Recently, I was filling out a questionnaire that required me to specify the genre of one of my books. Doing so was more difficult than it sounds, mostly because a lot of my stories are completely disrespectful of genre boundaries. My last book was a noir detective historical paranormal gay romance; I’ve also written a noir detective historical fantasy gay romance. An upcoming novella is an urban fantasy paranormal holiday gay romance.

When I write, I don’t think about what genre the book will be—I just let the story come. Even if I end up with something weird and hard to categorize. Ditto when I read. I choose compelling stories by good writers and don’t particularly care what genre they are. And of course I’m especially fond of authors whose work tends to span genres or be generally hard to classify.

Now, having said all that, I totally understand why many readers prefer certain genres. I don’t have any long-term preferences, but I do get in the mood for certain things sometimes. You know how it goes. If you have a hankering for men in kilts, spaceships just aren’t going to hit the spot. Unless, I suppose, they’re wearing kilts in spaceships, but then they better have some kind of gravity generator in place or else those kilts are going to be a wee bit more revealing than intended. But you know what I mean.

What I understand less is avoiding certain genres altogether. If I love an author, I’d be perfectly content reading their grocery list. In fact, I think it’s fun when an author who normally spends their time in one writing pond decides to dangle their feet in another. It’s always interesting then to see what aspects of their style remain consistent.

I also really enjoy unexpected genre mixtures. For example, I’m a fan of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, which combines fantasy, horror, western, and Arthurian genres. Rhys Ford’s Kai Gracen series also nicely stirs genres together, as does Jesse Hajicek’s The God Eaters, many of Ginn Hales’s books, and some of Christopher Moore’s novels (I loved Noir, for instance).

Hmm. Maybe somebody ought to write that Scotsmen-in-space story after all. Maybe somebody already did?

What are your genre thoughts? Do you have some you love? Some you avoid? Does genre matter to you when you choose a new book? What mixtures would you like to see?

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Kim Fielding is the bestselling author of numerous m/m romance novels, novellas, and short stories. Like Kim herself, her work is eclectic, spanning genres such as contemporary, fantasy, paranormal, and historical. Her stories are set in alternate worlds, in 15th century Bosnia, in modern-day Oregon. Her heroes are hipster architect werewolves, housekeepers, maimed giants, and conflicted graduate students. They’re usually flawed, they often encounter terrible obstacles, but they always find love.

After having migrated back and forth across the western two-thirds of the United States, Kim calls the boring part of California home. She lives there with her family and her day job as a university professor, but escapes as often as possible via car, train, plane, or boat. This may explain why her characters often seem to be in transit as well. She dreams of traveling and writing full-time.

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