Full disclosure: I submitted to this and received an acceptance pending publication.

There are a couple of things I wanted to say about this. First: I've been following this since the beginning and took issue (in a different forum) with the author's criticisms that you highlighted in a separate blog post. Secondly: I'm abled, white and male, but I'm also part of the LGBT+ community and my background is writing in queer literature, so I'm very conscious of my position both of privilege and of minority. I found watching the various levels of criticism levelled at the call etc., quite difficult to watch because I've been in the same position whereby statements of inclusivity have been picked apart on a semantic level, rather than a generally ideological or intentional level, purely for the sake (it often seems) of attack. But then I also accept that the 'exceptionalisms' terminology was problematic, but thought your steps to learn from it and correct were admirable. (Again I repeat: I am abled, so I'm aware that it might be a patronising to be perceived as patting someone on the back for learning-and-correcting, but from the perspective of working in queer lit, if heterosexual authors took steps to make sure their terminology was right, and learn and correct, etc. I'd be overjoyed.) Thirdly: I'm also an editor of anthologies and have encountered (with very single anthology) objections that suggest I am not the right person to edit the collection, even when objectively I almost certainly am. I'm not suggesting that all criticism should be discounted, but it should be remember that not all criticisms are immediately valid either.

In response to this post: I absolutely think the anthology should go ahead. I respect your reservations, and I respect the idea that, in an ideal world, this might be edited and entirely written by a non-abled/non-neurotypical editors/writers, but it's not an ideal world, which I think is important. There are very few other anthologies coming close to trying to dissect the assumptions and prejudices of the genre, and having read Steampunk World I can certainly confirm that your commitment to the diversity of the collections and ensuring the representation is not exploitative are solid. I am a supporter of the idea of 'own voices' insofar as I would encourage people to seek out minority voices telling their stories; if perhaps there was an ocean of writers or editors putting out anthologies as diverse as this perhaps I'd be less sure, but the bottom line is, you are one of very few, and we would be far better off for this anthology existing. I would be very say to think that the idea of 'own voices' and its associated ideas could eventually turn itself around to preventing people dedicated to publishing diverse and interesting content from doing so for fear of backlash.

So in short: Steampunk World was great, and I anticipate Steampunk Universe being equally as good. Regarding word count, quality is better than quantity. I hope this project goes ahead.

Matt Bright
http://www.matthew-bright.com