Today, I received my first email from Gen Con:
On Dec 11, 2024, at 3:11 PM, Mike Boozer [email address removed] wrote:
E.D.E. Bell,
This email is being sent to inform you that, effective immediately, you are no longer welcome to attend Gen Con conventions and/or events. This includes attending Gen Con Indy 2025, as well as any virtual Gen Con events, and any other Gen Con-branded events or conventions that should occur going forward. This decision is final, and not appealable.
This action is being taken based on your online behavior which is inconsistent with that expected of a Gen Con attendee in good standing.
 | Policy Team | Gen Con, LLCwww.gencon.com |
Confidential and Proprietary: The information contained herein is only intended for the designated recipient and is not to be forwarded, copied, or otherwise disclosed without express written permission from Gen Con LLC.
I responded as honestly as I could, and would like to share that response with you.
Mike Boozer,
This is a hearbreakingly sad decision as I have never once been allowed to speak to anyone about Gen Con about what occurred, despite my years of volunteer work, inlcuding helping write guidelines and resolving issues for the Author’s Avenue and three years volunteering tremendous time with my whole heart for the Writer’s Symposium.
Again, I spoke online because Gen Con refused to speak to me in private. And now, you’re doing the same thing a second time, as I will need to put this publicly on the record, so that people know that attending or assisting, even quietly, is not a choice offered to Maurice.
Gen Con was an event that was part of my heart and soul, and to take it away from me based on doing exactly what I was brought in to do as a mentally disabled person asked to create a more inclusive space, and at the direct request of BIPOC participants and leadership, is particularly cruel. And shortsighted. Marginalized writing communities saw exactly what my “behavior” was and will find your calling it inconsistent with Gen Con’s policies quite awkwardly…honest. And revealing.
I would very much like an invitation back at the point when it is seen that I did right by our communities and was, in no way, the problem here.
Also, I stand by that Derek Guder behaved abusively (and possibly illegally), and is most likely, well, almost certainly, lying to you about what happened. There are others out there who have reached out with similar stories, thanking me for my bravery, but still terrified to speak about them. So you’ve done that. For now.
I don’t know if you’re issuing a similar ban to Erik Scott de Bie, who quoted Gen Con sources admitting to systemic racism online, or if the primary factor is who is friends with Derek rather than who is telling the truth (meaning truth in context, not skewed fragments of fact).
There are people, many of whom have depression and disabilities, who look forward to seeing me every year at Gen Con. Right now, there is a mostly non-verbal young person who is preparing for my micro fiction workshop because it’s the one place all year he feels safe to speak. If I knew how to contact his parents so that he is not devastated, I would. If you have a heart, perhaps you can look into the records and try.
I will maintain the documentation that you’ve never seen because you’ve not allowed me to speak to anyone, but not release them because my priority now is ensuring Maurice’s success in continuing the same work.
With regret and with hope,
Emily.
Final Thoughts
My heart is broken over all of this. I did my best. And it’s cost me more than you know, and more than I’m going to say, because that was never the point.
I am grateful to all those who have continued to offer their support. (Emotionally, most of all.)
My chin stays up, and I’ll continue. I love playing games, I love talking about craft, I love being with our people, and I hope there will be places that welcome me to do so.
It is important to note that this was never about me. It was about a committee, who as a whole, refused to be forced to disinvite a Black woman Special Guest. (Even in their alternate narrative that we could balance her by adding more “appealing” white people, that would have forced us to reduce funds already promised to BIPOC, which they refused to let us explain.) All this while Gen Con itself did not provide their own Author Guest of Honor, as had been done historically. That’s the truth; that’s the “interpersonal issue” Derek Guder pinned on me to deflect from what he did. I tried to do this quietly. I said nothing for nine months. I asked for help. I put my best into the event. So any suggestion that I shouldn’t have spoken out must take those previous nine months of my silence and good faith efforts into account, as well as Gen Con’s refusal to even now, ever once, talk to me in private.
I need to repeat one last time: I was never the issue here. Derek Guder, who we’d never interacted with in any manner, came at us hard the second that he heard one of our Special Guests switched from a white man to Mikki Kendall. There were emails, calls, messages, all urging us to reconsider this. Specifically about this one person, who clearly went too far for someone. Documentation. Multiple witnesses. Which Derek probably has no idea about. All before his calling of the “emergency” meeting.
