Just to be less vague, the column is for Romancing the Blog, which is a group blog of romance writers and readers. I do a column once a month, more or less.

So...I'm looking for more contemporary authors than historical figures (although Heyer is a great example, because she is beloved by romance readers and writers), and I intend to talk about branding, how prevalent it is, why it's not (perhaps) so necessary. Basically, why can't we all just write *books* of whatever stripe without a thousband different identities.

I want Thomas Hardy's books at the bottom of the ocean, but I may be influenced by the fact that I read Jude the Obscure and The Return of the Native in one day for a test.

I have never actually finished Jude, despite it being covered in two separate classes.

James Patterson and Isabel Allende both recently wrote young adult novels.

I personally think Joyce Carol Oates must be a robot, because she is just too prolific to be human. Or, possibly, she has an infinite time-expander, or does not sleep. (I know she does crit, novels, plays, and a bit of SF. Possibly she also runs marathons, negotiates for the United Nations, and writes lyrics for the Backstreet Boys.)

"When I do sleep, I sleep in a chair!"

I will say, I would not have known that Robin Hobb and Nora Roberts were the same person, having read a little bit of each. But it's also true that I didn't like Robin Hobb for the same reasons I didn't like Nora Roberts. So the little bit, in each case, was one chapter.

I personally think Joyce Carol Oates must be a robot, because she is just too prolific to be human. Or, possibly, she has an infinite time-expander, or does not sleep. (I know she does crit, novels, plays, and a bit of SF. Possibly she also runs marathons, negotiates for the United Nations, and writes lyrics for the Backstreet Boys.)

Doesn't she also teach? I seem to remember her being thanked in an acknowledgement page of another author, mentioning that she was a professor at his school.

I will say, I would not have known that Robin Hobb and Nora Roberts were the same person, having read a little bit of each.

Nora Roberts writes mysteries as J.D. Robb. I think Robin Hobb is someone else.

There were several novelists in the '40s and '50s like Robert Nathan and Paul Gallico who moved from a sort of magical realism to fantasy to regular fiction without being pegged into a genre. You also have people like Kurt Vonnegut, who contends he's not a science fiction writer despite the sf content of his novels, and Ray Bradbury, who largely identifies himself as an sf author when many of his stories would have fared fine in the mainstream.

Harlan Ellison has probably written everything. As he'd be the first to point out. Mystery, SF, nonfiction, essays, and I don't know how you'd classify the book about NYC gangs. And lots of TV.

He might be a particularly good example since he's complained about genre... typecasting? Or whatever that's called.

I may be influenced by the fact that I read Jude the Obscure and The Return of the Native in one day for a test.

That would kill a lesser person.