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I see genres as generating sets of rules or conventions that are only interesting when they are subverted or used to disguise the author's intent. My own way of doing this is to attempt a sort of whimsical alchemy, whereby seemingly incompatible genres are brought into unlikely partnerships.

Literary fiction, as a strict genre, is all but dead. Meanwhile, most genres flourish.

For me, genres are a way for people to easily categorize music. But it doesn't have to define you. It doesn't have to limit you.

Genre is a bookstore problem, not a literary problem.

I think we get too hung up on categories. Obviously, the book market has to categorise things, and it makes it easier for a reader to go into a bookshop and choose, but as a writer, it helps to get rid of all of that and imagine you are a storyteller around a campfire.

Like immense time-binding discussions, genres allow ideas to be developed and traded, and for variations to be spun down through decades.

I don't steer clear of genres. I simply haven't steered myself toward some of them.

Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and non-fiction. And even there, who can be sure?

When I was a kid, I read many of my mom's books. Sometimes, there were mysteries, but there were no delineations, and my mother never talked about book genres. Nor did we differentiate genres in school.