All of this happened before he, by his own words, even knew who I was. My role was, during that meeting, as Programming Lead whose specific job managing Guest invitations was, I got in the way of him forcing our committee, all of whom were asked to be at this meeting, to disinvite her. Marian told us at the time, she’d never seen him so mad. Consider that? Never so mad? It’s quite telling.
His priority then shifted to three calls, 8 hours total, of demanding that Chris remove me or there would be consequences. Discussions about the guests, about our inclusion plan, about working better together, about a way ahead – were all disallowed; the only focus was removing me. Chris refused; he finally just said he couldn’t keep going in circles on the same topic – I was maybe the best programming lead out there, and he stood by me. So their claims of why I am banned are simply nonsense by the facts. I would have resolved it quietly; I tried repeatedly and over the course of months. Derek Guder wanted my blood the minute I said we were not going to change our Special Guests after they’d been invited, and he added Chris to the list the moment he refused to remove me. Everything since then is concocted.
Let’s not lose the focus here. This spring, not long after our brief but terrible interaction with Derek Guder, Larry Correia said on Twitter that Gen Con Writers’ Symposium used to be good but a “woke” committee had taken over. (Per my memory! If someone has the tweet, I can add it.) Within minutes of Gen Con dismissing our whole committee (yes, that included Maurice, but by their email yesterday it’s not clear they…knew that?) that same language with a picture of my face was featured on well-known right-wing sites, with thousands of views within minutes.
I can’t stand talking about this again, but I think people need to know, as Gen Con has quite a lot of power in this community and credibility and safety are critical, especially going into these next few years. And they had a choice and still have a choice. Any suggestion that my speaking out has taken options away from them, when they’ve refused to interact with me in any capacity, is not taking into account the aspects and dynamics here. They could change their mind any time. They could want to do right. To do the work. We could resolve it and move on. They are the ones putting on the record that my honest account of our attempts at inclusion work is “inconsistent” with their policy, too frightened to even allow me in the building with them. I hope you will also remember power dynamics in this. I am a fully mentally disabled volunteer, who was brought onto the committee because of that, and this is a powerful corporation.
So it comes down to this. Disinviting a Black activist who was a stellar choice for Special Guest, because someone out of nowhere had an issue with her and specifically her is inconsistent with my policy.
I hope you will understand that people with some privilege need to take the punch sometimes. I hope you will understand that taking the punch only works if marginalized people do not have to be in its line. If we aren’t willing to take any hits, to give up any sliver of our privilege, what are we here for?
I despise everything about this. The people it’s hurt. I wish with all my heart someone with more influence than me had been willing to resolve it. I want you to know, if this has hurt you, I’m so deeply, truly, sorry. I did my best. I still am trying to.
I made two mistakes, both of which I have learned from, for the future: 1) Not being certain in advance that people of privilege would stand with me and allow a quiet resolution (though that would have had to be in advance, and we just had no idea something like this would happen). 2) Reaching out to Peter Adkison because so many people told me he was a good guy.
My plan was to lie low and let the Symposium continue and succeed. But if Gen Con is going to double-down that standing up for inclusion work is against their policy, I feel, again, forced to speak. I am not saying any more on the details of this. If people want to let Gen Con know that my treatment and now eternal banishment, all after repeatedly refusing to even have a fully confidential private conversation before, then, or now, maybe isn’t the good look for them they think it is, that’s up to them. Or perhaps this is the look they are going for, and then, well, people have the right to know that too. But the priority right now has to be uplifting writers and storytelling.
As for me? I was quietly doing my job, well, even by their account, and they came at us, for the one specific reason I’ve already stated. That’s the facts. It hurts, but I will continue, I will be ok, and I will keep promoting art in these scary times.
As for Gen Con? Yeah, they “won” this, I guess, if they consider this winning. I hope they stop acting obsessed with me and instead put that energy into supporting Maurice, who has now lost a significant chunk of the volunteer labor he had the last three years, as he and I and many others worked together.
I hope you will all support Maurice Broaddus and his work. The Writers’ Symposium changes lives, and under Maurice’s guidance, I am so glad, so grateful, that it will continue to.
Last edited (for clarity, not substance) 16 December 2024.