Sumiko Saulson

I’m still processing the whole writer’s group resignation (on my part). I started the group as an author to help aspiring writers, but somewhere along the way, two of the members who have little writing experience and never were published prior to Scry of Lust decided without my permission or consent to change the form of my group from a moderator-led group lead by an experienced instructor, to some sort of flat-file egalitarian group with no leadership or anarchist collective belonging to “everyone” and to use this structure invalidate my personal extensive experience and professional resume,

Then, they proceeded to tone-police me using both gendered and racially oppressive tone policing statements, referring to my issuing of any orders as “dictatorship” and screaming. Other people who witnessed the rehearsal and the performance viewed these characterizations as either completely fabricated or grossly exaggerated. They clearly suggested Angry Black Woman stereotyping and were very sexist and racist characterizations.

I feel very hurt, and since they have decided they want a peer-run writing group I have elected to turn it over to them to run as a peer-lead group, rather than to go along with the fiction that it started as a peer group, and the fiction that I am their peer. I am far more experienced and am not their peer. I do not feel like dealing with the series of personal attacks they have come at me with in order to bring an end to my leadership. So I have opted out entirely. Saneism, sexism, and racism aren’t cool.

I wish them the best of luck in their new peer-lead structure, but it is dishonest and disingenuous to pretend that I am not the founder of aforementioned group. It is dishonest to pretend that I don’t have a great deal more experience in writing, publishing, editing, proofreading, and teaching / workshop creation than the people who have repeatedly challenged me do.

Part of the reason I resigned was to get away from how personal they were getting, as both of them used my arguments with Darcy to impugn my character when the arguments were regular relationship issues and not a big deal and they didn’t need to involve themselves. My relationship with Darcy is way more important than that group and I refuse to put it at risk because a dude is so petty that he wants to attack my love life in order to try to get me out of my role of leadership.

AKA this dude kept complaining that I was “yelling” at Darcy when in reality we were snipping at each other aka arguing and it was very two sided (unlike this other person’s one-sided view of it). Another person complained because I asked Darcy to leave right after the event because we were having a personal argument over something Darcy did during the show. Neither of them should have been using my arguing with my girlfriend to try to undermine me professionally. That’s sexist. Also I have every right to leave the venue personally, and every right to ask my girlfriend to discuss something with me privately outside the venue.

Anyway I have better and more important things to do with my life than to try to teach people who pretend they already know everything, to give then rides, to organize anything for them, or to babysit them while they pretend I am not actually doing anything and act like the agendas, rules, writing exercises, anthology and everything else I was the primary organizer and producer (and often creator) of  magically appeared from nowhere.

Posted in Writing While Black