I'd probably drop the class. I couldn't write a non-genre story to save my life, and I get so pissed off at people who see no merit in genre fiction that I'd antagonize the professor and get a bad grade if I tried.

I suspect that any half-way decently written "genre story" will count as literary fiction so far as this teacher is concerned.

If I had a dollar for every time someone in my critique group has told me they just can't think of my novel as a romance "because it's so well-written" and/or "because it has deeper meaning as a coming-of-age story", I could quit my day job today. And it drives me batshit.

Does this person want 43 Jane Austen ripoffs?

Well, then he'd get 43 romance novels, wouldn't he? (Says the woman who borrowed half her plot from Mansfield Park.)

Well, then he'd get 43 romance novels, wouldn't he?

Ha! Point. And I have a slightly different issue with the genre thing, because everything I've ever done (up to this point) has essentially been a quirky little novel that deals with women and power, from Godhood to queenship to spirital time travel and off into corners. So I have the other problem: "So, what kind of books do you write?"

I figured out early on that saying "I write literary fiction" would cut down on the explanations. Feh.

A few of the writers who teach writing that I know or have heard of, are very desirous of dissuading the hopeless wannabees before they arrive in the class by making the requirements sound a good deal more draconian than they are in practice.

Of course, until I started writing Due South, I'd never completed a story that was purely non-genre. (And even shorts concerning Ray and Stella or whatever may not count, since they're set in a Magic Realist universe by definition.)

I have,but then that's a genre, too, right? Don't hate me, but I kind of know what he means...yet, I wouldn't wanna read bad stories about daughters and their moms, either."Quality" and "honesty" should be the goal, even if there are hobbits in it. Joseph Wambaugh, a genre writer if ever there was one,(Police procedural if you didn't know,) said that most starting writers mostly write "My First Lay" anyway. And that he joined LAPD looking for life experience to write about. "Be careful what you wish for," was his final word on that topic.

I was gonna say. Isn't everything genre in it's own little way? I mean looking at even my classics section- romance, historical fiction, sci-fi, horror, suspense, satire, crime, erotica, religion, action/adventure, mystery.

Add children's fiction to that (just spotted the Carrol).

Holli, keep an eye on this guy (woman?) He may well be one of the writing teachers whose goal is to turn out little clones of their own work.

It's snobbery, and stupid snobbery. Salman Rushdie is respectable but Jane Yolen is not. WhatEVer.

Don't tell anyone, but the week I read something of Rushdie's was the longest month of my life.

I love what I've finished of Rushdie's. He's a favourite of mine, except I could not make it through The Satanic Verses.

I suspect that any half-way decently written "genre story" will count as literary fiction so far as this teacher is concerned.

I really think this is the coding he's doing. Plus, you know. My mother came home one beginning of semester and said, The problem is that none of these students *reads* anymore, they just watch television. So all they bring to class are reformulated sitcoms and summer movies!

That could be what he means, too.

I can see how it's offensive, but mmph. (And, nsm with the effective! Just telling someone, a bunch of undergraduates, that it has to have a "literary" plot, is not the magical shorthand to having clear, masterfully-plotted prose. It's just going to be a lot of purple.) Bring in what you're writing, Holli; see if he says boo.