Andrew Vachss warned me that I would be demonized and ostracized for daring to speak out. I didn't want to believe him, but heI should not have gone looking for this stuff, but I can't look away. But every so often I find something like Peter David outright lying to people about the Con's association with Ed Kramer and I realize that my capacity to hate people is still there.
was right. In the years since I first spoke out against Kramer and DragonCon I have been accused of being an anti-semite a Satanist, and a domestic
terrorist. I had people I thought were friends and authors I grew up
admiring turn on me like rabid dogs in an attempt to silence me.
Ed Kramer spent a great deal of time grooming me and my ex-husband (we've been divorced nearly 10 years, and he's been dead almost 4) in order to gain access to my younger stepsons as well as other family members (all of whom were 10-12 year old boys at the time). Happily, he never got his way--but not for a lack of trying. When he was busted in 2000, I discovered that he had been previously arrested for child molestation in 1996, but had succeeded in keeping it out of the papers so that no one knew about it. Had I known about the 1996 arrest, I would have kicked the man to the curb faster than the speed of light. I was determined not to allow him to slip under the radar again, and made it a point to call attention to the situation. Sorry if I take someone stalking the children in my family personally.
And as for why I finally chose now to speak up for a boycott? It's because 1) Kramer has recently been extradited back to Georgia, and 2) one of his victims--now a grown man and an Iraq War vet--posted a letter of defiance against Kramer and those who have enabled him for so long online at ATLANTA MAGAZINE. http://www.atlantamagazine.com...
The thing is--none of this is my problem, despite attempts by others to make it appear so. It is DragonCon's.It has been from the start. The questions posited to me,as to what DragonCon can and should do to rid itself of Kramer are not mine to answer. They are DragonCon's. Always have been. Always will be. Whether they see fit to answer remains to be seen.
And you might be interested in Stephen Bissette's newest MY RANT--where he reveals that Ed Kramer was invited back as a guest to DragonCon in 2008. So much for the convention not having anything to do with him after his arrest. http://srbissette.com/?p=16675
One of the more bullshit arguments against boycotting DragonCon is "THink about the VENDORS???" Won't someone think of the vendors? I mean it's not their fault that they are renting booths that put money in Ed Kramer's pocket. Why should they be punished just because they make money from pedophilia?
Of course, the answer is so fucking simple that I wonder why people aren't making it - START ANOTHER CONVENTION - oh sure, you can't compete with DragonCon on Labor Day weekend, but find something else to do on Labor Day Weekend. When a convention no longer serves its attendees and professionals then it's time for the people who enjoy the convention to start their own convention at a different part of the year. This happened when Arisia split from Boskone and it happened when Minicon decided to stop being the party convention and CONvergence began that same year. Hell, I don't even distinguish between pre-1999 MiniCon and CONvergence because in my mind they are the same convention (although being Jewish it's much nicer to go to CONvergence than MiniCon since that Easter weekend is usually during Pesach - like 16 times out of 17)
If there was ever a time to start an Atlanta science fiction convention that was meant to cater to thousands of people, it's now. You could call it WyvernCon or SmaugCon or Non-Pedophile Dragon Con.
Because seriously, anyone who goes to Dragon Con NOW is pretty much an accessory to pedophila.