firstly, when people say "soul" they are usually referring, instead, to either memory or identity. these folks are likely incorrect.
secondly...
*puts on his prophecy hat for a moment, a tad embarrassed and hoping he does not quite make the fool of himself that he is araid he will likely make.*
after a brief conversation with jeff vandermeer, i got to thinking about artistic movements, and whatever movement i might or might be a part of.
i think the center of whatever movement i might or might not be a part of - or close enough to the center for it not to matter much the details - is catherynne valente. i think the publication to watch close for the folks close to the center in this movement is one i have yet to publish in (also indicative that i am not the center of it): goblin fruit.
the important things we will likely all have in common:
1) nearly no distinguishing line exists between our poetry and our prose.
2) our post-modernist re-imaginations of classic themes have more, more, more heart than irony. (Her Orphan's Tales re-imagined Arabian Nights. My first book re-imagined heroic fantasy. and Etc. Unlike new weird post-modernists, our horror is tinged with fabulism, and our stories are not squick-inducing on the whole.)
3) we are, most of us, in the neighborhood of 25-35, thusly making us - valente far more than I - the potential leading edge of a potential generation of writers with similar themes and motifs.
(ms. valente started early, publishing her first book in her early twenties. i wrote my first about the same time she did, and mine has only just come out, so i'm a bit behind on publication, alas. 'tis the way of the industry that some things come out quickly but most things come out tediously tardy. as our generation really starts to publish and come out of our shells and fill the ranks of the industry i suspect we shall see far more writers full up with numbers 1-3.)
4) if you ever want to know what's going to happen in the future of the fictions, you will see it in the magazines:
especially goblin fruit...
i don't know how things will shake down in the coming years, whether i'm right or wrong, but i do know of all the magazines i see publishing this stuff that i suspect has a similar generational trend, i have only cracked two of the markets, and have yet to publish anything in what looks to be the centers of what's happening (goblin fruit, clarkesworld, lady churchill's rosebud wristlet, strange horizons). i'm likely not going to be the center of it, whatever it is. i'll just do what i do, and see what appears in the magazines, in the shelves, and among the scribblings of critics.
*takes off his prophecy hat and feels a little foolish, but them's the shakes, jills and jakes.*
check out valente, if you haven't before. she's the moorcock of this one, if anyone is, and if anything exists.
her website.
end of transmission.
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