December 20, 2023 — First and foremost, thanks to everyone for their words of encouragement and solidarity. Some progress has been made that I should share to bring some sort of conclusion to this situation.
The first edition has been pulled from shelves. A second edition is currently in development. That in itself should be a win, but it’s bittersweet. In the end, six contributors, myself included, formally withdrew from the anthology. Knowing some of the correspondence between the editors/publishers and the contributors, I couldn’t in good faith continue with my work included in the forthcoming publication.
There will be no public apology.
The entire situation has left me unsettled. Yes, there will be a new version with errors corrected, but it took a fiasco to get here. I wonder if we would’ve gotten here had there not been public statements and open letters.
Recently I was honoured to have my work featured in a literary magazine, and one of the emails I received from the magazine frankly stated that there was a printing error. The copies with the error were pulled, the corrected version reprinted, and an apology was made for the mistake and the delay. It was all so swift, so proactive, so classy – so easy. This could’ve been handled in the same way. It wasn’t.
Anyhow. No more “complaining” from me, as was described by someone from Cormorant.
Thank you again everyone for your time, your support, and for reading. Onward.