random Gaiman post
So Neil Gaiman is on the cover of the July/August issue of Poets and Writers Magazine. I find this irrationally annoying, because normally P&W is emphatically uninterested in genre fiction. (Well, I suppose most of the writing magazines are, but The Writer and Writer's Digest will occasionally have a tone-deaf "everyone is writing about vampires/zombies/ghosts/etc right now; here's how you can do it too!" piece, and they list genre publishers.) Though maybe this is the start of a widening of focus? (I find the whole culture represented by P&W to be very frustrating - the culture of MFAs and short story magazines and the overwhelming majority of writing contests and fellowships - because genre basically doesn't exist. Not that it matters to me on a real, practical level, I suppose - I'm not writing anything, or looking for markets to publish the stuff I'm not writing - but I am a reader who gets annoyed by feeling like she's expected to apologize for her reading habits because genre books aren't "real," "important," "literary" books, and I've taken creative writing classes where the teachers straight-up refused to acknowledge the fantasy elements in my stories*, and if I *did* want to "get serious" about writing, most of the "serious" outlets and sources of support don't extend to genre fiction. If you already *are* Neil Gaiman, then fine, P&W apparently has time for you - but if you're a beginning writer who would like to have the same options for learning and help as someone who writes fiction about domestic infidelity or suburban tragedy, then you're kind of out of luck.)
I also did not manage to get a ticket to Gaiman's upcoming reading/signing here, alas, but I felt better about this when the staff member told me that people had been lined up outside the bookstore the night before; if they wanted tickets that badly, they deserve them! (And after all, I just wanted to go to listen in, not to get anything signed - getting books signed makes me feel like I can't read that copy anymore, anyway - or talk to him or ask any specific question. So I will live.) But I did pick up my copy of The Ocean at the End of the Lane, so there is that.
*Okay, technically that only happened once, but the other classes were not hospitable to fantasy, either.
I also did not manage to get a ticket to Gaiman's upcoming reading/signing here, alas, but I felt better about this when the staff member told me that people had been lined up outside the bookstore the night before; if they wanted tickets that badly, they deserve them! (And after all, I just wanted to go to listen in, not to get anything signed - getting books signed makes me feel like I can't read that copy anymore, anyway - or talk to him or ask any specific question. So I will live.) But I did pick up my copy of The Ocean at the End of the Lane, so there is that.
*Okay, technically that only happened once, but the other classes were not hospitable to fantasy, either.