What’s the proper balance between political opinion, professional life, and writing? Every writer, every publisher, and indeed every individual person must decide how to delineate their own personal “proper balance.” Here at Weird Sisters Publishing, the eponymous sisters – G. S. Norwood and I – see many things the same way. But not all things.

Recently I’ve come to realize that the expression of political views in the public-facing, professional sphere is one of those things. G. is more reticent about getting too “deep in the weeds” with political opinions than I am.

Neither one of us particularly subscribes to the idea that “corporations are people.” But to say that corporations – business entities – don’t take political postures from time to time is ludicrous. Moreover, it’s ludicrous to assert that policy decisions made in the political realm have no impact on businesses. They clearly have massive effects. But what’s comfortable, and what’s “too political” for Weird Sisters Publishing? What is our “proper balance”?

A Few Things Are Baked In

Well, the “completely apolitical” ship has already sailed for Weird Sisters Publishing! We’re a women-owned business, and right there on our homepage it says, “Weird Sisters Publishing aims to produce the very best stories we can, illustrated with excellent original artwork by talented artists. We’re especially eager to work with talented women and persons of color.”

Clearly, our “proper balance” leans in favor of social justice. It certainly does, in terms of empowering women and persons of color . . . although we do also hire white guys from time to time. Talent is talent, after all. And a person who’s reliably good to work with is a treasure, no matter what their ethnicity, creed, gender, or race. Balance, after all – and, indeed inclusion – necessarily means “everyone.”

Where We Draw the Line on “Inclusion”

You might also have noted an undertone of “made by humans, please!” in that expression of our approach. To be more explicit about that, our letter of agreement spells out that work we commission is “original, not AI-generated.”

This extends, for me, to eschewing (as much as it’s possible to discern) the use of AI-produced stock images. I license images for the organization’s use from time to time (especially for social media), and I appreciate that our subscription service, 123rf, clearly labels AI-generated work (although they do try to entice me into using it).

Weird Sisters’ vision of “inclusion” doesn’t extend to replacing humans with machine learning. So I guess we’re definitely “species-ists,” when it comes to our hiring decisions.

Creating a Proper Balance for G. S. Norwood

For many authors, it seems best to remain mum about politics in their professional lives. That’s G.’s personal proper balance. Her writing isn’t about politics, or certainly not primarily about that. She writes women’s fiction, urban fantasy, and mysteries. I’m really looking forward to having a chance to share more of her work with readers in the near future, so more people can see her work in those genres!

But, no matter which genre she chooses for a particular project, her focus is on the specifics of the plot and the interplay of well-rounded, beautifully developed characters interacting with each other. She realistically depicts the influences of history and society, including culture, on her characters.

Some might argue that the themes around which one builds a story and the specific plot threads one intertwines, are political choices. As are the elements of society and history one depicts. But G.’s normally not making a point about them. Her “proper balance” is more apolitical than mine, because she has other kinds of Tales To Tell.

I Find it Impossible to be Apolitical in Science Fiction

Everything I just said about a story’s themes, as well as history, society, and culture often carry a more overt sense of politics or political thought when it comes to science fiction. A writer can choose a real-life past or present setting for most genres, and bring to it as much or as little focus on the society and history as works for their story.

But in science fiction every world is a form of thought experiment. In this genre (and also quite often in fantasy, as well as in other speculative fiction) we build entire new worlds out of extrapolations. Yes, we build them from elements in our contemporary life, but we have much greater latitude in what we choose or discard. This means there’s no aspect of the setting and milieu that is not a deliberate choice. I have written elsewhere on The Weird Blog about Politics in Science Fiction. I also have written about Politics on Rana Station, the fictional setting for my XK9 books.

And since I’m openly political in my own fictional universe, my personal proper balance embraces considerably more political opinion than G.’s. I’m still sometimes blindsided by what she considers to be “too political,” so when reposting things on the Weird Sisters Publishing or G. S. Norwood Facebook pages (currently their only social media presence, to my chagrin), I’m still trying to feel out the proper balance sometimes.

But I’m trying. It’s an ongoing process, and there’s not always a chance to check with her first. So please wish me – and our proper balance – good luck!

About the Author

Author Jan S. Gephardt has struck what she feels is her own personal proper balance with her XK9 Series of science fiction novels and shorter fiction (subscribers to her monthly newsletter currently have access to more original short fiction set in the XK9s’ universe than is currently available for sale). Her newest title, Bone of Contention, is set to be published September 24, 2024. It completes the XK9 “Bones” Trilogy, although the series will continue.

IMAGE CREDITS

Most of our imagery is “home-grown” for this post: a screen-grab of our own homepage (desktop version), plus social media images created to promote our books. G.’s book, Deep Ellum Duet, incorporates both of her earlier-published stories into one volume (cover art ©2022 by Chaz Kemp). The current titles in the XK9 Series that are available to the general public are The Other Side of Fear (a prequel novella; cover art © 2020 by Lucy A. Synk), What’s Bred in the Bone, and A Bone to Pick (cover art © 2019 and 2020, respectively, by Jody A. Lee ). Many thanks to “My Office Apps” for the illustration of the woman surrounded by robots.