Why is Young Adult Fiction pigeon-holed into a daftly narrow age category? If so-called General Fiction is a mirror held up to society which helps us to cope with what we are – how better to do this, than to look at ourselves while we are becoming what we are? But don’t worry, it’s not all serious. Or perhaps it all is, except for that last sentence. Hmmmm.
For a blogger, there’s nothing quite as sweet as gaggles of people getting their knickers in a twist over something. (Those of you who don’t blog yourselves probably don’t know that the blogging equivalent of Natural Law is a list, called “Things That People Get Very Angry About On The Internet”. Whenever we’re stuck for an idea of…
Well… kind of. Back in January, I wrote a pre-emptive review of what was going to happen in 2014. Like most psychics, I was unassailably confident about my foresight. Now, the naysayers amongst you – the doom-mongerers and pedants – might say that I got absolutely everything wrong. But that is simply not true. The fact…
Do you sometimes wake up feeling like life is too ridiculous to be sublime? That the truth is stranger than fiction? Or that your life, if made into a book, would be in danger of running into cliché, if it didn’t have so many beautiful-sounding words in it? Is it possible that you – Dear…
I know. How uncouth! How belligerent, sanctimonious, and other words of more than 1 syllable! Book genres have become a bit of a joke really, as I was saying in my last post regarding the nonsense categorisation of “Women’s Fiction”. Here’s another literary joke for you: ************************************************ Q. What’s the difference between Literary Fiction and Romance? A. So’s your face. ************************************************ Isn’t that…
Another day, another Guardian article. Don’t get me wrong. I love the Guardian’s Book section. It feeds me. But I don’t like it when it makes me feel guilty and ashamed. Especially when they’re right. Today’s offensive (i.e. read: far too close to the bone) article points out that there is no such genre as “women’s…
The rules of publishing seem to dictate that you find a writing style, and stick to it. But not everyone wants to do this. And not everyone is capable of it. J.K. Rowling made headlines last year when she published crime fiction under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith, having previously confounded the market with adult literary fiction…
I want you to be honest. Go on. You can tell your Auntie Tara. Were you too embarrassed to try the Chick-Lit Book Title Generator? Was it just too darned demeaning, even in the name of fun, to attach your name to book titles for such an apparently fluffy, commercial genre? The sort you would never write? (If you ever were…
In this post (and, following some suspicious yoghurt, this one) I pretended to have a look at what was going to happen in 2014, but now I’d like to do it for real. What fads and fashions will we see in genre fiction in 2014? Will fantasy lose its dystopian and grimy-fingered grip on the bestseller market? And that age-old question –…
Taking inspiration from J.K. Rowling, who wrote the last chapter of the Harry Potter series long before half the books were even published, I’ve decided to write my 2014 reviews now. It will save time at the end of the year, when I’ll be very busy with TV appearances, liposuction and smiting my enemies. Only…
Tara Sparling writes 