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\nThe changing of the guard in the early 2000s and the euthanization of the reactionary Sad Puppy movement in the early 2010s should have ushered in a new era of speculative fiction, an era of creative freedom and experimentation.
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\nIt did not.
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\nInstead of welcoming and mentoring a new generation of authors from all walks of life, the current publishing establishment primarily supports friends who can afford to attend the same costly private workshops, MFA programs, and industry galas. This pay-to-play model hurts any writer without economic privilege, but it hits oppressed people particularly hard, since people of marginalized backgrounds are statistically less likely to be affluent than their white, cisgender, heterosexual counterparts.
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\nLike any gated community, speculative fiction ruthlessly polices its entrances. Any new writer who breaks into the scene without paying the gatekeeper, either in cash or in flattery, is treated with suspicion and marked \u201cunsafe.\u201d Any new writer who dares to challenge readers sees their work denounced as \u201charmful\u201d\u2014a 21st century euphemism for degenerate art\u2013and is chased out of the community with harassment and abuse. Ironically, this cruelty is often inflicted by the very same people who were similarly attacked by the Rabid Puppies just a few years ago.
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\nGiven this authoritarian restriction of expression, is it any wonder that the genre has narrowed and stagnated? Why innovate, when innovation carries so much risk and so little reward?
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\nSpeculative fiction has stopped experimenting with style; instead, the short stories that attract buzz and acclaim are astonishingly similar to each other in tone, structure, and theme.
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\nSpeculative fiction has stopped looking to the future or showing us new worlds; instead it rehashes old stories and reiterates dusty debates about red shirts and final girls and Omelas, like Miss Havisham in a moth-eaten Starfleet uniform.
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\nSpeculative fiction is not living up to its potential. Speculative fiction could be so much more than it is, if the community\u2019s leaders would only give it room to breathe.
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\nTo challenge the suffocating, stultifying order of contemporary speculative fiction, we present an indisputable list of demands we are calling the Rite Gud Manifesto:
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\nSpeculative fiction must be free to explore difficult subjects.
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\nSpeculative fiction must be free to shock, disturb, sadden, and disgust readers.
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\nSpeculative fiction must be free to experiment with form and style.
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\nSpeculative fiction must be free to hold negative space.
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\nSpeculative fiction must be free to ask questions without answers.
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\nSpeculative fiction must be free to speak for itself rather than serving as an accessory to the author\u2019s personal brand identity.
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\nSpeculative fiction must be free to exist for its own sake.
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\nSpeculative fiction must be free to face stylistic critique rather than serving purely as a litmus test for the artist\u2019s perceived moral purity.
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\nSpeculative fiction must be free to explore sexuality.
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\nSpeculative fiction must be free to succeed even if the author hasn\u2019t had the privilege to attend costly networking events like Clarion, Odyssey,