You may or may not be aware of a pair of controversies currently doing the rounds in the online genre world. First, there is Orson Scott Card’s homophobic rewrite of Hamlet, Hamlet’s Father, reprinted this year by Subterranean Press (it is now marked as sold out, incidentally). Card’s beliefs on the subject are well-known but that doesn’t make them any less odious. The same is true of his attempts to both justify his beliefs and weasel out of the accusations levelled at his novella. Secondly, two writers of a YA novel, Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith, were offered representation by an agent on the condition they made a gay character straight. They refused.
Genreville has excellent posts on both topics: here for Card, and here for the YA novel.
I will not reject stories for Rocket Science because they feature gay characters. I will reject a story if it is homophobic. The FAQ for the anthology states that I am committed to diversity, both in contents and in those submitting; and that doesn’t just refer to nationality or gender, but also to LGBTQ, QUILTBAG or whatever acronym you prefer to use.
So please feel free to submit… Assuming, of course, that your story meets the anthology’s guidelines and themes in all other respects.
