Special: Genre Wars with Jenn Zukowski

Back in February, Kazuo Ishiguro made a comment in a NY Times article about him and his new novel The Sleeping Giant, that made Ursula K. Le Guin upset enough to write an article defending the fantasy genre and reviewing Ishiguro’s book . . . unfavorably. 

I had read the Electric Literature article and shrugged. My grad school friend, Jenn Zukowski, read the Esquire article and posted it to Facebook, tagging me and asking me what I thought because we’d argued about genre a lot fifteen years ago and, at least between us, settled it.

We decided we’d get together and record a special show where we revisited our old argument in light of this new skirmish in the so-called “Genre Wars.” Jenn was the very first guest on The Outrider Podcast, and she teaches at several Denver area universities specializing in stage combat, creative writing, and literature, including classes on fantasy and children’s lit. You can find out more about Jenn at her blog, https://jennzuko.wordpress.com and you can download her episode of the Outrider Podcast at this page of my website, http://jquinnmalott.com/iframe/page3.html, or http://jquinnmalott.podbean.com .

We hope you enjoy it. 

The Ishiguro vs. Le Guin Articles

NY Times Article on Ishiguro

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/20/books/for-kazuo-ishiguro-the-buried-giant-is-a-departure.html?_r=0

Ursula K. Le Guin’s smackdown

http://bookviewcafe.com/blog/2015/03/02/are-they-going-to-say-this-is-fantasy/

The Electric Literature piece about the dust-up

http://electricliterature.com/the-last-holdouts-of-the-genre-wars-on-kazuo-ishiguro-ursula-k-le-guin-and-the-misuse-of-labels/

The Esquire article about the dust-up

http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a33599/genre-fiction-vs-literary-fiction/

A Good Critical analysis of the who she-bang. 

http://flavorwire.com/508134/kazuo-ishiguros-the-buried-giant-and-the-tyranny-of-genre-fiction

Older articles about the Genre Wars and the Pullman speech

http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/may/17/genre-wars-fiction-book-trade

http://www.tessgerritsen.com/genre-wars-never-seem-to-end/

http://flavorwire.com/487948/the-secret-truce-in-the-literary-genre-wars

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/05/are-the-genre-wars-won

http://creativewritingguild.com/lesson/sa/micros-pedestal-literary-elitism-and-the-genre-wars/

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/books/game-of-thrones-george-r-r-martin-fights-the-genre-wars/

The Pullman Speech

http://www.randomhouse.com/features/pullman/author/carnegie.php