Thanks to Cory Doctorow for picking up on this Wired interview with Jeff and Ann VanderMeer about the New Weird, about parenting, and about their current work.  Jeff’s description of how he sees SF and fantasy as part of the literary mainstream nicely summarizes the rationale for our Literature Department wanting the Clarion Workshop to be housed on our campus:

I’m always mixing up science and fantasy, whether it’s mushroom tech or, as in The Situation, strange biotech. I’m writing more and more about the contemporary workplace, too.

I think the main thing is, we always approach our projects not from a genre or non-genre stance, but from a kind of where-does-this-fit-in-in-culture generally. We always have a very keen awareness of popular culture, along with high culture, low culture, noir. So our anthos have focus, but also that kind of “mix”. I mean, some of them, like City of Saints and Madmen, mix fiction/nonfiction forms, and add in tons of graphics–not quite a graphic novel, but… The main thing is, the internet and the way memes move now, there is no monolithic thing called “genre” or “literary mainstream” any more. There’s all of this fascinating cross-pollinations and collaborations that you never really saw before. I think that kind of stuff interests GeekDad readers. I think I like to write stuff that can connect with different kinds of readers in different ways. Like, a fantasy reader is going to perceive The Situation one way, whereas somebody who works in front of a computer all day but doesn’t read fantasy is going to take something else out of it, for example.

Keep an eye out, by the way, for news on another upcoming anthology out of the VanderMeer empire, The Leonardo Variations.  It’s of, for and by Clarion students, a charity effort supporting the Workshop.  Very exciting stuff.