“Every once in a while a messy character who manifests a REAL body emerges, for instance, Lisbeth Salander - and certainly commercial genre fiction is full of examples of real bodied sexual encounters or violence encounters - but for the most part, and particularly if you are a woman or minority author, your characters' bodies have to fit a kind of norm inside a narrow set of narrative pre-ordained and sanctioned scripts.” IfsKindRealCharacterBodyFictionViolenceExampleFitScriptsInstanceNarrativeGenreEncountersMinoritiesNormMessyLisbeth Salander Author:Lidia Yuknavitch
“If you talk about genres - I don't care if you're talking about war, Westerns, science fiction, horror, fantasy, humor, romance - anything you can find, strolling the aisles of a Borders or a Barnes & Noble, I can bring you many comic books representing each genre.” IfsI CanBookWarCareRomanceFictionTalkingFantasyHorrorScience FictionDon't CareNobleComicGenreI Don't CareBordersComic BookRepresentingStrollingAisle Author:Michael Uslan
“History - the non-fiction version - must inform the fiction to make it truthful; too much of it and your genres are colliding.” FictionToo MuchVersionsGenreTruthfulNon Fiction Author:Jon Weisman
“I love outsider stories. And I also like a lot of genre fiction, too. So I wanted to write a literary book that flirted with thriller and fantasy and even science fiction. I wanted the coming-of-age story and the love story to be about "outsiderdom" - one of the themes I am most interested in.” WritingBookStoriesAgeWantedFictionFantasyScience FictionLove StoryGenreThemeComing Of AgeOutsidersThrillers Author:Porochista Khakpour
“As a writer who writes poetry, nonfiction, and fiction, I think it's important to always maintain a firm grasp on genre and ethics.” ThinkingWritingImportantFictionEthicsGenreFirmNonfiction Author:Kathleen Rooney
“They [academy writing programs] have no concept that the world has changed, that publishing has changed, that filmmaking has changed, and if you're not constantly looking at your education model and adjusting for the change, you'll find yourself teaching antiquity. Like all of these programs that won't accept students who are writing genre fiction - what an institutional ego!” IfsWorldWritingFictionAcceptingTeachingChangedStudentsEgoModelsConceptsProgramGenreFinding YourselfFilmmakingPublishingAcademyAntiquityAdjusting Author:Tod Goldberg
“If you're a writer, you don't serve genres. Genres serve you. Like, if you're writing a science fiction story set on a spaceship, you don't have to have someone thrown out an airlock.” IfsWritingStoriesFictionScience FictionGenreThrownSpaceshipsFiction Stories Author:Charlie Jane Anders
“When I write a book I write the best that I can and so much of that for me is following the book's demands, the subject's requirements - I love books, I always have. They have always been one of the places where I have felt very happy in the world. When I was younger, I loved to read genre fiction - I loved the magic-carpet ride of story! Now I need other things - I need the beautiful particular and strange language and form which brings a writer's book to life in me and speaks to my intellect, and, dare I say it, to my soul.” WorldNeedsWritingI CanBookSoulStoriesBeautifulFormSpeakLanguageFeltFictionMagicSubjectsParticularStrangeDemandFollowingDareIntellectMy SoulGenreRequirementsVery HappyCarpet Author:Micheline Aharonian Marcom
“Back in the day, a lot of our instructors in nonfiction were actually fiction scholars. So they would bring in stories as models for the essay. And in some ways that's a good idea, because we can all learn from other genres. But I think it also made me realize that I literally didn't have an essay model, and that if I wanted one I would have to find it.” IfsThinkingWayMadeIdeasStoriesWantedRealizingFictionModelsGenreGood IdeasNonfictionScholarEssaysInstructorsBack In The Day Author:John D'Agata
