Tag: woodstock

Literary vs. Genre Fiction

Posted on by Admin in Books, Fiction, Literary Events, Writing

This past Sunday Writers in the Mountains in partnership with Glaring Omissions Writing Group co-hosted a panel discussion Writing Fiction Today – Literary vs. Genre Fiction: Real Distinction or No Difference at All? at the Golden Notebook bookstore in Woodstock.

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The panel discussion was moderated by Jenny Milchman. Jenny’s debut novel, Cover of Snow, earned starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist, as well as praise from the New York Times, San Francisco Journal of Books, the AP, and other publications. It was an Indie Next and Target pick, won the Mary Higgins Clark Award for best suspense novel, and was nominated for the Macavity and Barry Awards for best first novel. Her second book Ruin Falls, also an Indie Next Pick, was published in 2014 to starred reviews from Booklist and Library Journal, and chosen as a “10 Best of 2014” by Suspense Magazine. Jenny’s third novel, As Night Falls, will be published on June 30th, 2015.

Before I summarize the panelists’ remarks, allow me to make a few general considerations. Right before the panel discussion started, I googled literary vs. genre fiction. And the fastest answers I got were:

  • Literary is about explaining the world;
  • Genre is about escaping the world.

Also:

  • Literary fiction takes the awards (there are exceptions to this rule, as we shall see!);
  • Genre fiction makes the bestseller lists – it gets the money!

And:

  • Literary fiction is more about advancing the intellectual discourse;
  • Whereas genre fiction is more about playing with emotions.

Last November Joshua Rothman from The New Yorker wrote A Better Way to Think About the Genre Debate (you can find full article here). Rothman pointed out that contrary to the general belief that genre fiction doesn’t get nominated or receive literary awards, Station Eleven, a dystopian novel by Emily St. John Mandel, made it in fact among the fiction finalists for the National Book Awards last year. Rothman also pointed out that novels such as Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment are both literary and genre fiction.

Now going back to last Sunday’s panel, here is what the panelists had to say.

Alison Gaylin

“I just like to write a good story. Booksellers find the distinction helpful to know where to shelve a book. And also publishers find it helpful to know how to market the book. There are many genres: romance, thriller, sci-fi, etc.”

Gaylin, a USA Today and international best-selling author, received an Edgar nomination for her first book Hide Your Eyes. Her Shamus Award-winning novel, And She Was, was also nominated for the RT award, the Thriller and Anthony awards. In addition to her six published crime fiction novels, she’s published the Young Adult mystery Reality Ends Here (Simon and Schuster/PocketStar). Stay with Me, her eighth book – and the third in the acclaimed Brenna Spector series – was just nominated for an Edgar Award for best paperback.

Elizabeth Brundage

“I agree with Alison that bookstore owners need to know where to put the book, but it could backfire in a way. I like to call my books literary thrillers. Because I put a lot of effort in every sentence that I write. I think it’s mostly the way the books are marketed that had created this distinction. My last book Stranger Like You was marketed as a thriller, as opposed to my first two which were marketed more like general literary fiction. Stranger Like You sort of got lost, and people couldn’t find it. The distinction is not what motivates me to write; I just want to tell a good story. And I think what people like is some sort of driving narrative focus. The effort you put into character development is what makes a novel more literary – the voice of the characters and things like that.

Write a book that conveys your vision of the world.”

Brundage holds an MFA from the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she received a James Michener Award. Before attending Iowa, she was a screenwriting fellow at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. Her short fiction has been published in the Greensboro Review, Witness, and New Letters. She is the author of three novels, Somebody Else’s Daughter, The Doctor’s Wife, and A Stranger Like You, all published by Viking. Her new novel, All Things Cease to Appear, is forthcoming from Knopf in 2016.

