Why do we let the silence live?

Why do we let the silence live in our genre? Why do we let it obscure the evil some genre people do to others?

The Marion Zimmer Bradley revelations shocked me when I first learned of them a week ago. But what shocked me more was that the actions of MZB and her pedophile husband were an open secret in the genre for decades. Many people even defended MZB and attacked anyone who dared speak the truth about her.

The same thing happened with Ed Kramer, who recently pleaded guilty to child molestation charges. The same veil of silence surrounded Kramer. People who dared speak the truth were attacked.

Colleen Doran had a similar experience in the genre after she was abused by a well-known publisher. As she says, "To this day, friends of this man tell people I made it up, and that this is what mentally ill girls do. Imagine the confusion I felt when I was simultaneously manipulated, abused, made to believe it was my fault, and told it never ever happened."

How many times must our genre go through this? How long must our silence protect those who use that silence to prey upon others?

When failure is the only way forward

Recently I received the worst rejection of my writing career. But I'm good with it because, as I write over on my Sci-Fi Strange collection at Medium.com, I've found that failure is the only way to go forward in life.

In which I escape Typepad land and experience the bliss of Squarespace

My website has been down a lot lately, which is irritating because a science fiction writer without a functioning website is a bit of an embarrassment. "Oh, you write about the intersection of technology and humanity but can't keep your website online? Ha ha ha!"

It's not that I wanted my website to be down so much, but my old hosting company — Typepad — has been hit recently with a number of denial of service attacks. During the original attacks I was sympathetic to their plight. After all, Typepad didn't ask to be attacked.

But then the effects of that attack went on and on, following by a second round of attacks, making me suspect that Typepad's response to these DDOS attacks might be part of the problem. And then I remembered all those little irritations and questions I've had about Typepad in recent years. Like why they haven't updated their website control and design systems in forever, and why most Typepad sites look like refugees from the old AOL "You've Got Mail" generation of website creation. 

That's when I realized a little something: Why hadn't I dumped Typepad years ago?

I admit it. I was lazy. I prefer to spend my free time writing instead of building and maintaining my website.

The good news is I have a new website courtesy of Squarespace. I hope people like the new design and layout. I also can't say enough about how impressed I am with the services offered by Squarespace. They offer template and design options which Typepad can only dreams of providing.

So goodbye, Typepad. And hello Squarespace.