“The main advantage of being a reviewer is that you read a lot. A lot of books get sent to you, and you have an amazing vantage point from which to observe what's going on in contemporary fiction - not only genre stuff, the whole spectrum.” BookWholeStuffFictionAdvantageContemporaryGenreSpectrumContemporary FictionReviewersVantage Point Author:Lev Grossman
“Most of my influences from outside the commerical strange fiction genre came in with university, discovering James Joyce and Wallace Stevens, Blake and Yeats, Pinter and Borges. And meanwhile within those genres I was discovering Gibson and Shepard, Jeter and Powers, Lovecraft and Peake.” FictionInfluenceStrangeUniversityGenreDiscoveringPower Of LoveBlakeJoyceBorgesLovecraftYeatsJeterPinter Author:Hal Duncan
“I never paid attention when people said, "That's gotta be poetry. That's gotta be fiction," except when I was in a graduate program, and you had to claim your genre.” PeopleSaidAttentionFictionProgramClaimsPaidGenreGraduates Author:Sandra Cisneros
“I'm a big genre fan. I'm a big science fiction nerd and horror film nerd. I'm obsessed with Pam Grier. I wanted to be her for all of my teenage years.” YearsBigsWantedFilmFictionFansHorrorScience FictionGenreObsessedTeenageNerdHorror FilmTeenage Years Author:Alex Stapleton
“I don't go out of my way to write Weird Fiction, or in any other genre. Some of my stuff easily slips into the Weird slot.” WayWritingStuffFictionMy WayGenreSlips Author:Karin Tidbeck
“I come from a nation where fantastic fiction has a very low status, unless it fits into some very specific categories or is written by already established authors. I don't by any means try to hide what I write, but the way people think in categories here is pretty extreme: it blots out discussing the actual work on its own terms. That's made me loath to talk about my own work in terms of genre, because once you get a label, it sticks and poof go a slew of potential readers and reviewers because eww, fantasy cooties.” PeopleThinkingWayWritingTryingMeanMadeNationsTermMy OwnFictionFantasyWrittenReaderFitLowsSticksExtremesFantasticLabelsGenreCategoriesDiscussingReviewersCooties Author:Karin Tidbeck
“I may be the person who put "dieselpunk" into the conversation. I have always been a reader who reads in a really broad way. I read genre writers and I read literary fiction and I read books by dead people.” PeopleWayMayPersonsBookFictionReaderConversationGenreBroadsDead People Author:Emily Barton
“[Michael] Chabon, who is himself a brash and playful and ebullient genre-bender, writes about how our idea of what constitutes literary fiction is a very narrow idea that, world-historically, evolved over the last sixty or seventy years or so - that until the rise of that kind of third-person-limited, middle-aged-white-guy-experiencing-enlightenment story as in some way the epitome of literary fiction - before that all kinds of crazy things that we would now define as belonging to genre were part of the literary canon.” WorldWayWritingYearsKindPersonsIdeasStoriesLastsGuyWhiteFictionCrazyMiddleEnlightenmentThirdsAll KindsGenreBelongingSixtySeventiesMiddle AgedCanonCrazy ThingsEpitomeWhite GuysThird PersonBrash Author:Emily Barton
“[Michael] Chabon is arguing in favor of what is at the same time an old-fashioned and very forward-thinking opening up - of taking off the class associations with those labels, because we grew up, or I certainly grew up, feeling that, "Oh, there's literary fiction, and beneath that, there's these other things." He's actually saying that they're all of equal merit, and in many cases, that work in the genres, or work that draws from the genres is more entertaining for readers, since it is our job to entertain people.” PeopleThinkingFeelingsJobsFictionClassCasesGrewReaderEqualGrew UpDrawsArguingFavorsOpeningLabelsGenreMeritAssociationEntertainingOld FashionedOpening UpGenre IsForward Thinking Author:Emily Barton
“I really wish that peoplewould just say, 'Yes, it's a comic. Yes, this is fantasy. Yes, this is Science Fiction,' and defend the genre instead of saying, 'Horror is a bit passe so this is Dark Fantasy,' and that' s playing someone else's game. So that's why I say I'm a fantasy writer and to hell with 'It doesn't read like what I think of as a fantasy'. In that case what you think of as a fantasy is not a fantasy. Or there is more to it than you think.” ThinkingGamesWishBitsDarkFictionCasesFantasyHellHorrorScience FictionComicGenreDark FantasyPlaying Someone Author:Terry Pratchett
