Shhhh...

I write Chick-Lit. But I can't say that anymore because chick-lit is OUT, dead, gnre non grata. If you're a chick-lit writer at the moment you need to conceal that better than the Frank Family. You know why? Because five years ago when Chick-Lit became the IT genre, every editor went through the slush piles, pulled every piece of "chick-lit" they could find and ran to press with it. The results? A horrible gobble goop of crap out there choking up the market. So, we're dead. But are we?

First, we've been instructed to call ourselves "women's fiction" whatever THAT means. While there is no noticable difference somehow this makes a difference to editors. It inplies that our heroines are...smarter? That we're tackiling deeper issues? Because finding one's way in the world is so petty? What makes that petty? A woman likes shoes? Or are we supposed to all be writing books about cheating spouses and drug addiction? I don't know the answer. I don't want to read that book so I'm not writing it. But here's an interesting take on it.

Women's Fic vs Chick-Lit

and here's an interesting web page put out by a publisher to 'defend' our genre.

http://chicklit.smartpopbooks.com/

While I appreciate that there are people that are saying that chick-lit is still going strong, I question do we need to defend it? Should we ever defend a style of writing? Don't we just write the compelling books of our heart be they Scottish time travels or medical thrillers or traditional romance? Isn't there always room out there for one more good book regardless of what label is has been slapped with?

I'm starting to wonder.