April 23 Is International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day!

A specter is haunting science fiction and fantasy: the specter of International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day.

Howard Hendrix started it. He's the outgoing vice-president of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America. Will Shetterly posted (with Howard's permission) Hendrix's farewell rant address to the SFWA community on LiveJournal. Hendrix, among other things, decried the practice of making professional-quality work available on the Internet for free, calling the people who did so "webscabs," who were contributing to "the downward spiral that is converting the noble calling of Writer into the life of Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch."

As you can imagine, this generated a lot of heat. Both John Scalzi and Nick Mamatas have posted thoughtful rebuttals. But it is Jo Walton's response that is galvanizing the creative Web:

In honour of Dr Hendrix, I am declaring Monday 23rd April International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day. On this day, everyone who wants to should give away professional quality work online. It doesn't matter if it's a novel, a story or a poem, it doesn't matter if it's already been published or if it hasn't, the point is it should be disseminated online to celebrate our technopeasanthood.

Whatever you're posting should go on your own site. I'll make a post here on the day and people can post links in comments to whatever they're putting up on. If you are a member of SFWA, or SFWA qualified but not a member (like me) you get extra pixel-spattered points for doing this. If other people want to collect the links too, that would be really cool. Please disseminate this information widely.

Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Wretches of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!