The Situation at JFA

Looks like there's a massive hot mess at Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts right now.

Last summer, Brian Attebery announced his retirement after 16 years, and the Board then issued a call for a new "editorial collective."

"Well," I thought, "this is exciting! I have a ton of publishing experience, including five years of editorial experience, plus a World Fantasy Award, so I'll apply ... JFA would be a dream job." So I spent three work-days pouring my heart and soul into an application letter. It's some of my best writing ... for what it's worth, here it is.

Despite my qualifications, I nonetheless kind of knew I had no real chance. First, I'm an outsider to the IAFA community -- no real connections, and I'm not good at socializing with random people at conferences. Still, I'd heard enough buzz to guess that JFA was looking hard to diversify .... and I know academia well enough to know that my kinds of diversity (working class, first-generation, contingent laborer, low-ranked doctoral program) aren't normally considered as "diverse." So it came as no surprise when, after a follow-up inquiry, a Board member told me this: "Had it been simply based on qualifications, you'd be at the top of the list. We went with people who had very concrete ideas about reinventing (and especially diversifying) the journal." 

I appreciate the non-form-letter response, but also suspected that my particular subject position -- straight white male -- would count against me. Mind you, I'm making no complaints or critiques here. Still, my philosophy is just to try keeping my head down, and hope that scholars like me can publish their way into a tenure-track jobs, prestigious service positions, and the like. Overall, I still believe meritocracy is real.

Anyway. Last night, I saw via facebook that the new JFA board just unceremoniously dumped their reviews editor without warning. This editor, who is white, nonetheless had over 10+ years of volunteer experience with JFA and an impressive publication record. He's also worked hard to diversify the books reviewed by the journal. Yet none of that seems to have mattered, and he was replaced by someone without any experience. By way of explanation, though, this editor was then told that his removal was due to JFA trying "to racially desegregate [the journal's] decision-making bodies."

As you might imagine given his years of service, he views this as a personal betrayal, one based on his "ethnicity and sexual orientation" (his quote), and it's hard to disagree. In addition, although I'm obviously not privy to any insider details, it also seems as if Attebery has chosen to immediately cease all association with the journal in protest.

All this is very, very disheartening.

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