Dear friends and readers:<\/p>\n
I have officially withdrawn my acceptance of the Best Novel nomination for \u201cLines of Departure\u201d at this year\u2019s Hugo Awards.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It has come to my attention that \u201cLines of Departure\u201d was one of the nomination suggestions in Vox Day\u2019s \u201cRabid Puppies\u201d campaign. Therefore\u2014and regardless of who else has recommended the novel for award consideration\u2014the presence of \u201cLines of Departure\u201d on the shortlist is almost certainly due to my inclusion on the \u201cRabid Puppies\u201d slate. For that reason, I had no choice but to withdraw my acceptance of the nomination. I cannot in good conscience accept an award nomination that I feel I may not have earned solely with the quality of the nominated work.<\/p>\n
I also wish to disassociate myself from the originator of the \u201cRabid Puppies\u201d campaign. To put it bluntly: if this nomination gives even the appearance that Vox Day or anyone else had a hand in giving it to me because of my perceived political leanings, I don\u2019t want it. I want to be nominated for awards because of the work, not because of the \u201cright\u201d or \u201cwrong\u201d politics.<\/p>\n
Thank you to everyone who voted for \u201cLines of Departure\u201d because you read the novel and genuinely thought it worthy of award recognition. Please be assured that I did not reach this decision lightly, and that I don\u2019t want to nullify or minimize your opinion. But keeping the nomination is not a moral option at this point, and I hope you will understand.<\/p>\n
This is my choice alone, and I am making it without pressure from any side in the current Hugo debate. Please respect it as such.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Marko Kloos<\/p>\n
April 15, 2015<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear friends and readers: I have officially withdrawn my acceptance of the Best Novel nomination for \u201cLines of Departure\u201d at this year\u2019s Hugo Awards.\u00a0 It has come to my attention that \u201cLines of Departure\u201d was one of the nomination suggestions in Vox Day\u2019s \u201cRabid Puppies\u201d campaign. Therefore\u2014and regardless of who else has recommended the novel…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6e7Ft-mn","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markokloos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markokloos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markokloos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markokloos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markokloos.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.markokloos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markokloos.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markokloos.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markokloos.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}