Niches, Typecasting, and Stereotypes

The other day, I was chatting with some of my co-workers at my day job, and the subject of Dragon*Con came up—of which I'm a director—and particularly last Dragon*Con, where we had Leonard Nimoy as a guest.  The discussion got around to how he has embraced his Star Trek lineage now where in the past he tried to distance himself from it, not wanting to be typecast forever as Spock.

It started me musing upon the nature of fame and creative pigeonholes.  From where I'm sitting, as a writer whose ...