Literally Speaking...

"L" is for literary.  The Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes for fiction literature always go to 'literary' books- and I hate to sound like a snob, but I can count on one hand how many I could read to the end.

I find them unappealing.


Call them classics, but some of the 'greatest literary works of our time" (according to the 'experts') I hate. Like:

Great Expectations
The Great Gatsby
Anything by D.H. Lawrence
Anything by William Faulkner
Most of the Nobel/Pulitzer winners in the last 10 years

I'm an English/journalism major, so how can this be??

Here are some classics that I love:

Anything by William Shakespeare
Anything by J.R.R. Tolkien
Jane Eyre
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
A lot by Charles Dickens

My middle grade novel, Evolution Revolution, about the intellectual dawning of a squirrel who learns to use simple machines, has been rejected more times than I'll admit, and has been labeled 'too literary' for middle graders. I don't get how editors and agents can say that when there is a lot of action, science, and adventure.

Don't let the term 'literary' scare you; it's not all angst/inner thoughts/internal drama.

It's just another label, and who listens to labels anyway?

Char