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Thursday, June 7, 2012

HWA Roundtable on Cross Genre Horror

On Monday, the Horror Writers Association started a new project they are calling The Horror Roundtable:
Get yourself a drink and pull up a seat. Put your feet up. Welcome to the Roundtable, a public discussion about all things writing. A monthly virtual horror panel, if you will.
 What a fabulous idea.  To start here is the link to this month's first discussion, described below:
Is Cross-Genre Writing More Popular Now?
Special Guests: Nancy Holder, Norman L. Rubenstein, and Weston Ochse
There was a time when publishers were stumped on how to market works that conformed to more than one genre. Not only did they not know how to market something that was both science fiction and horror fiction (for instance), but with bookstore chains having separate shelves for each, they weren’t sure how to provide shelving guidance. But recent science fiction-horror smash hits such as Justin Cronin’s The Passage and Stephen King’s 11/23/1963 have demonstrated that readers want more genres. Books such as Daryl Gregory’s The Devil’s Alphabet (science fiction and literary fiction) and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (historical fiction and horror fiction) have also found critical acclaim. Cross-genre fiction is now what readers want, should we give it to them? What are the challenges of writing cross-genre works and how are those best dealt with?
Click through to follow the discussion and comments.  The discussion is still going on 3 days later.  Add your thoughts to the mix.

I look forward to this becoming a monthly event.

1 comment:

  1. As a writer, I have the confines of one genre. As a reader, I also hate the confines of one genre. A good story is a good story-no need to label it. Dina Rae

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