And while we're talking about publishing...

I wasn't going to comment on the whole This is Chick Lit / This is Not Chick Lit thing, because so many others are doing it to death. But then some anonymous former editor went and wrote that "Chick lit is hurting America." And you know what? It so isn't. Get off your high horse, you elitist snobs. People are reading stories that appeal to them. You want them to stop? Write something else that appeals.

The truth is that chick lit is bad for America because it's bad for ambitious, literary writers, male or female. And that means it's bad for all of us. As America increasingly devalues intellectual rigor, education and compassion, it becomes harder and harder to find a good book. And believe me - the ex-fiction editor - it's not because they're not out there. It's because the market is saturated by bad writers claiming to rep for all women, crowding the bookshelves, making sure their one marginal, vapid story is produced ten million times over, like some pretty pink version of hell.

Taking aside the fact that writer of the article contradicts her own point -- that there is no good chick lit -- by saying that there are good books out there, what's with the needless division? "Literary writers"? Remember when there were just writers? I do. I get 10 or more queries a day from them. And yeah, so some of them are bad. But some of them, some of them are going to be great. And that's what keeps me looking, and keeps me reading. What I like to read is a story that entertains, and so what? If I have to plow through a pile of shite to find a diamond, I still want the diamond, don't I? Hell yeah.

Chick Lit isn't hurting America, people. People telling people not to read, whether it's book banners or pointless critics of taste, are hurting America.

Rant over.

Via Galleycat and Bookslut