“As for whether genre considerations influence what I write, they don't at all, but I might sell more books if they did. The Night Journal is a hodge-podge of historical fiction, western, mystery, and contemporary domestic drama. It doesn't settle into a specific market, reviewers have a hard time describing it, and sometimes it gets classified weirdly in bookstores. But from a writer's standpoint, I like that it's hard to categorize.” IfsWritingBookSometimesHardMightNightFictionMysteryInfluenceDramaSellsHistoricalWesternContemporaryGenreSettlingHard TimesConsiderationHistorical FictionJournalDescribingStandpointBookstoresReviewers Author:Elizabeth Crook
“Something like 'Alien,' that was not so easy. If there's any genre I wouldn't mind not having to do anymore, it would be science fiction. It's just all to do with the toys, and there's so much hanging around.” IfsMindWould BeEasyFictionScience FictionAliensGenreToysHanging Around Author:John Hurt
“When I have a writing workshop, I like to have people that are anthropologists and people who are poking around in other fields, I like to have them all in the same workshop, and not worry about genre. I like to mix it up, because the kind of comments you can get from a fiction writer about your poetry are going to be very different than what you'll get from a poet. Or the comments you'll get from a filmmaker about your performance are going to be very different. My writing workshop is about mixing it up, cross-pollinating, not only in genres but in occupations.” PeopleWritingKindDifferentFictionWorryFieldsPoetCrossesPerformancesGenreFilmmakerOccupationCommentMixingWorkshopsFiction WritersAnthropologistsWriting WorkshopMixing It Up Author:Sandra Cisneros
“For me, fantasy and speculative science fiction are the genres that feel closest to how I feel about being alive. Like, when I feel the most invigorated by just even a walk down the block in twilight, when the street lamps are just coming on and there's mist and some shadowy thing in silhouette in a window, I naturally invest all of those things with deep mythology and mystery and meaning. I think I need to believe in that version of reality because I get very scared when I don't.” ThinkingNeedsFeelsBelieveRealityWalksFictionFantasyAliveMysteryStreetsWindowScience FictionScaredMythologyVersionsBlockGenreTwilightClosestLampsMistSilhouettes Author:Brit Marling
“Considering that "literary fiction" is a sub-genre that's not quite the same as "literature," either, it follows that the short, semi-humorous bits posted online for all to see are something absolutely other, uniquely themselves compared to canonical short stories, for example, and so it'd probably be best to call it something other than "online lit" since I honestly think very little of it can compare to so-called "literature."” ThinkingLittlesStoriesLiteratureBitsFictionExampleHumorousHonestlyCompareGenreOnlineShort StoryConsideringLit Author:Lee Klein
“Literary fiction, as a strict genre, is all but dead. Meanwhile, most genres flourish.” FictionGenreStrictGenre Is Author:Dean Koontz
“My point has always been that, ever since the Industrial Revolution, science fiction has been the most important genre there is.” Has BeensImportantFictionRevolutionScience FictionGenreIndustrial Revolution Author:Iain Banks
“I have always regarded historical fiction and fantasy as sisters under the skin, two genres separated at birth.” TwoFictionFantasyBirthSkinsHistoricalGenreHistorical Fiction Author:George R. R. Martin
“The distinction between literary and genre fiction is stupid and pernicious. It dates back to a feud between Robert Louis Stevenson and Henry James. James won, and it split literature into two streams. But it's a totally false dichotomy.” TwoLiteratureFictionStupidGenreStreamsDistinctionSplitsPerniciousDichotomyFeuds Author:George R. R. Martin