All Discussions Tagged 'literature' - CrimeSpace2024-03-28T18:23:40Zhttp://crimespace.ning.com/forum/topic/listForTag?tag=literature&feed=yes&xn_auth=noWhat are some examples of crime literature that serves as deep social commentary?tag:crimespace.ning.com,2011-06-27:537324:Topic:2968382011-06-27T19:03:06.079ZNoir Nationhttp://crimespace.ning.com/profile/NoirNation
<p>I ask this question in the interest of furthering the high respect that I think crime literature deserves. In the news recently there have been many journalists kidnapped and killed. Could it not be that in some places in the world writing fiction to explore social injustice, bigotry, religious extremism, corruption, organized crime, and violence, that it may be safer to do in a fictional vein.</p>
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<p>I in no way mean to suggest that crime fiction can, or should replace…</p>
<p>I ask this question in the interest of furthering the high respect that I think crime literature deserves. In the news recently there have been many journalists kidnapped and killed. Could it not be that in some places in the world writing fiction to explore social injustice, bigotry, religious extremism, corruption, organized crime, and violence, that it may be safer to do in a fictional vein.</p>
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<p>I in no way mean to suggest that crime fiction can, or should replace journalism, just that in some places it might reach a wider audience, and the story element might pull people through a longer and deeper exploration of ideas and points of view, than would a strict journalistic article.</p>
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<p>As the European editor of Noir Nation, I would love to see some non-fiction short stories on these topics, and have a journalistic tie-in.</p>
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<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">The discussion on this forum has gotten quite a lot of responses. This has inspired us at Noir Nation to add a new section to the first issue of Noir Nation wherein writers opine on the following question: Must crime noir have a moral point? The word limit is 300 to 500 words. Include short bio, and photo. There is a $25 honoraria, payable on publication. Best five get published in Issue No. 1. Send to eddie@evegaonline.com -- Eddie Vega</span></p> I need a teacher's perspective on children's littag:crimespace.ning.com,2010-03-16:537324:Topic:2299912010-03-16T01:50:58.735ZEileen Schuhhttp://crimespace.ning.com/profile/EileenSchuh
<p>I'm writing a column for PopSyndicate on Childrens' Literature, past, present and future. I'd like the perspective of someone currently involved in their profession, teaching children ages 10-15. I have six quick and easy online questions (open-book, no right and wrong answers, no deductions for spelling errors) </p>
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<p>Let me know if you can help. I need your responses returned by Friday. Your insights will appear in my April column along with a librarian's and the Children's…</p>
<p>I'm writing a column for PopSyndicate on Childrens' Literature, past, present and future. I'd like the perspective of someone currently involved in their profession, teaching children ages 10-15. I have six quick and easy online questions (open-book, no right and wrong answers, no deductions for spelling errors) </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Let me know if you can help. I need your responses returned by Friday. Your insights will appear in my April column along with a librarian's and the Children's Editor from Orca Publishing.</p>
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<p>Two previous contacts have failed to follow through with me, which is why the timeline is so short. My other interviewees, though, had their answers back to me the day after they got them, so, really, folks, I promise, this is not difficult or time consuming.</p>
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<p>Thank you.</p>
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<p>Eileen Schuh, Canadian Author</p>
<p><a href="http://www.eileenschuh.com">http://www.eileenschuh.com</a></p> Genre blurring, literature slumming? Help me understand!tag:crimespace.ning.com,2008-11-13:537324:Topic:1661712008-11-13T16:42:46.947ZOut of the Gutter Magazinehttp://crimespace.ning.com/profile/OutoftheGutterMagazine
Stay with me while I set this up, because I'm really pissed off:<br />
<br />
UT's Michener Center last night brought Denis Johnson last night to read. He's the author of a book of short stories "Jesus' Son", the novels "Resuscitation of a Hanged Man", "Angels", "The Stars at Noon", and more. He's got Faulkner Awards and National Book Club awards. He's taught at UT's MFA program which is pretty prestigious (I mean you really have to be something special to get in, there are like 6 seats and 2,000…
Stay with me while I set this up, because I'm really pissed off:<br />
<br />
UT's Michener Center last night brought Denis Johnson last night to read. He's the author of a book of short stories "Jesus' Son", the novels "Resuscitation of a Hanged Man", "Angels", "The Stars at Noon", and more. He's got Faulkner Awards and National Book Club awards. He's taught at UT's MFA program which is pretty prestigious (I mean you really have to be something special to get in, there are like 6 seats and 2,000 applicants, because acceptance supplies a grant that covers the entire tuition.) Recently, Johnson's novella "Nobody Move" was serialized in four issues of Playboy and from this he read for forty minutes.<br />
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Now, I just finished editing Out of the Gutter #5: The Revenge Issue, with Matt Lewis and it is going to press in the next few days, but I couldn't hear any difference between what we or any writer on Crimespace is doing and Denis Johnson's work, but he doesn't get dismissed as a pulp/suspense/thriller writer. He gets academic approval and literature status. I've read his short stories in" Jesus' Son" and I don't understand how L.A. Weekly quoted it as "In a world of predictable fiction, Jesus' Son is a point-blank godsend."<br />
<br />
A student after the reading asked me what I thought and I was in a daze and said, "It's just pulp fiction."<br />
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and he said, "Yeah, but it's good Pulp Fiction."<br />
<br />
and I said, "Then don't bill it as anything else than pulp fiction otherwise he's slumming."<br />
<br />
and he got all defensive, "Yeah, but the voice is raw and real."<br />
<br />
and I told him to go to a soup kitchen six blocks over and steal their stories.<br />
<br />
He turned away and the entourage of MFA's slipped off to a closed party with Denis Johnson.<br />
<br />
So here is the question, what with Tin House and others using genre sponsored contests to exclusive writing programs, have any writers here been able to cross the line or even want to into the fiction/lit shelves of the bookstore? Have they been able to get grants or lit based awards? Or are they stuck in a genre section? Who is in charge of labeling and pigeon holing novels?<br />
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Just note, I'm not attacking Denis Johnson personally, it's just the shorts I have read of his were more like character studies and impressionistic forages into degenerate portraits, but not completed stories.