So, a certain author is having kittens over the fact her work ended up on the Sad Puppies IV list. How much of a delusional narcissist are you that you don’t want the wrong people liking what you’ve written? I mean really, if you don’t want people to recommend your writing I suppose they can take you up on that offer and review your work in the context that only the right people dare read it. God forbid it end up on a list that you think is a ‘slate’. For a writer, you don’t seem to know definitions very well. Here, let me help you out on that.
Well, lookee there. A ‘slate’ is “a list of candidates for nomination or election”. Damn woman, YOU ARE ON A FUCKING SLATE! Hell, you’re on multiple slates. A slate is just a damn list.
EDIT (3-21-16 1911 hrs): The Locus Awards is very much a ‘slate’ of the type she is fearful of. They even used to tout it. “The Locus Awards are presented to winners of Locus Magazine‘s annual readers’ poll, which was established in the early ’70s specifically to provide recommendations and suggestions to Hugo Awards voters.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20110612174115/http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/Locus.html
Not having read the nominated work I popped over to Amazon to see what it’s like. One of the things that struck me was the suggested retail price of her novella. Both the hard cover and the eBook have the same recommended price.
$40? For a short, 144 page story? Not only no, but mother-fucking-hell-no! I would hesitate to purchase a leather bound copy of something that I actually like for that price. Your publisher is as delusional as you are if you think many people are going to pay full price for a short work like that.
Let’s break this down for easy comprehension. Miss Valente, you have an over inflated ego to think that you can control whether some people like your writing or not. And your publisher is apparently delusional if it thinks it will sell many copies of a novella at such an over inflated price. Get over yourselves before you both end up on the welfare line.
westfargomusings 
March 20, 2016 at 11:09 pm
Kamas, I went to go look and the e-book price is $4.99 now. (The hardcover is indeed $40, which makes *no* sense.) http://www.amazon.com/Speak-Easy-Catherynne-M-Valente-ebook/dp/B013T979LQ/
Otherwise…I don’t know what to say, as I don’t understand Ms. Valente’s initial response at all. (She’s since walked back her initial outrage, it seems.) Writers love readers of all stripes, usually, because it’s the readers who get the word out about books. Not the writers — we may as well be shouting into a wind tunnel, considering how little good it can do sometimes to let the world know about our writing. (We have to do it, but it’s still frustrating.)
March 21, 2016 at 5:34 am
Puppies are throwing a wrench in the social justice crusade to right the wrongs of racist, women-hating editors and authors who hogged all SF magazines to themselves in the bad old days prior to the Magna Carta. Affirmative action is a much-needed cure which will provide us with all the stories of black Snow Whites, Foucaldian genderblind spaceship zombies and mixed martial arts beatdowns of straight white males by prehistoric gay lizards any gender studies professor could ever hope for. What’s science fiction without East Indian Company officials being assassinated by noble Hindu steampunk birdies and non-whites-only dinners and rooms? Can’t you just smell the equality? Plus, lesbians.