Speculation, Fact and Fiction

Like Japanese soldiers fighting the Second World War long after it ended, some still draw a cordon sanitaire around “literature” to protect it from “genre”, regardless of how closely the two commingle. Jeanette Winterson proclaims “I hate science fiction”, even though her recent The Stone Gods includes robots and a post-apocalyptic future. Certain critics still insist that Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize primarily for The Golden Notebook (1962), even though this Guest of Honor at the 1987 World Science Fiction Convention considers her futurist “Canopus in Argus” novels “to be some of my best work”. (David Langford gleefully tracks anti-genre comments at http://news.ansible.co.uk)

A grateful nod to cherylmmorgan who flags up an excellent article over in The Times Literary Supplement at The Times Online.

Well worth reading, not least this month as I marshall my arguments just in case anyone decides to ask how come I reckon I can teach creative writing when I'm just an author of that rubbish SF&F stuff. It happens, believe me...