Are you a book snob? (Postscript)

Back in September I had a little rant about the public and proud snobbery  at the University of Kent's Creative Writing Centre, who belittled commercial fiction and children's authors.
http://www.janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/are-you-book-snob.html

So I was interested to read how they had recapitulated (kind of) and glad to discover I wasn't the only one to take offence.  Judging the quality of writing by genre is both misguided and unhelpful, amongst other things.  Click below to read more....

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/02/kent-university-childrens-books-creative-writing?commentpage=1

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......

Related posts: 

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