#sarah lyons
“You can practice magic without pretending you’re part of a tradition you aren’t a part of, and you can fight for someone else’s liberation without making it about you.”— Sarah Lyons, Revolutionary Witchcraft: A Guide to Magical Activism
IIRC, the author characterized all Folkloric and Folk Magic traditions as Witchcraft in an interview once, so I can’t say I have high hopes for that book.
Unfortunately, it isn’t a great one. :/ Many of us were very disappointed in the content and her overall ideas about what consisted of “activism” in a witchcraft space.
After the last post, we are back to our usual programming. It’s short and sweet today.
Summary: More apologies. Berkley Romance dumps Sonny. We go from calls to boycott to calls to retract your work from Riptide or else. Xen X Cole appears to be an excellent human being.
Berkley Romance severs(x) their connection with Sonny. So far, there is no mention of what they plan to do with the books they have already published.
Then Eddie Witt posts this. For those of you keeping score, I think this is the “social experiment” square on the bingo card. Megan Erickson makes another apology(x). It appears she has learned from her past mistake, somewhat. (Badapology bingo for anyone interested in playing along.)
A separate GR thread has been established for the Sarah Lyons and Riptide aspects of this mess. Rachel Haimowitz (the publisher at Riptide) makes a non-apology(x) (we’re not even sure the word apology applies here), and Xen calls her out. Riptide then goes dark.
Santino Hassell makes yet another apology(x) (and deletes their first one). Missing is any mention of the bullying, false cancer claims, catfishing, etc. They apologise for “messing up” and being an asshole and that all the lies were the result of….actually it’s very hard to know.
Those “bad” and “good” author lists people were making? We now have demands that authors either leave(x) Riptide or be labelled(x) as part of the problem. Some people point(x) out the issues(x) with that tactic(x).
If nothing else, we hope people reading this will leave the understanding that Xen X Cole is an articulate motherfucker and basically wins the internet.
Well, things certainly didn’t stay settled for long did it? On the one hand, we’re moving past the SH debacle, healing is happening, and so on. On the other hand, we now have Riptide Publishing and Sarah Lyons under fire.
And so once more unto the breach…
Summary: Sarah Lyons resigns from Riptide Publishing amidst accusations of inappropriate conduct (sharing unwanted sexual information, sexual coercion, and gaslighting). Along with this are stories of Riptide’s less than stellar approach to race and intersectionality.
Let us start with the fact Sarah Lyons and Riptide Publishing have parted ways(x). You might remember Sarah Lyons from the SH shitshow as the editor accused of inappropriate sexual conduct. Well, in addition to being a sexual predator, she is also accused of using and abusing relationships with others in the publishing industry. Most of the damning evidence can be found here(x). And this tweet is very telling.
In short, Sarah Lyons dangled the possibility of a job and contract over the head of an author in order to exploit him, sent him incredibly inappropriate texts (like this one), and violated all professional boundaries. This article also details interactions with Riptide in which the publisher questioned if the protagonist’’s ethnicity should be mentioned in the blurb in case it turned readers off. There is also an email from Sarah Lyons stating that although novels with PoCs will be accepted, PoC models/representation will not be put on the covers. Further accusations of Sarah Lyons exploiting the author for unpaid sensitivity consulting will surprise no one.
Riptide also comes under scrutiny. In the past, Riptide has been involved in some very unsavoury scandals. For example, creatingawebsite that glorifies slavery. This was part of the promotion for their slave-fic series. After being called out, Riptide apologised and pulled down the site. In their own words, “the idea of the immersive website was to heighten a reader’s experience of the oppression of slavery by showcasing the horrifying reality of it.” Then there is the “Dark Chocolate Love Monkey” incident (Sarah Lyons was involved in that one, too).
There are some excellent Twitter threads emerging, one of which being this one. And this one from KJ Charles (though this one was in regards to SH, it seemed relevant here). And this tweet.Courtney Milan calls out Riptide.
Of interest is this infographic from The Ripped Bodice detailing the state of racial diversity in romance publishing.
Commission for @thewookieruns, featuring Lone Wanderer Luke back at the Capital Wasteland, paying respects for a fallen soldier and friend, Elder Sarah Lyons.
Thank you so much for entrusting me with this one, Wookie!
