Slipstream
Whilst grazing on the newsgroup rec.arts.sf.composition I ran across a thread that referred to a kind of writing called "Slipstream" and out of curiosity I went Web-searching for definitions of the term. I was amazed and excited to discover that I've been writing slipstream all my adult life, without knowing that anyone else had ever identified it as a thing of its own, or given it a name! Bruce Sterling had an article on it, not at all recently, in Catscan. He listed a number of authors and works he considered slipstream, and many of my favorites were there. Until then I thought the only place those works could be found side by side was on my bookshelves. Here's the article. (Try your own websearch for "slipstream" and "sterling" to find more, if the genre interests you.)It was a revelation. A revelation that I have no idea what to do with--I already knew who published those works, and the one thing they seem to have in common is that they aren't interested in publishing any more works like them by anyone whose name isn't already famous. So it doesn't do me a lot of practical good. But it is somehow encouraging, to have a word to apply to my work, and I can always hope that some new small-press house will decide to start a slipstream product line and encourage new writers. (I almost wrote new young writers, but let's face it, my young writer days passed without anyone picking up on me.)