All 1 entries tagged Slipstream

A prize for slipstream fiction

Writing about web page http://blog.saltpublishing.com/2010/02/10/two-salt-authors-nominated-as-shortlists-are-announced-for-the-2010-adelaide-festival-awards-for-literature/

Just saw over at the Salt blog [*] that two of their authors have been shortlisted for the 2010 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature. When I read the details of the price, I became intrigued:

Innovation award ($10,000) – for a published book which departs from the conventional use of genre by borrowing elements from a number of genres such as fiction, non-fiction, biography, autobiography, poetry or cultural criticism.

This almost seems like a new, or expanded definition of the slipstream genre; at least, it's one I'd buy into.

I first heard the term through Toby Litt, who, talking about China Miéville's work as well as his own, described it as literary fiction that borrowed aspects of genre, or mainstream fiction. There's something only a tiny bit niggling about that definition - there's an implication in the way I understood it that implies a dumbing down (which isn't really true at all - both those writers definitely have a genuine interest in seeing barriers between 'popular' and 'difficult' writing broken down).

And at the same time I had to acknowledge the subterfuge at play - trying to slip exciting cross-genre writing beneath the radars of taxonomising retailers, who put x books on x shelf, and y books on y shelf, and xy books on a shelf round the back with 'special interest' labels that no one ever sees, and ends up in the post back to the publisher, who gets blacklisted and their books never make it into the bookshop chain ever again. (Yeah OK, trying to turn my chip-on-shoulder-mode to OFF.)

It's great to see a prize that actually celebrates cross-genre work - even if the appear to have taken 'genre' to mean the medium of the written word, to the exclusion of marketing and critical genres. Worth noting that the Warwick Prize for Writing praised Naomi Klein's winning 'Shock Doctrine' for its ability to synthesise complex cross-discipline material into a readable format, which is what I think China and Toby do very well. So a kind of slipstream as well.

And with a grimace I recall walking into the Waterstones in Covent Garden and seeing a table labelled 'Slipstream', which somehow managed to put JG Ballard and Stephanie Meyer together. I restrained myself from sweeping the books to the floor and assaulting the staff for allowing whatever marketing pleb had dreamt that up to get their way.

[*] NB: Salt are running their Just One Book campaign again - Just One More Book. Still not in the clear a year on, it seems. Go on, lend them a hand.

George Ttoouli : 22 Feb 2010 09:00 |  Tags: Australia China Mieville Creative Writing Prize Salt Publishing Slipstream Toby Litt |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem