[ What follows is the Dream Coda of the
introduction to New Genre #7. ]
At a conference, invited to speak on a panel about
an essay I wrote, the subject—. The panel sat behind a table set on a raised
platform. My boss, uninvited, sat beside me and opened the discussion. He told
the audience that he never wrote horror fiction, in spite of successfully
placing work in well-known horror magazines. He said, “To avoid writing horror,
I take a close look at what is horrible and absorb the details so I can relay
its character free of the limitations of the horror genre.”
I was about to respond when a member of the
audience stood, joined us behind the table, and began to attack my boss’s
statement. The audience member’s argument was completely undermined by his
manner and his need to make the audience laugh. Meanwhile, I articulated a
reply in my head: my boss, I thought, did write horror fiction—horror is a very
broad category that freely bleeds into every other genre. “Even realism,” I
said (in my mind), “gets weird, especially when realism writes death. See A
Simple Heart. See The Death of Ivan Ilyich.”
The audience member’s blather was without cease.
My boss exited via a series of ladders and by scrambling over a peaked roof.
Still eager to make my point to him, I attempted to follow.
Without the transition typical of conscious
narrative, I was in a brothel. The women there knew about horror fiction, but
didn’t want to discuss horror fiction. They asked me if I planned to stay. From
the brothel was a view of a dam, water high behind it.
[ Image: cover of New Genre #7,
designed by Jeremy Withers. ]
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