Everyone loves an underdog, and last month the underdog was definitely Irene Gallo, the Creative Director of Tor Books and Associate Publisher of Tor.com.

Ms. Gallo had a rough month in June, as she endured a series of scathing attacks from Sad Puppies, writers, and others who took offense to a personal comment she made to a friend on her Facebook page. The industry rallied strongly to her defense, however, and the two articles we wrote covering the affair, “Internet Explodes Around Irene Gallo” and “Support For Irene Gallo Continues to Grow” were by far the most-read posts at the BG blog in June. Based on the high volume of e-mail we received, BG readers largely sympathized with Ms. Gallo.

It seems that those of you who weren’t caught up with the latest controversies were busy writing. Our third most popular article last month was M Harold Page’s “Some Writing Advice That’s Mostly Useless (And Why).” His first article in the series, “Help! I Want to Write a Novel But Don’t Have Any Ideas!!!” was also in the Top 10.

Fourth on the list was Emily Mah’s interview and Kickstarter announcement, “Call for Backers! Tales of the Lost Citadel Campaign on Kickstarter, in Conjunction with a Video Interview with C.A. Suleiman, in the DARK!” Rounding out the Top Five was the most recent installment in our series of omnibus collections of interest to fantasy fans, “The Omnibus Volumes of Steven Brust: The Adventures of Vlad Taltos.”

Also in the Top Ten was our report on the Best New Fantasy Releases in June, the first “Dear Prudentia” advice column by Marie Bilodeau, and two reviews by Fletcher Vredenburgh: Death Angel’s Shadow by Karl Edward Wagner, and Heroika 1: Dragon Eaters edited by Janet Morris.

The complete list of Top Articles for June follows. Below that, I’ve also broken out the most popular blog categories for the month.

The Top 50 Black Gate posts in June were:

1. Support For Irene Gallo Continues to Grow
2. Internet Explodes Around Irene Gallo
3. Some Writing Advice That’s Mostly Useless (And Why)
4. Call for Backers! Tales of the Lost Citadel Campaign on Kickstarter…
5. The Omnibus Volumes of Steven Brust: The Adventures of Vlad Taltos
6. The Future of Fantasy: The Best New Releases in June
7. Dear Prudentia: Why Should I Include a She-Babe?
8. “Help! I Want to Write a Novel But Don’t Have Any Ideas!!!”
9. Death Angel’s Shadow by Karl Edward Wagner
10. Heroika 1: Dragon Eaters edited by Janet Morris

     

11. I Want to Believe: Ray Bradbury and the Sci-Fi in the Everyday
12. Science Fiction Seeking Legitimacy: Connoisseur’s Science Fiction, edited by Tom Boardman
13. Vintage Treasures: Jamie the Red by Gordon R. Dickson with Roland Green
14. Do Fantasy Characters Poop in the Woods? Or, Real-Life Things That “Never” Happen in Fantasy
15. The Media Expansion of a Sword & Sorcery World
16. Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Ignore the Market Guidelines at Your Peril – How (Not) to Build a Career
17. Your Greatest Fan
18. Dave Gross on Pitching and Pinching
19. Werewolves, Ancient Alien Evil, and Babylonian Witches: Tales of the Werewolf Clan by H. Warner Munn
20. Blogging from the Nebulas Weekend

     

21. Discovering Robert E Howard: Paul Bishop on The Fists of R.E.H.
22. Dear Prudentia: How Do I Find Motivation as a Female?
23. Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: What Should You Put In a Cover Letter?
24. Dear Prudentia: Red Sonja is Cooler Than You
25. Out Now! The Change: Tales of Downfall and Rebirth, an Anthology Edited by S.M. Stirling
26. Neil Gaiman and Kazuo Ishiguro on Sword & Sorcery
27. Is the Grail a Force For Evil? Understanding Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
28. Report from the Field: Three Small Children Tell Us How to Warrior Right
29. The Series Series: Shieldwall: Barbarians! by M. Harold Page
30. The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Magnifying Glass, Pipe and Deerstalker

     

31. R.A. MacAvoy’s The Book of Kells
32. The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Looking at The Bruce Partington Plans
33. Unknown, September 1939: A Retro-Review
34. Presenting the 2015 Nebula Awards
35. The mid-June Fantasy Magazine Rack
36. A Tour of the National Museum of Iraq
37. Vintage Treasures: Dragonflight and Dragonquest by Anne McCaffrey
38. New Treasures: The Edge of Reason Trilogy by Melinda Snodgrass
39. Vintage Treasures: The Dream Lords by Adrian Cole
40. The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in May

     

41. Ancient Worlds: The Sabine Women, or How Not to Get Married
42. The 2015 David Gemmell Award Nominees
43. The Novels of Tanith Lee: The Secret Books of Paradys
44. The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Why Solar Pons?
45. A Gateway to Fantasy for Young Readers: Amulet by Kazu Kibuishi
46. One Shot, One Story: Ray Bradbury
47. Vintage Treasures: Ariosto by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
48. Erik Chevalier Reaches Settlement With FTC For Kickstarter Failure
49. Dungeon Crawling is Fun Again: Etrian Odyssey
50. Faces of Iraq

The top categories last month were:

1. New Treasures
2. Fiction
3. Books
4. Blog Entry
5. Vintage Treasures
6. Magazines
7. Reviews
8. Essays
9. Pulp
10. Art of the Genre
11. Game Reviews
12. News
13. Interviews
14. Convention Report
15. Editor’s Blog
16. Series Fantasy
17. Uncategorized
18. Music
19. Future Treasures
20. Goth Chick

The Top 5o Black Gate blog posts in May are here, and you can see all 133 posts we made in the month of June here.