Kevin Nance, in his article "Invasion of the Genre Snatchers" published in Poets & Writers looks at the concept in the minds of many readers that genre fiction is in some way inferior to literary fiction. He continues on to talk about how many literary writers are dipping into genre fiction.

He writes, "Aspects of detective and crime novels, thrillers, science fiction and fantasy, horror, westerns, comics, and other subgenres are increasingly showing up in variously transmogrified forms, with and without ironic quotation marks, in works of literary fiction." Read more here.

This story doesn't really tell me (or any of you, I'm sure) that I didn't know. I never really saw the line between high and low art, and the division always seemed ridiculous to me. In my mind, there's only individual taste, balance by skillful storytelling.

The article suggests that the line is starting to fade, even in universities and writing programs. I'm still surprised though by how many people there are who still try to draw that line. I remember going for an meeting with a professor to talk about what it would take to apply for the creative writing program at UC - Santa Cruz. She asked me what authors I liked to read. I said, "Amy Tan, Toni Morrison, and Stephen King." At which point she stopped me, and told me not to include that last one when I went for my interview. I was taken aback at the time, but I suppose that I shouldn't have been, and I sort of laughed it off later. I ended up not going into the creative writing program

So, I guess the question is, do you agree with Nance? Are the supposedly strict lines between literature and genre writing blurring? How much so? Do you think there's less elitism in universities and writing programs these days?