I have decided to withdraw my entry to the IBOR contest for the reasons outlined below. Briefly, for those who haven’t heard of IBOR, it is a contest created by Corey Ratliff as a second chance for books that didn’t make it past the lottery stage of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO), which is a contest for indie fantasy books in its 11th year. Hence IBOR stands for Indie Blog-Off Remnants. I was excited to get this opportunity and jumped into the contest as soon as I saw it existed. I should have done some research first.
My first indication that IBOR wasn’t a contest I wanted to be associated with was my assigned judge, MS Olney. His posts on Twitter/X show he has views incredibly opposed to my own. I believe everyone has the right to their own political views and other opinions. Equally, I am free to choose to not be associated with those views. Olney is incredibly vocal in his opinions and goes out of his way to criticise those whose views don’t align with his own.
The first thing I noticed when looking up my assigned judge was how vicious Olney is in his replies to people on social media. He verbally attacks those whose opinions he disagrees with and frequently calls people with liberal opinions “left wing activist lunatics”, along with other words I won’t repeat here. He has said “Bluesky should just be rebranded to leftist lunatics r us”, has called people protesting ICE “commies”, and called the UK’s Green Party “Islamo Fascists” (more than once). He has made many posts of political content I find disturbing, including saying that “A new era of the nation state needs to arise.” As a left-wing, anti-fascist, anti-ICE supporter of the Green Party, I began to have concerns about taking part in a contest that would choose a judge with these very right-wing views.
In general, Olney doesn’t treat fellow authors with respect when he doesn’t like their craft, such as sharing an article that claims “fairy smut” is dumbing down literature. Olney is pro-genAI, and called an author “not the brightest” for spending $2000 on art, criticising them for apologising after they discovered the art they commissioned was genAI. Anyone who’s followed me for a while knows I’m very against genAI for several reasons, including that it is trained on the stolen work of my fellow creatives and that it’s terrible for the environment. Not to mentioned it’s making people less intelligent and has pushed people towards suicide, including 16-year-old Adam Raine, who took his own life after ChatGPT discouraged him from seeking help.
Here are some more views Olney has expressed that I want to make clear I don’t agree with:
- He is pro-deportation and says immigrants would “soon regret taking us for granted when they’re dumped back into the third world shit holes they come from” (archived version) and that countries were better off when colonised by the British Empire. (archived version)
- He appears to be an anti-vaxer.
- He called liberal women “batshit crazy.”
- He called Renee Good, who was killed by ICE, a “left wing nutjob.”
The posts linked above are only a fragment of what Olney has put on Twitter/X so far in 2026. We’re not yet two months into the year.
Then there is Corey Ratliff, the founder of IBOR. I didn’t initially notice anything I disagreed with on his Twitter/X account. However, when I sought advice about whether or not to withdraw from IBOR, I was told he has also expressed similar views to Olney in the past. This made me take a closer look at Ratliff’s posts. Going back, I couldn’t find evidence of this. He even banned books entering IBOR if they were written with genAI or had genAI covers. Then I discovered this is a new Twitter/X account, started in November 2025. I was unable to find his previous account, however on Facebook, he has posted in support of Charlie Kirk (no, I don’t believe Kirk should have been killed, but I also won’t morn someone with hateful views, including support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.)
With my assigned judge and the contest runner holding political views so opposed to my own, I no longer want to be associated with this contest. Indeed, my book, Reborn in Ash, quite likely reflects my “lefty lunatic” views, so it would never have stood a chance anyway, particularly when it has a sapphic romance and more than two LGBTQ+ characters. I feel that to stay in the contest while remaining silent about Olney and Ratliff’s views would signal to people that I support these opinions. I do not.
If there’s a message in the post it’s this: if a contest is new, thoroughly research the people running it before taking part.
