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Why Would A Poet With An MFA Want To Write Science Fiction?
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ShermanJalooloo
01/22/09

In reply to Why Would A Poet With An MFA Want To Write Science Fiction?
I'm gratified for all reading and commenting on this...I wrote this in 2000 (and I'm not completely embarrassed by it, so I guess that's a good sign?!?), and was indeed written for a non-SF audience (the newsletter of the Loft, a writing center in Minneapolis where I used to teach). And the apology aspect of it would be, I would say, 51% sarcasm, and 49% the idea of an "apologia." ("a defense especially of one's opinions, position, or actions."). It's been an interesting decade of SF since I wrote that, with so many developments that have made it stronger. Anyway, thanks again. --Alan DeNiro
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RAHfanboy
01/21/09

In reply to Why Would A Poet With An MFA Want To Write Science Fiction?
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that there are a LOT more sci-fi writers making a living at it than poets writing poetry. The man likes to eat, people, it's that simple. If some great sci-fi comes of it, all the better.
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Grey_Area
01/20/09

In reply to Why Would A Poet With An MFA Want To Write Science Fiction?
People who use the word "fictive" should be beaten about the head and shoulders with a pillowcase filled with ice cream.

Other than that I thought it was a good essay and summed up what many of us have tried to express: A good story of any sort focuses on people and societies.

In the end I'd still have to agree with our Persnickety Pink Pontiff's comment above, don't apologize for what you like to write. Well, unless it really sucks.
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Pope John Peeps II
01/20/09

In reply to Why Would A Poet With An MFA Want To Write Science Fiction?
But he actually hits on something much more interesting than the tired literary/SF debate - he sets out a few building blocks of a new theory of appreciating science fiction. For example, blah blah blah blah...

Absolutely every one of his argument can be applied to regular fiction as well, which leads me to believe he's just scrambling for things to say.

Just say it, DeNiro. Just fucking SAY it. "IT'S WHAT I LIKE TO WRITE". Don't try to justify yourself with pathetic, forced arguments. Just SAY IT.
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steampoweredboy
01/20/09

In reply to Why Would A Poet With An MFA Want To Write Science Fiction?
All fiction is genre fiction, some genres are just more successful than others. There are far more books about "Middle Class Intellectuals" than say "splatterpunk" but you won't see the former called a genre. Tossing things in easy categories is just literati shorthand.

And yes, type is important. But if I judged the work of salinger by those awful fishwraps he demands on his books I'd assume his work was as bland as bathwater.
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ggodo, the man from R.O.A.C.H.
01/20/09

@steampoweredboy: THe cover was better than The Catcher in the Rye. It didn't beat you incessantly with the paranoia of a whiny kid with a mental problem. I mean, I kinda agree that society is pretty fake, but don't beat me with it and maybe I'll actually support your points. As it stands, the best thing to come from that book is Conspiracy Theory. great film.
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braak
01/20/09

In reply to Why Would A Poet With An MFA Want To Write Science Fiction?
God DAMN it, but I hate people with MFAs. IT IS A BULLSHIT DEGREE, ALAN DENIRO! IT IS FAKE! IT IS A FAKE THING!
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braak
01/20/09

@braak: I'm sorry, I haven't had anything to do today, so I just keep going to the Starbucks and getting more coffee. It's made me a little rammy.
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Rasselas
01/20/09

@braak: Whoa, Thunder.
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Belabras ate my dingo!
01/20/09

@braak:

Er, I wouldn't call 3 years of somebodies hard work a bullshit degree. I'm just saying.
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braak
01/20/09

@Belabras: Then that clearly demarcates a difference between the two of us. In the future, anyone who is confused about which one of us is "Belabras" and which one of us is "Braak" can just ask about MFAs in writing. I'll be the one that points out that the there's nothing about such a degree that implies either that "work" was accomplished, and certainly not that it was especially "hard", and then continues to assert that it is, in fact, a bullshit degree.
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Charlie Jane Anders
01/20/09

@braak: Well, I know some people with MFAs who agree with you, to their own sadness. But it's a degree that does grant you a certain amount of credibility in literary circles.
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Elizabeth Weinbloom
01/20/09

@braak: It is what you put into it! And it shows you were good enough to get into the program in the first place! And, and, and you learn, um, stuff!

Sad face.

Love,
Someone who spent the last month applying to a dozen MFA programs
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braak
01/20/09

In reply to Why Would A Poet With An MFA Want To Write Science Fiction?
Look, though--solid is an experiential definition. Regardless of how much empty space it contains, if you can't put your hand through it, it's fucking solid.

And, finally: And finally, DeNiro makes a bold assertion.

Bold? Really? A bold assertion, huh? Daring, audacious--not at all the kind of thing that fifty thousand bored and lazy commenters might make on a website
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braak
01/20/09

@braak: AT LEAST TEN THOUSAND TIMES A DAY.
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Charlie Jane Anders
01/20/09

@braak: I feel like I run into 100,000 commenters every day who insist that science fiction really is all about the science. It's much rarer to say that all science fiction -- even the "hard" stuff -- is about social interactions. In my experience, anyway.
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braak
01/20/09

@Charlie Jane Anders: Really? Because even when we've debated the subject here, I've noticed just as many people that seem to think that the science is as much an aesthetic choice as anything else. Aren't they the ones that keep pointing out that there's no real reason to limit the site to just science fiction, and that you might as well open it up to fantasy, horror, &c.?
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steampoweredboy
01/20/09

In reply to Why Would A Poet With An MFA Want To Write Science Fiction?
Well, like most literary theory this does climb up it's own ass a little bit, but it's an interesting journey all the same.

The ghetto of genre is failing as people read a wider array of books. Over Christmas I met someone, in her 60s , who sniffed at science fiction as "not real" and I pointed out "1984", "The Handmaid's Tale" and "The Yiddish Policeman's Union" just off the top as books lauded for their writing that are sci-fi in genre , no matter how hard and long Margaret Atwood yells.

Short and sweet, denying yourself a genre based on supposition is akin to saying your won't read a book because you don't like the title font.
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kosure
01/20/09

@steampoweredboy:

Type can speak volumes.
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Belabras ate my dingo!
01/20/09

@kosure:

And bad type usually says "we hired a bad designer"

Not that I haven't been guilty of judging a book by it's cover before though.
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goldfarb
01/20/09

@Belabras: and the bulk of so-called 'literary fiction' can be very easily grouped into genres...

if the novel about "a young man with a degree in literature, living with his wife in New England, his wife (who may or may not have issues with her family), their young child, his difficulty coming to grips with adult life and his future (not what he thought it was going to be) and a secret from his past" isn't a genre containing about 14000 examples then I'll shave my beard.
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