Art Fiction Literary Criticism Literature Publishing: crime crime novels detective detective novles fantasy fiction fictionalism literary fiction literary tradition romances science fiction western fiction
by Matthew
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Is Literary Fiction a Genre?
Earlier this week I was at a publisher’s website and they said they published the best literary fiction available today. I looked through some of their titles and a few did seem intriguing. I then went to their submissions page to see what hoops an author had to jump through and I saw the line “we do not accept genre fiction.” This got me to thinking about classifications and writing styles, subject matter and scope. Surely we who read a great deal know exactly what they mean by genre, but how many genres are there? These pigeon holes can range from the standard romance to science fiction, westerns to fantasy, detective to historical fiction. But if we are using these terms as a classification device, then would not literary fiction also be a genre? more »
Writing is Easy, Right?
This post came about as a result of reading John Olson’s tirade against not wanting to read scripts. Not any scripts at all, but those who are given to him by people he meets or simple acquaintances. The post is funny, even though I think he goes overboard on the expletives. But it does bring up a bigger issue. Writing is easy, right? more »
The Library at Night: A Book Review
The Library at Night, by Alberto Manguel, is simply the best non-fiction book I have read since Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe. There are two things I look for in a non-fiction book, the author’s clarity of voice, which is imperative in conveying ideas to the reader in a way that is not only informative, but makes the reader want to read more. The second item is what really does the author have to say, and how does he relate it to something I can understand in my own life. more »
Books, Texts and Disks
Reading, no matter how much I enjoy doing other things in the moment of doing them, will always fall in the top three of my favorite things to do. Technology, mostly the internet, has made them even more available, not just through online retailers of brick and mortar stores, but access to used bookstores across the country and even overseas through services such as Alibris and Abebooks. Sites such as these have made books available that are currently out of print, but also books at a much more affordable rate (on some purchases I have paid more for shipping than for the book). Add to that the number of sites where one can find etexts and the list becomes almost endless. You think I would be beside myself with delirium. I’m not. more »
Writing on Both Sides of the House
For many people, writing is falls in line behind public speaking which is just slightly ahead of death. As for me, except for eating and reading, I would really rather do nothing else than writing. When speaking of both sides of the house, I am talking about non-fiction and fiction. While I do read a lot of the former, my favorite is the latter. Similarly, if you are take a look around my website, you can see that all of my writing here is non-fiction. But that is only what I do here. My fiction is stored elsewhere. Here is the difference between the two as I see it. more »