'BAD WRITING': A one-day symposium on genre fiction and value

'BAD WRITING' is a one-day event bringing together scholars and practitioners to discuss the value judgements which accrue around genre fiction. Since the rise of a mass readership, the genre model has remained an obstinately successful and popular method of categorising fiction. Fictional formulas have been embraced by readers and writers alike. They have also faced accusations of laziness and inadequacy. But what claims are we making when we debate the worth of the generic? Is a bad detective novel necessarily a bad novel? Can we speak coherently of 'reading for the plot'? 'Bad Writing' seeks to unpack these tensions and use the idea of 'badness' to explore the richly nuanced interplay of reader, writer, community, and market expectations in genre fiction.

For more details, please see http://genrefictionsymposium.co.uk/.