind her review of The Traitor Baru Cormorant (but really the thought processes that inform her entire way of engaging with works of fiction):

I’ve been watching conversations emerging — mostly on Twitter, mostly subtweeting, mostly in fits and starts — trying to categorize responses to the book according to some sort of ticky-box taxonomy of readers. I find this utterly repellent. Some people will suggest that only queer people have problems with the book, ergo it must write queer people’s lives poorly; others will counter with “well, Amal liked the book,” as if that could be the last word on the subject; still others will try to parse whether it’s my Brownness or my Queerness that has shaped my response, in pursuit of some sort of One True Response to the book.

[...]

But please, leave off trying to sort responses based on people’s identities. All that does is make queer people who disliked the book afraid of speaking up, queer people who did like the book worried about whether or not they’re sufficiently queer for the conversation, ad nauseum, ad infinitum. As if consensus is the default not to be deviated from instead of a thing that sometimes happens. There is no One True Opinion to be had. There’s only the one that’s right for you.

I don't share all of Amal El-Mohtar's marginalisations and identities, I've not read the book in question, but the things she articulates in that post get to the heart of the ways I try to approach fiction (orignal and transformative), and the conversations, people and communities that form around these works of fiction. I guess that's why the post has stayed with me all these years, and why it's something to which I keep returning.