I'd like to see literary fiction express more of the new paradigm, as our society sees beyond the illusions perpetuated by mass media, and thus bring more comfort for people to discuss the new awareness. This is an except from my column post. See Mad Hatters Review for the full essay.

I am here suggesting that writers look around us, directly at the world, rather than looking through the lens of acceptability. We forget that familiar lens is there, as it has become so much a part of the commercial fiction market, mass media, polite conversation. We have become so used to it, most writers may not even think of setting the lens aside. But when we do, we may pioneer a field that will nourish the people out there who question what has become traditionally acceptable. We can write more honestly about the lives so many of us in our culture are experiencing. And more publishers can open up to such topics if we push together for this to be acceptable, and the audience is already there, as evidenced by the interest in learning from alternative media about subjects which are hidden by the filters of acceptability.

Of course, many writers write scatological, perversely sexual, searingly gory, or iconoclastic works that push the range of acceptability. There is much subversive literature about going beyond gender, or genre. I am asking for something even beyond that. I am calling for writers to take the chance of being laughed at by taking subjects seriously that are serious, but that can illicit nervous laughter among some people. Let’s don’t be afraid of those people. This covert training of the public to make fun of certain topics which challenge the status quo has been done in order to protect those who want to put one over on us, and thus making the subjects inapproachable is a way of hiding. Hiding the facts is a way of disempowering the public. Let’s empower ourselves instead. Let’s not be part of that training by the media. Let’s break out of that.