An Open Letter Without Punching Down

Many of you probably remember the open letter I posted to Word Horde publisher Ross Lockhart back in September of 2018, when he took exception to my unfriending a female author and removing her from my own personal social circle. At the time, that author, whom Ross was publishing, remained unnamed, because I did not want to punch down, and also because the optics of me posting anything negative about a younger, female author were going to be ugly, no matter how justified.

I have spoken my peace to Ross. He knows how I feel. I know how he feels. However, I have never spoken about the female author in question, and did not intend to. But my hand has now been forced.

In the interest of not punching down, I will refer to the young woman as Jane Doe.

It has come to my attention that Jane Doe, who has recently returned to social media, has been professionally disparaging me, telling at least one of my professional peers at a recent writing event that she was blacklisted in this industry because I “had an issue with an anthology that she edited”.

This is patently false— an outright lie with the seeming intent of trying to damage my career and further propagate the victim narrative that she has used to influence people throughout her short career.

I did not cut you out of my social circle because of your anthology, Jane. And I did not command or suggest that others cut you out of their social circles. I can’t speak for why others decided to cut ties with you, but I can speak to why I chose to do so. In part:

1. You’re a liar, and you also trade on people’s sympathies. Beginning with our very first meeting, when you told Mary and I that you were having your first reading at the convention we were all at, and you’d be honored if we could attend. It turned out you did not have a reading scheduled. Your reading was conducted in a hotel hallway with Mary and I as a captive audience.

2. You insinuated yourself into our social circle and the social circle of others based on a continued pattern of lies, half-truths, and plays for sympathy.

3. When those didn’t work, you’d buy your way into situations. As I said, I won’t speak for others, but I know of one editor who similarly cut you from their social circle after you backed their crowdfunded project and then expected to be published by them as a result. You wielded financial contributions just as deftly as you wielded sympathy.

4. You took advantage of Mary’s good nature, and you treated her horribly. You took advantage of mine, as well. You constantly used us both as an emotional and professional sounding board, even after being told that it was interfering with our own work and our own private lives. We edited stories for you because you played on our sympathies. We introduced you to people because you played on our sympathies. We took your endless phone calls and emails and text messages despite the fact that we’d made it very clear that these things were a problem. And while we continued — at a detriment to our own mental well being and emotional exhaustion— to attempt to help you, you badmouthed us to others when you didn’t get the results you desired.

5. You tried trading on our names. I was told by a convention organizer that you intimated that you were my personal assistant and therefore should get in free. You were never my personal assistant. We were advised that you told a different convention organizer that Mary was your mentor, and had asked you to attend the convention as a guest. She was neither your mentor nor did she suggest anything of the sort.

6. You harangued others into joining you in interrupting a live broadcast of my podcast under the auspices of friendship and altruism. You insisted on doing so even after they explained to you that it could be done off the air, and I was in the middle of a show, and interrupting that show was unprofessional. It is clear to me you didn’t care about any of these things. You simply wanted to get on the air to further yourself, and once again, I was a captive audience.

7. Your endless barrage of requests for sympathy and attention wreaked havoc on Mary’s emotional well-being, and my own. But what I didn’t know was that you were doing the same to others. And guess what? People talk.

8. One night, sitting around my boat dock, I vented my frustrations privately to a handful of other authors. It turns out they had similar frustrations with you of their own. And while I won’t name you, Jane, I will say that if you think I can somehow “puppet master” Kelli Owen, Robert Ford, Rachel Autumn Deering, Matt Hayward, Stephen Kozeniewski, Wesley Southard, Dave Thomas, and Wile E. Young, then you haven’t been paying attention. Kelli and Rachel would just laugh and then ignore me, Bob would slyly smile, Dave would tell me to shut the fuck up, and Matt, Koz, Wile E. and Wes would collectively say, “Okay, boomer.”

9. I wasn’t responsible for any of the multitude of other folks who have cut you out of their social circles. They have their own reasons for doing so. Christopher Golden, who should be beyond reproach when it comes to something like this, publicly shared his own reasons yesterday (while being careful not to name you because he’s insistent upon not punching down). In part, quote: “You manufacture drama, sow discord throughout a creative community through lies and insinuations, try to recruit a person to your cause by *completely inventing* "death threats" you're receiving. When asked to forward these so-called "death threats," which you describe as disgusting and abusive and terrifying and misogynistic, and which you claim include bloody, gory photos of murdered women...you create a fake email address, dig up an actual gory photo of an actual murdered woman, put a subject line something like "Die Whore"...oh, and yeah, you attach a gory, disturbing as hell photo of that murdered woman...but when you "forward" this email you've created to me, you forget that the timestamp on the email will reveal that you "received" it fifteen minutes AFTER the conversation in which you told me you'd received it. That phone call in which you pleaded for me to intervene on your behalf. Yeah. Do you honestly think that I'm going to just FORGET that you tried to use me in your psycho drama? Or that you're so fucking twisted that you'd fabricate that story and find that hideous photo and send it to me as part of your plot?” End quote.

So, in closing, no Jane. I don’t care about your anthology. I only care that you leave Mary alone, and that you leave me alone. You’ve launched your comeback. Focus on that, and find a way to do it without continuing to use my name, regardless of whether it’s in a negative or positive connotation.

I’ve been professional long past the point where I need to be. I’ve been discreet long past the point where I need to be.

Please don’t make me punch down…