![\"Conversations](\"http:\/\/utpress.utexas.edu\/images\/covers\/full\/0292706146.jpg\")
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While researching something else entirely, I ran across a scathing review of\u00a0Conversations With Texas Writers<\/em> from the\u00a0Winter 2006 issue of Great Plains Quarterly<\/a> (#26:1 for those who are counting) by Don B. Graham of the\u00a0Department of English at the\u00a0University of Texas at Austin.<\/p>\n (Full disclosure time: I interviewed Joe R. Lansdale and Bruce Sterling in\u00a0Conversations<\/em><\/a>.)<\/p>\n While I agree with some of Graham’s assessments especially the book’s lack of focus, I, not surprisingly, have serious issues with his elitist attitude regarding genre writers.<\/p>\n Another problem is that genre writers are accorded the stature of Flaubert or Dostoevsky. This is perhaps the inevitable result of posing questions to an author of young-adult fiction or adult crime novels: the very, act of treating such authors seriously, as artists, produces what we might call the Fog of Literature. All writers are good on the subject of their own fiction, poetry, drama, whatever; indeed, everybody sounds like Tolstoy when asked about their intentions, their influences, their feelings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n What the flip?!?! As if YA and mystery authors are not “real” writers (not to mention Robert E. Howard, who you disparage directly). Their art should be treated seriously and is as valid as any other form of creative output.<\/p>\n Let me tell you, Mr. Graham, I included a horror story by Flaubert in my apes anthology. And your lauded\u00a0Dostoevsky penned one of the great crime novels.<\/p>\n Literature is just another type of genre with its own style, form, and content just like mystery, science fiction, young adult, etc.<\/p>\n In the early 21st century, where the distinctions between the genres continually blur and morph, it’s time to put away these classicist distinctions. Since arguably the most influential book on the 21st century writer was originally published as an Ace original science fiction novel and one of this century’s most lauded novelists has won both a Pulitzer Prize and a Hugo Award, just perhaps the “lesser” genres should be re-examined and seen as legitimate forms of art.<\/p>\n Just a thought…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While researching something else entirely, I ran across a scathing review of\u00a0Conversations With Texas Writers from the\u00a0Winter 2006 issue of Great Plains Quarterly (#26:1 for those who are counting) by Don B. Graham of the\u00a0Department of English at the\u00a0University of … Continue reading