genre
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The Perfect Crime Novel
On a technical level, it is possible to write a perfect crime novel. You might say Black Wings Has My Angel is beyond perfection. At Vulture, Christian Lorentzen explains why a 1953 heist novel is a classic of 20th-century noir.
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The Queen(s) of Fiction
I write historical fiction. Some consider this an outré craft. If literary fiction is Brooklyn, the historical novel is Queens. Over at the New York Times’s Sunday Book Review, Geraldine Brooks pens an essay on her experience recapturing the consciousness…
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Blending the High with the Low
Star Wars is a Western. Star Wars is a samurai movie. Star Wars isa space opera. Star Wars is a war film. Star Wars is a fairy tale. Slate‘s Forrest Wickman argues that George Lucas’s serial masterpiece isn’t just underrated—it’s completely misunderstood.
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Literary 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…
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Literature Is a Luxury Brand
They have a swish sounding publisher. They write for the New Yorker or the Guardian. They’re overwhelmingly likely to have attended an elite university such as Oxford or Stamford. They have an MFA. It’s all indicative of one clear message:…
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Latest Salvo in Genre War
David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks, has been nominated for both “literary” and “genre” awards, putting him in a somewhat unique position to comment on the ever-raging literary vs. genre war: “It’s convenient to have a science…
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Finding Truth Between Fact and Fiction
For Lit Hub, novelist Lily Tuck writes on “auto-fiction,” or autobiographical fiction, and why blurring the boundaries between strictly factual autobiography and fiction helps writers shape a firmer story.
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Our Parents Get Their Own Genre
Baby Boomer-centric literature is the next big thing, declares The Telegraph. Just as YA literature deals with one of life’s major milestones, so does boomer literature as older adults come to terms with aging, retirement, and the final chapter of their…
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Brave New World
For all their imaginative potential, fantasy series often fail to think outside the whitewashed walls of the same old box: We can consider worlds in which protagonists must contend not only with dark prophecies and darker enemies, but also with…
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Subverting the Immigrant Experience
In an interview with Bethanne Patrick at Lit Hub, Vu Tran discusses his novel Dragonfish and the idea of subverting the (othered) expectations of immigrant experience through conventions of genre.
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The Rumpus Interview with Susan Shapiro
Susan Shapiro discusses her latest novel, What’s Never Said, her Instant Gratification Takes Too Long teaching method, and new anti-dating rules between faculty and students at universities such as Harvard and Yale.
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The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Juliana Spahr
The Rumpus Poetry Book Club chats with Juliana Spahr about her new book That Winter the Wolf Came, the oil industry, and writing about “difficult” topics.