It Turns Out That There Is Something

More Than Fantasy Or Even Science Fiction, Ray Bradbury Wrote Horror, And Like So Many Great Horror Writers He Was Himself Utterly Without Fear, Of Anything. He Wasn't Afraid Of Looking Uncool - He Wasn't Scared To Openly Love Innocence, Or To Be Optimistic, Or To Write Sentimentally When He Felt That Way.

He Wasn't Surprised. He Was Used To This Anticlimactic Feeling, Where By The Time You've Done All The Work To Get Something You Don't Even Want It Anymore.

When I Was 35 I Realized That I Was Still Thinking A Lot About What It Would Be Like To Go To Narnia. To Really Go - Not Just In A Daydream, Or In A Children's Book, But What It Would Actually Feel Like, Physically, Psychologically, Every Other Way. The Idea Was Haunting Me.

I'm Now Much More Excited About Genre Distinctions. What I Still See Breaking Down Are More The Hierarchical Arrangements Of Genres. That Is, "there Is Literary Fiction, And Then There Are Lesser Genres." I'm Much More Clear On The Idea That Literary Fiction Is Itself A Genre. It Is Not Above Other Genres. It Is Down There In The Muck With All The Other Genres, And It's Doing The Wonderful Things That It Does, But To Give It A Y-axis, To Make It High And Low, Just Seems Absurd. I Stand By That.

I'm Happy To Report That 'the New Press' Is Still In Business To This Day. But Not Thanks To Me. I Was A Really Bad Publishing Intern.