Journal Entry
Transcriptase
Transcriptase is a new website that has launched, featuring fiction by some very familiar authors. You may remember the Helix debacle from a while back, authors who asked for their stories to be taken down, and authors who felt they didn’t feel right taking them down but didn’t appreciate what the editor of Helix had done, have all banded together to create Transcriptase (n: the enzyme that copies DNA into RNA).
The site features the work of:
* Elizabeth Barrette
* Beth Bernobich
* Maya Bohnhoff
* Eugie Foster
* Sara Genge
* Samantha Henderson
* Janis Ian
* N.K. Jemisin
* Vylar Kaftan
* Ann Leckie
* Yoon Ha Lee
* Margaret Ronald
* Jennifer Pelland
* Vaughan Stanger
* Rachel Swirsky
From their introduction:
In July 2008, Helix editor William Sanders stirred up controversy in the community with remarks that many found offensive. The blogosphere exploded with discussion. You can find a summary of the events here.
As the controversy continued, several Helix writers asked to remove their work from the magazine and were met with unprofessional treatment. This upset all of us. We agreed that we would not stand by in silence.
Transcriptase hosts reprints of our stories and poems originally published at Helix. During the controversy, some of us removed our work from Helix; others left it up. There are valid reasons to make either choice, and we hope you’ll respect that we had difficult decisions to make. We offer our stories and poems at Transcriptase so that you can enjoy our work away from Helix, if you choose.
My hope is that they’ll stick a donation button on Transcriptase so that we can tip the authors and their hard work in coming up with an elegant and nifty solution for the entire mess. No banning needed. No engagement with Sanders needed, they can say what they need to and feature their work in a very nice showcase.
You can follow various reactions to the project online via Technorati.
Filed under the topic Journal on July 31st 2008 at 2:50 pm. You can subscribe to the RSS feed for this entry to keep track of comments. You can also use to trackback.
Comment policy: this is Tobias' blog and space. Like a guest in his house, accord other guests and your host respect and polite discourse while feeling free to engage in debate or comment. Failure to do so results in comment ban or deletion.
3 Responses so far
Your host:
Tobias is a Caribbean-born SF/F novelist who lives in Ohio.
Contact me:
tobias@tobiasbuckell.com
AIM: tobiasbuckell
Coming Soon
# Arctic Rising – Tor Books (Feb. 2012)
# The Rydr Express – The New Hero II (TBD, 2012)
# A Tinker of Warhoon – Under the Moons of Mars: New Adventures on Barsoom (February, 2012)
# Jungle Walkers – Armored (2012)
In Progress:
-untitled for Fireside Magazine (outlining)
-novelette Seafarer for TBA (~92%)
# The Trove (~40% complete)
# The Apocalypse Ocean (~31%)
more at my bibliography
Free Fiction
Novels
Read the first 1/3 free of:
-Crystal Rain: First 1/3 [RTF]
-Ragamuffin-First 1/3 [RTF]
-Sly Mongoose-First 1/3 [RTF]
Short Stories
Toy Planes
The Fish Merchant [pdf]
Her
The Shackles of Freedom (with Mike Resnick)
Necahual
Four Eyes
Aerophilia
Shoah Sry (with Ilsa J. Bick [pdf]
Audio
1. Samantha on Jul 31st, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Hi Tobias! Thank you for posting this.
There is a “Support” page on the site that links to the Carl Brandon Society and the Tiptree Awards. The authors at Transcriptase decided that we would prefer any tips anyone might care give go towards these endeavors.
2. Jennifer Pelland on Jul 31st, 2008 at 8:45 pm
We debated putting a tip jar up, but honestly, we were all paid for our archived stories, and don’t need to be paid again. The only concern was for those of us who are in the current issue, but ultimately, we decided we’d rather have donations go to Tiptree and Brandon than to our pockets.
3. Tobias Buckell on Jul 31st, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Fair enough.