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Genre is Arbitrary

11th Jun 2012 in Writing

Further evidence that genre is mostly arbitrary:

My story, ‘Underskirts’, about a fancy lady who seduces her servant-girls and meets an unfortunate end, won third place in the Bridport Prize, was reprinted in PANK, and is now going to be reprinted again in Best Lesbian Erotica 2013. I’ve never called it literary fiction or erotica, but apparently it’s both!

This will be the third Best Lesbian Erotica anthology I’m a part of, and my other contributions all have elements of fairytales and folktales, the fantastical, the sea, and female coming-of-age. Exactly like my non-erotica stories, really, except that the sex bits are slightly more graphic. It seems to me that genre is something that is consciously decided, rather than arising naturally from the story; that is, a story can fit multiple genres, as long as you say it does.

Click here to read a Thievery post about the inspiration behind the story.