GRL - You have disappointed me

Let me preface this by saying the following: This post is going to piss people off and at this point I don't mind. you want to get angry, get angry  - but ensure you're mad for the right reason. Wrong is wrong no matter how you put it.

So for a few years now I keep hearing people talking about GRL and how much fun GRL was and how I should go. Because for the last little while, I couldn't afford to go away much especially to some conference that is in a different country because with bills and tuition, there isn't much left for anything else.  Some of my readers asked if I'd ever go and I kept saying I wasn't sure. Anyways, last year, I decided this year, 2013 was going to be my year. I could go to GRL and even visit a friend of mine who lives in Savannah Georgia. 

Tonight I was writing and a friend of mine got really upset. I wasn't sure why she was until she copied and pasted a link in our chat window and asked me to check it out.

I'm not sure who wrote this post or if they thought about what they wrote before they did it but here's the link. Now I'm not trying to be a bitch but I am really disappointed in the organizers of GRL (or whoever posted this) for this post.  I have a few issues with this post but I'm just going to take screen captures of a few. I was sent this website link:

When I took media in university, they drilled us with all sorts of things from the writing of Press Releases to what to do when your client is a Lindsay Lohan sort that you're constantly having to clean up their image.  But the one thing they stressed over and and over was this:

 It's not what you say, it's how you say it. In the post they started out with the regular pleasantries--you know the kind. The kind of niceties you give when you're about to drop a hammer over someone's head.....And you keep reading and then WHAM!

This is my first issue with this post. While I respect your right to want whoever you want to be 'included' in your endeavor  it is quite offensive to say you're only picking a list of "must have" authors no matter if they were voted for or not. What is this saying to other authors? The "Must-have" authors are the same authors sitting at the top of the LGBT world and the rest of the authors who aren't "must-have" just got alienated and is pretty much being told to go screw themselves.  Does this mean because of the rest of us aren't "must-have" authors we can't get a good spot in GRL because we aren't worthy? I mean come on. The LGBT writing world is petty and elitist as is so now you just have to make it worse? What is this supposed to accomplish?  Most of these authors are the same ones monopolizing everything else. Every corner of the genre is being controlled by the same few so called "must-have" authors.

Wait...I thought the "must-have" authors were the ones to draw the big crowds? Crap, I am so confused. The truth is publishers do bring a big chunk of change to these conventions. I understand that and I totally get it. But without the authors, would we have any publishers? What would they have to publish? And "not with our current numbers" are you joking? You're alienating a good number of LGBT authors and then you're going to complain that the numbers of authors going to these things cannot carry it so you need publishers to do that? You can't have it both ways.

I suddenly feel left out into the cold by the one convention that comes close to my Genre that I was seriously planning on attending. The plain truth is there is something wrong here when we are basically told if  you aren't considered must-have you probably won't get in. I scrimped and saved for this convention this year. I saved every extra scent I could muster and I finally had enough to go but I won't be going to GRL this year or next. I am very disappointed. I feel as though I was kicked in the gut and its not a very nice feeling. I will not support a cause or organization who would so blatantly disrespect authors the way this post has. The truth is, I think this year my money will be better spent going on vacation. I hear Jamaica is nice that time of year.

That is all,
REMMY DUCHENE