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Peter Golden

“I think this distinction became a problem for bookstores after WWII. It’s a post-war problem. Writers wrote for markets. But in the 1950s, early 1960s writers began to go to universities, and write for tenure. That was a different novel than writing for the markets. They needed different reviewers saying good things about their books. And then what happened was that people in the academia became very resentful of people in the marketplace, and vice versa. Hemingway wrote The Sun Also Rises because he wanted to become a commercial writer; he didn’t think he could make it by just writing short stories.”

Golden is an award-winning journalist and the author of six full-length works of non-fiction and fiction. His first novel, Comeback Love, was published by Simon & Schuster. Some of his work has appeared in the Detroit Free Press Magazine, Albany Times Union, New Jersey Monthly, Microsoft’s eDirections, Beyond Computing, Electronic Business, Midstream, The Forward, and Capital Region Magazine. 

Going back to Jenny Milchman, a couple of days prior to this panel discussion, she started a Facebook thread, and engaged with fellow writers in a passionate, well-argued debate. One commenter remarked that good writing is good writing, and bad writing is just that – bad writing. Another one said that he thought at literary fiction more in terms of general fiction, whereas genre fiction is a clearly recognizable genre (or maybe even a niche genre, I would add). Yet another one added that it’s become fashionable to label almost anything outside of the genre fiction as literary, and that makes the label meaningless. One commenter discussed the dichotomy ideas vs. emotions: ideas as pursued in literary fiction by those intellectually oriented, and emotions as explored in genre fiction for readers looking to have an emotional experience. Someone else summed up that this is an overrated question, and that readers don’t understand or care about.

What are your thoughts about literary vs. genre fiction?

Writing Fiction Today: Literary vs. Genre Fiction

Posted on by Admin in Books, Fiction, Literary Events, Writing

DSC_1026Writers in the Mountains (WIM) invites you to Writing Fiction Today – Literary vs. Genre Fiction: Real Distinction or No Difference at All? Sunday, May 3 at 1 p.m. at the Golden Notebook Bookstore, 29 Tinker Street, Woodstock, NY. The event is co-sponsored by Glaring Omissions Writing Group, one of the longest-running critique groups in the Hudson Valley.

What kind of book do you like to read? What form does your writing take? If you’re like most readers or authors or poets or scribes, an answer came to your mind right away. But what happens when we begin to poke at that answer? Is there such a thing as a literary mystery? Or an experimental novel with a secret at its heart? Can a poem mystify? Moderator Jenny Milchman leads a conversation with panelists Elizabeth Brundage, Alison Gaylin, and Peter Golden as they question the foundation that lies beneath bookstore shelving, library categorization, and the ways we define words on a page. If these divisions are arbitrary–or at least miss a great deal of what truly goes on in a work–then perhaps we can come up with something better. A meaning that helps us to identify and create what we all are really after… great writing.

Jenny Milchman’s debut novel, Cover of Snow, earned starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist, as well as praise from the New York Times, San Francisco Journal of Books, the AP, and other publications. It was an Indie Next and Target pick, won the Mary Higgins Clark Award for best suspense novel, and was nominated for the Macavity and Barry Awards for best first novel. Her second book Ruin Falls, also an Indie Next Pick, was published in 2014 to starred reviews from Booklist and Library Journal, and chosen as a “10 Best of 2014″ by Suspense Magazine. Jenny’s third novel, As Night Falls, will be published on June 30th, 2015.

Elizabeth Brundage holds an MFA from the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she received a James Michener Award. Before attending Iowa, she was a screenwriting fellow at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. Her short fiction has been published in the Greensboro Review, Witness, and New Letters. She is the author of three novels, Somebody Else’s Daughter, The Doctor’s Wife, and A Stranger Like You, all published by Viking. Her new novel, All Things Cease to Appear, is forthcoming from Knopf in 2016.

