Apr 062014
 

The final stop on my blog tour to promote “An Angel Has No Memory” is at the Scarlet Letters blog:

How long is a book? SFWA says that a novel has to be at least 50,000 words long, and most novels today are much longer. But a novel isn’t the same thing as a book. A book can theoretically be of any length, contain multiple works by multiple authors, or even just be a compilation of LOLCats.
How long is a story? Hemingway wrote a story in six words: “For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.” I once asked a romance novelist what was the difference between a category romance and a literary romance. She said, “About 20,000 words.” Category romances are meant to be short, fast reads, compared to more involved reading of literary stories.
Mar 142014
 

The next stop on the blog tour for An Angel Has No Memory is at Stephen Zimmer’s blog, where I talk about straight men writing lesbian erotica.

First, should white people make hiphop? I say yes, for the same reason I think black people should make heavy metal, and indeed anybody should make anything. The claim that any particular group has a monopoly on any particular form of expression goes against the whole idea of freedom of expression. Hip-hop itself is based on promiscuous borrowing and recombination of culture items, defying conventional categories of race and class and genre.

Second, should white people dominate the charts and awards ceremonies for hip-hop, leaving black artists on the margins of the genre they created? That’s a thornier question.