Literary Labels Quotes

If certain books are to be termed 'immigrant fiction,' what do we call the rest? Native fiction? Puritan fiction? This distinction doesn't agree with me.

I don't think I've ever really been a science fiction writer. I'm closer to a fantasist, speculative fiction, whatever, but labels are ultimately derogatory, and I eschew them as best I can.

I've never been particularly interested in genre distinctions. They seem to me more useful to a librarian than to a writer.

Children's books are looked on as a sideline of literature. A special smile. They are usually thought to be associated with women. I was determined not to have this label of sentimentality put on me so I signed by my intials, hoping people wouldn't bother to wonder if the books were written by a man, woman or kangaroo.

I find myself, by happy accident, writing 'Young Adult' fiction. However, I dislike such categories.

Since my romance novels had all been thrillers as well, it wasn't such a leap for me to move into the straight thriller genre. The most difficult part, I think, was being accepted as a thriller writer. Once you've written romance, unfortunately, critics will never stop calling you a 'former romance author.'

Honestly, when you start talking about genres, you're talking as much about the business side of writing as anything else. Certainly there are elements of reader expectation that play into various genres, and those are important, but it also becomes about packaging, placement, audience....In the end, I'm not a fan of labels. I think the best fiction blurs the boundaries between genres, stretches and breaks them.

I've never liked the publishing world's determination to pigeonhole every writer into a genre.

I've never been very attached to genre labels and never set out intentionally to write historic fiction. Besides, what you consider historic depends on how far back your memory extends.

I describe my works as books, but my publishers in Spain, in the United States, and elsewhere insist on calling them novels.

To my ear, the term 'comic novelist' is as redundant and off-putting as the term 'literary novelist'.

I've been typed as a horror writer, and I've always said to people, "I don't care what you call me as long as the checks don't bounce and the family gets fed."

My feeling about my own work is, I could be writing 'The Aeneid' and they would still have to call it chick lit or mommy lit or menopausal old hag lit.