It’s rather remarkable, but SFWA continues to associate with known child molesters while pretending that they are deeply concerned about me doing things I have never done even AFTER they purged me from the organization. Bud Webster wrote this in October 2013, two months after the SFWA Board informed me that it had voted unanimously for my expulsion:
This is partly my fault because I’ve only just now looked at the “Authors Estates” pages, but why were those estates handled by family members or other private individuals listed with their full contact information? That’s exactly what we DON’T want, and its why I wish i’d had a chance to proof those pages before the Directory went live.
All we need is for someone outside the organization (or even someone inside, for that matter) to use that information to harass the heirs of an author they don’t like, or who represents a race, gender or nationality they find offensive (don’t shake your head – remember Vox Day?) to start sending abusive emails or worse, phone calls.
I had to laugh at his bizarre appeal to SF’s Voldemort. First, recall that SFWA members such as John Scalzi, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, and NK Jemisin have been publicly attacking me since 2005. Second, be aware that I have had the entire membership’s personal contact information for more than 14 years and have never once made any use of the SFWA directory to send emails or make phone calls, abusive or otherwise. And third, note that John Scalzi was lying, and knowingly lying, when he tweeted: “@jimchines The Naive Idiocy of Not Checking Your Facts Before Making Accusations Online”
Prior to posting the information about Ed Kramer last week, I checked the 2010 directory. I also checked the online membership list. Ed Kramer, the convicted child molester, appeared in both of them. I did not check the 2013 directory for an obvious reason: I was expelled from SFWA and did not have a copy of it. Why didn’t I check the 2011 and 2012 directories? Well, as Michael Capobianco wrote in March 2013:
I know a bunch of handbooks were sent out at some point a couple of years ago, but the Directory is a principal part of the new member packet, and there hasn’t been a new Directory since spring of 2010.
Who was responsible for this failure to produce a new Directory between spring 2010 and March 2013? None other than John Scalzi, President of SFWA from July 2010 to July 2013. Which means that Mr. Scalzi knew perfectly well that there was no failure to check any facts on my part before I observed that Ed Kramer was a member of SFWA (and remains eligible for SFWA membership today). Also note that during those three years as the president of the organization, John Scalzi did absolutely nothing about Ed Kramer’s membership even though he threatened to leave SFWA in 2013 if the newly elected Board did not remove mine. He had no problem at all associating with rapists, sexual deviants, self-described savages, and child molesters. Nor did SFWA member and Tor.com editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden, who, nearly one year after threatening to leave SFWA if I was not expelled, published the tribute to MZB entitled “Marion Zimmer Bradley Gave Us New Perspectives”.
I recently obtained a copy of the 2013 directory. It is true that Ed Kramer is not in it. One therefore concludes he failed to pay his dues sometime between 2011 and 2013. But that doesn’t mean SFWA ended its association with him or with other child molesters. For example, consider page 102 of the current directory and note the highlighted estate. Fortunately, seeing as the directory is in print, it will be considerably harder for those who deceitfully implied that I was inventing Kramer’s SFWA membership to deny the organization’s continued association with another, now-deceased child molester.
Thanks to the SFWA Forum, we know that SFWA has known about Ed Kramer since at least 2004. Thanks to SFF.NET and SFWA member Stephen Goldin, we know SFWA has known about Marion Zimmer Bradley since at least 1999. SFWA still has not ended its association with either of those two known child molesters. And those are merely the two members whose criminally aberrant activities are already known to the public; they are not the only two deviants with whom SFWA is continuing to associate and celebrate.
Jason Sanford, an SFWA member who is neither a friend nor ally of mine, wrote this about “science fiction and fantasy’s Woody Allen” in February:
I’ve heard no apologies from any of Kramer’s other extremely vocal defenders in the genre. Just like Hollywood, many in the SF/F community are too willing to look away from sexual abuse and child molestation when it is inconvenient to either themselves or the genre. However, doing this actually weakens the genre and harms all of us, as it encourages a culture of silence and allows predators like Kramer to continue harming new victims.
Mr. Sanford said it, not me: “Many in the SF/F community are too willing to look away from sexual abuse and child molestation.” But it is absolutely true. Still, it’s hard to blame SFWA when they have so many other, much more pressing concerns with which to deal, such as policing the political opinions of its members, reviewing convention policies, denouncing nonexistent award campaigns, and writing 80-page reports about the potential misuse of a non-official Twitter account. The more SFWA tries to deny that it has a problem with criminal deviants in its midst, the more its members attack those who expose the problem instead of addressing it, and the more silent and inert its leadership remains on the subject, the more questions this raises about the moral degradation of the organization and its members.
A few days ago, Mr. Sanford wrote this:
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….
How many times must our genre go through this? How long must our silence protect those who use that silence to prey upon others?
Support me or despise me, I am speaking the plain and simple truth. Attack me for it if you wish. Question my motivations if you like. All of that is entirely irrelevant. Nothing will change the readily confirmable facts. I didn’t create this cancer in science fiction and I cannot excise it from a community to which I do not belong and with which I have never cared to personally associate. Only the people who dwell inside that strange little community can do so, and if they do not, if they continue to look the other way while celebrating and honoring their deviants, they will be rightly condemned for it by every decent person of any political stripe.