We Do What We Can: A Conversation with Ryka Aoki
Ryka Aoki discusses her second novel, LIGHT FROM UNCOMMON STARS.
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Posts Tagged: genre fiction
The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project: Maria Cichosz
“Thinking about blurring those lines got me closer to the truth of the clichés.”
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Instantly Gritty: Talking with Jennifer Pashley
Jennifer Pashley discusses her new novel, THE WATCHER.
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The Spike and Valley of Horror: A Conversation with Stephen Graham Jones
Stephen Graham Jones discusses his new novel, THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS.
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Telling Our Own Stories: A Conversation with Kate Reed Petty
Kate Reed Petty discusses her debut novel, TRUE STORY.
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Something to React To: A Conversation with Ivy Pochoda
Ivy Pochoda discusses her newest novel, THESE WOMEN.
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The Planet Will Survive Us: A Conversation with Liz Breazeale
Liz Breazeale discusses her debut story collection, EXTINCTION EVENTS.
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Writing Resistance: A Conversation with J. Kasper Kramer
J. Kasper Kramer discusses her debut novel, THE STORY THAT CANNOT BE TOLD.
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Colonialism as Alien Invasion: Cadwell Turnbull’s The Lesson
What if the arrival of alien life wasn’t the future, but just another recapitulation of our bloody past?
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The Sacred Act of Art-Making: A Conversation with Patrick Coleman
Patrick Coleman discusses his debut novel, THE CHURCHGOER.
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The Crowtagonist at the End of the World: Talking with Kira Jane Buxton
Kira Jane Buxton discusses her debut novel, HOLLOW KINGDOM.
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Everybody Is Fine: Talking with Jasmine Guillory
Jasmine Guillory discusses her debut novel, The Wedding Date, finding success, writing sex, and the revolutionary act of eating.
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That Monster Is Right There: Talking with Colin Winnette
Colin Winnette discusses his new novel, The Job of the Wasp, the nature of horror and his approach to writing it, and the fear at the heart of the book.
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The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Michael Helm
The Rumpus Book Club chats with Michael Helm about his new novel After James, the line between paranoia and caution, and the use of poetry as a plot device.
...moreOn Fame and Getting Rich
When Ottessa Moshfegh wrote the thriller Eileen, a novel recently shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, she did it to get rich, reports Paul Laity for the Guardian: She didn’t want to “keep her head down” and “wait 30 years to be discovered … so I thought I’m going to do something bold. Because there are all […]
...moreAll That We Could Do with This Emotion
Writing for the Guardian, novelist Val McDermid disputes the recent study which suggests that “literary” fiction readers are more empathetic than “genre” readers: There is no doubt that, historically, there was a valid distinction. Nobody would attempt to suggest that there is an equivalence between Agatha Christie and Virginia Woolf. (Let’s face it, Woolf couldn’t plot for toffee.) […]
...moreOh I’m Sorry, Did I Break Your Concentration?
James Patterson’s new imprint promises to solve our modern conflict between reading and time. But the problem it diagnoses may be more for writers than for readers: Does Patterson want to produce garbage books for what he presumes are garbage minds? Of course not.
...moreBeyond the Surface
At the Guardian, Alison Flood wonders whether or not genre writing, particularly romance writing, is primarily “rubbish.” In her investigation, she points out how assumptions are often made about the “surface” elements of genre works and cites literary novels that have used the conventions of genre while maintaining their literariness.
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The Rumpus Interview with Victor LaValle
Victor LaValle discusses his latest book, The Ballad of Black Tom, patience, H.P. Lovecraft, and reinvention.
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The Rumpus Interview with Keith Lee Morris
Keith Lee Morris discusses his latest book Traveler’s Rest, Lewis and Clark, and how writing a novel about dreams requires much more than sleep.
...moreLiterary Fiction is Popular Fiction
Some authors feel insecure about writing genre fiction and consider literature a luxury brand. Genre fiction, after all, is supposed to be the goose that lays golden eggs and includes books people actually want to read—except that may not be true. Electric Literature takes the time to breakdown sales volume of literature and popular genres […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Lori Rader-Day
Lori Rader-Day discusses her second novel, Little Pretty Things, the “five lost years” when she didn’t write at all, and her favorite deep-dish pizza.
...moreDetecting Genre
Like a detective novel, these books are characterized by a central mystery and the process of detection that leads to solving that mystery. The mystery, however, is not a crime—it’s a life. A person, usually only tangentially related to the subject (the latter is often deceased), becomes engrossed in the discovery of this person’s life, […]
...moreVernon Reid Digs James Baldwin
At Esquire, sci-fi author Jeff VanderMeer and Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid discuss genre fiction, and how one art form can inspire another. Reid says: Fiction has always evoked pictures and provoked ideas and sounds in my mind. James Baldwin, who was a powerful writer of fiction and non-fiction was a haunted witness of American dysfunction. […]
...moreThe Rise of the Mega-Novel
Serial novels are nothing new, especially in genre fiction designed to keep readers shelling out money for the next phase of a story. But the sudden, rapid success of fantasy genre series like George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones and the adaptation of Tolkien’s hobbit epics to the big screen has meant publishers want to cash […]
...moreThe Politics of Genre
The Guardian explores why crime fiction tends to lean left, while thrillers often are more conservative.
...moreHow to Harlequin
Over at Jezebel, Kelly Faircloth shares a fantastic long form piece on the rise of the Harlequin romance novel, and how the brand became synonymous with a wildly lucrative if critically dismissed genre. From the original formula for woman-centered, alpha-male page turners to Harlequin’s relentless advertising tactics to the question of exactly how much sex […]
...moreHere There (May or May Not) Be Dragons
Kazuo Ishiguro’s new novel The Buried Giant has reignited debates about genre fiction following Ishiguro’s implication that the work isn’t fantasy. The author has since clarified which side he’s really on. Meanwhile, Flavorwire‘s Jonathon Sturgeon defends Ishiguro’s right to call the book whatever he wants: To use some of Le Guin’s own logic: we still […]
...moreIf It Quacks like a Dragon
Kazuo Ishiguro insists his new novel, The Buried Giant, is not a fantasy novel. Laura Miller at Salon agrees. Ursula K. Le Guin does not (and is a little insulted). David Barnett at The Guardian doesn’t care either way and instead sees Ishiguro’s novel as an opportunity: Why not throw open the gates, tear down […]
...moreThe Battle Rages On
At Flavorwire, Jonathan Sturgeon continues the “literary” and “genre” war, offering a new perspective grounded in the marketplace: So what’s really going on here? Well, it isn’t the genre of prose that has literary novelists anxious. It’s the market status of genre novels. Now that literary criticism has evaporated as a genre of writing, the […]
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