Ben’s answer to “Hello Ben, Not many writers can knock me off my feet with a short sentence; you're one of the f…” > Likes and Comments

Thanks, Ben. I think curation becomes particularly attractive to the reader of fiction that is innovative, or eccentric. The horror writer has a clear route to market via self-publishing (forums, fan sites etc) as do writers in any other specific genre. Perhaps it's innovation itself that lacks a platform - any kind of home or network online. Sadly (and as a yet-to-be-published writer this could of course be taken as sour grapes), I don't see lit mags or lit competitions promoting risk or innovation. They almost all say that they do, but I don't see it. I don't know whether the proliferation of writing course graduates is to blame or not, really I don't, but it's a suspicion. A lot of the stuff I read seems very careful and staid - much more so than fiction I like from, say, forty or fifty years ago. The concern so often seems to be with craft and credentials - nobody wants to come out and play...

All good questions. For what it's worth I see a lot of strange, beautiful, commercially doomed writing from within writing programs. Deeply weird and fated to obscurity, but fascinating nonetheless.

Glad to hear it. I hope some of it's funny too. There isn't enough funny out there. Thanks for responding.