USA Today and international best-selling author Alison Gaylin received an Edgar nomination for her first bookHide Your Eyes. Her Shamus Award-winning novel, And She Was, was also nominated for the RT award, the Thriller and Anthony awards. In addition to her six published crime fiction novels, she’s published the Young Adult mystery Reality Ends Here (Simon and Schuster/PocketStar). Stay with Me, her eighth book – and the third in the acclaimed Brenna Spector series – was just nominated for an Edgar Award for best paperback.

Peter Golden is an award-winning journalist and the author of six full-length works of non-fiction and fiction. Peter Golden’s first novel, Comeback Love, was published by Simon & Schuster. Some of his work has appeared in the Detroit Free Press Magazine, Albany Times Union, New Jersey Monthly, Microsoft’s eDirections, Beyond Computing, Electronic Business, Midstream, The Forward, and Capital Region Magazine. 

Please come peruse a brand new gallery of books set up by the Golden Notebook, share drinks and light refreshments, and become a part of this very stimulating conversation! The event is free and open to the public. Book buying is encouraged to support our community bookstore.

Writers in the Mountains is a 501 ( c ) (3) not-for-profit organization with a mission to provide to the general public a nurturing environment for the practice, appreciation and sharing of creative writing.

Glaring Omissions Writers Group hosts a monthly reading series at the Golden Notebook.

Woodstock Writers Festival’s Sixth Anniversary

Posted on by Admin in Publishing, Writers Festival

The Woodstock Writers Festival celebrated its sixth anniversary this past weekend, March 19 – 22, with a variety of workshops, panel discussions, a story slam competition, as well as a couple of parties, after dinner conversations, and a Sunday morning literary brunch.

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I attended the publishing panel on Saturday morning. Panelists included: Gail Godwin, a three-time National Book Award finalist, and the bestselling author of twelve novels, including Publishing: A Writer’s Memoir, published by Bloomsbury Publishing; Jenny Milchman, author of three acclaimed novels published by Ballantine, an imprint of Penguin Random House; Sara Carder, editorial director of Jeremy P. Tarcher, an imprint of Penguin Random House; Mary Cummings, vice president and editorial director of Diversion Books, a digitally focused publisher in New York City; and Ned Leavitt, a literary agent. The panel was moderated by Nan Gatewood Satter, a fiction and non-fiction editor with close to thirty years of experience.

What I took out:

  • Gail Godwin emphasized the importance of having a good editorial team, and an established long-term commitment among publishing partners. She also talked about the authors’ ability to negotiate their rights, and secure some benefits even when they don’t quite get the exact terms they were looking for. She warned authors of doing too much pro-bono writing.
  • By contrast, Mary Cummings talked about pro-bono writing such as submitting articles to newspapers and magazines as an investment in the author’s brand and long-term sales. Cummings talked about the importance of crunching data and fine-tuning the marketing strategy for each title on a monthly basis. No title is ever abandoned. In addition, she emphasized the role of social media in connecting authors with readers, and also the role social media plays in enhancing an author’s brand. Cummings was fond of search engine optimization techniques; she said she puts a lot of effort into creating “foundable books.”
  • Sara Carder confessed that this was a “frightening” time for the publishing industry. She talked about the creative process, and the effort each editor puts into each new book project. She said she relied on her intuition when deciding whether to move forward with a book project or not. Carder also feared that search engine optimization techniques would hurt “poetic titles” and other creative ways of differentiating a book. She did however agree that newspaper and magazine articles can help a writer’s brand, and wasn’t too worried about pro-bono writing.
  • Ned Leavitt talked about the excitement of good writing. He was worried about Amazon’s publishing model. He also confessed that intuition plays quite a role in his work.
  • Jenny Milchman talked about her journey to publishing; it took her eleven years to get published, but in the end she got the deal that she wanted to get. Since 2013 she’s been publishing a new novel each year. Milchman was keen of social media, and enjoyed connecting with readers. Each year she does a long book tour, visiting hundreds of bookstores all over the country.

Jenny Milchman will be at the Writers in the Mountains’ book festival on April 12; she’ll be talking about publishing. She’ll also be delivering the keynote address.