Recent reading: The Raven and the Reindeer by T. Kingfisher, which I believe we are allowed to know is the adults'-fiction pseudonym of Ursula Vernon
( Read more... )
I really hate it that there is NO word or phrase in English which conveys the meaning "for adults" that hasn't been co-opted to imply "smut". Ursula's pseudonym is primarily a marketing issue -- she's got a lot of YA and middle-grade stuff out under her legal name, and both her agent and her publisher want to keep that "brand" for those books. So when she publishes things that aren't YA/middle-grade, she uses a different name. Which is an awful lot of words to rephrase your first sentence, but I have a knee-jerk reaction. :-)
I'm beginning to think that the only way to get around this issue is the way I did above -- define children's/middle-grade/YA as they are currently defined and then use "not that category" to cover everything else. A negative space rather than a positive one, so to speak.
Yes, it's annoying that "adult" so often means "prurient" (and mostly should mean "adolescent", in my opinion!), but, well, what can one do?
(I appreciate the branding thing, too - these things matter, to the marketing bods at least. Heaven help me if I ever do get published... might have to start using my middle initial as a signal, like Iain [M.] Banks, only nowhere near as good.)
Comments 2
I'm beginning to think that the only way to get around this issue is the way I did above -- define children's/middle-grade/YA as they are currently defined and then use "not that category" to cover everything else. A negative space rather than a positive one, so to speak.
Reply
(I appreciate the branding thing, too - these things matter, to the marketing bods at least. Heaven help me if I ever do get published... might have to start using my middle initial as a signal, like Iain [M.] Banks, only nowhere near as good.)
Reply
Leave a comment