In which I attempt to clarify and own my mistakes:

1) The original draft of the story used both “gypsy” and “tinker” because I was wholly unaware of the racial/derogatory connotations of those words. I’ve read a lot of very old folktales that referenced the threat that the child would be sold to the gypsies, and that was the springboard for this piece.

That very much demonstrates both my ignorance and my white privilege.

2) The very first market I sent this story to was Clarkesworld. Nick Mamatas’s scathing rejection of the piece made it very clear that he thought it was racist. He said (and I’m paraphrasing, because I’ve since deleted the rejection) that he’d no more buy a story that featured a child being sold to the tinkers, the gypsies, the gitano or any other racial slur than he would a story in which Jews bought children to grind them into matza. (Please see the commentary made by “Djano Schmeinhardt” on the storythread. It reads like the same argument, and if it’s Nick, I wish he would have posted under his real name.)

3) I was absolutely horrified to realize the first draft of the story read as racist or bigoted. I immediately went to do research into both the nomadic peoples of Europe and folkloric devices. The piece was never intended to further negative racial stereotypes; it was supposed to be about a heroine that refuses to conform. Both gentlemen at the heart of this discussion have asserted that the child being sold is the crux of the story, but I disagree.

4) Because I disagreed with Mr. Mamatas (but did not want to offend anyone of Romani or Irish descent) I examined the roles in the story and renamed everyone so that there was no racial implication. I needed a man and woman traveling and that was it; this was not a commentary on any itinerant peoples. Nothing was ever implied in this story that the couple intended her for any evil purposes, as evidenced by Mr. Mamatas’ suggestion that the problem could be fixed merely by giving her to the fairies or businessmen. Obviously, he still feels that the story didn’t go far enough to remedy the perceived racial and negative stereotyping.

5) The part I find most disturbing is that Mr. Mamatas is posting under a pseudonym with objections to things that, for the most part, no longer exist in the story. Protected by his anonymity, he is building an argument against my previous ignorance. It is everyone’s right to be offended by this story for whatever reason. Readers can also be horrified by my previous ignorance. What they perhaps should not be doing is judging a version of the story was not published here.

Someone did ask about my surname, and I am married to a Bulgarian, which doesn’t really have anything to do with anything because I was immersed in old fairy tales from the time I could read.