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Over the break, I was reading Writer's Digest, and came across an interview with Laurell K. Hamilton. She is the author of the Anita Blake series, of which she is on her 16th book, and the Merry Gentry Series, of which she is on book 6. What I found interesting about this interview was how the term genre was used. The article was titled "Genre Bended." One quote from Maria Schneider, the articles author, said "Hamilton is a genre writer to the core, and she was writing fantasy, when fantasy wasn't cool. But she never let the accepted conventions of genre fiction constrain her creativity - instead she forged new genres from well-honed formulas." I've read some of Hamilton's work, and as a person whose read a lot of horror, fantasy, paranormal work, I can say that she has melded the genres in an interesting way.

However, what I am really interested here is the use of the word "genre" as referring only to a certain class of fiction, namely fantasy, horror, science fiction, mystery, and romance. Also, I am interested by the idea that "good" creative writing in genreless. Later in the article, Hamilton explains why she was kicked out of Marion College's writing school. "I submitted two horror stories to get into the writing program; I made no pretense that I wanted to write anything else... She (her teacher) told me that all genre was garbage, but I refused to write anything else. And within two to three weeks, half the class was writing genre." In talking with my creative writing friends, I found that there seems to be a stigma in traditional creative writing classes around "genre work."

The term genre came up later in the magazine as well in an article by Michael J. Vaughn, "The Popular Fiction Report." The article was supposed to give a "genre-by-genre market report," but it dealt with the similar categories as was described by Hamilton in her interview. On one page there was even a tree labeled "Sub-genres" and branching off into mystery/crime, Horror, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy, and Thriller. Each of these branches had leaves of even more specific categories. This is the link the magazine suggests looking at for further information of "sub-genre."

http://www.writersdigest.com/genredefinitions.asp

What I am finding interesting is the hierarchical nature of genre listed here. This is no emergent story. Some genres seem to be clearly the favored... and then those that are favored are classified really without the word "genre" in their definition. We've been dealing with "genre" as a term that can be applied to any piece of literature, and even to many other grouping found in the world. However, the story present by this magazine is that "genre" is itself a classification.