The Beautiful Room: Booktrust

Showing posts with label Booktrust. Show all posts

Sunday, 22 September 2013

Are you a book snob?

In January I posted a blog piece entitled Literary Fiction V Genre Fiction which stimulated lively discussion in various book groups online, so I suspect it is a topic of interest to many writers and readers.
There's also an interesting post on literary versus genre fiction over at Jane Friedman: http://janefriedman.com/2013/07/11/writing-on-the-ether-98/

So when I came across this post by Matt Haig at the Booktrust, I wanted to share it. Called 30 things to tell a book snob, this is a contentious subject, judging by all the comments on his blog post. What do you think?

http://www.booktrust.org.uk/writing/online-writer-in-residence/blog/558/

Along the same lines, I have just read the blurb for the University of Kent’s Creative Writing Centre and it made me growl! For example:

“You won’t write mass-market thrillers or children’s fiction on our programmes.”
Why not? What’s wrong with children’s fiction? Or thrillers? Are they not worthy of study or creation?

And, “We don’t want our students to write inside genre and formula but outside, where real art is found.” Really? And a definition of real art?

Click below to get annoyed. http://www.kent.ac.uk/english/research/centres/creative-writing.html

Rant over........for now......

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/literary-fiction-versus-genre-fiction.html

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/on-books-and-reading-and-pony-books.html

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/on-ways-to-read-book.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/reading-bigger-books.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/readers-does-size-matter.html

Sunday, 23 December 2012

Are novels getting weirder?

As someone who comparatively recently realised what I was missing out on by not reading any science fiction – and who has just discovered Asimov and Philip K Dick – I really enjoyed this brilliant and thought provoking post by Matt Haig, the online writer in residence for Booktrust, the largest independent reading and writing charity in the UK. The post is called The End of Reality – why novels are getting weirder.

An extract is below but I would urge you to read the whole post (and check out the Booktrust site too)..

If you are 25 or over the world has changed beyond all recognition in your lifetime. The way we communicate with friends, the way we get our news, the way we buy stuff, and increasingly the way we read books - all that is changing. We are slicing up the cake of reality into seven billion pieces. We are living side by side and miles away from each other all at once. The only way to see ourselves is to take a large step back. Or sideways.