My first book was sort of a Christian Agent Cody Banks. I got stumped when I tried to write the marketing proposal. I had no genre. At first I thought it was suspense. But it was also action/adventure. Or maybe an urban fantasy. Urban or contemporary fantasy? Was there a difference?

Since my spy kids story was driving me nuts, I wrote a book called Jason Farms. The same problem cropped up when it came to genre. Jason Farms is about a girl who discovers her father is working at a cloning lab. I was pretty sure this one had to be suspense. But wasn’t it also science fiction? What were Double Helix by Sigmund Brouwer or Blood of Heaven by Bill Myer considered? My next book was a medieval fantasy. Finally, something I could stick in a category without difficulty! But what kind of a random author was I trying to be, anyway? I kept stumbling onto these discussion on the ACFW loop about author branding and how important it was to write the same genre, at least at first.

At Mount Hermon 2007, I sat in on a workshop by Jeff Gerke who talked about “weird” fiction. My eyes got wide. Oh, yes. I liked the sound of this “weird” thing. It made a lot of sense. Turns out I wasn’t as random as I feared. I was, and am, a speculative fiction writer.

Aren’t you glad there is a genre that encompasses such variety? I sure am.