I never think about genre when I work. I've written fantasy, science fiction, supernatural fiction, and am now working on a suspense novel. Genres are mostly useful as a marketing tool, and to help booksellers known where to shelve a book. Elizabeth Hand More Quotes by Elizabeth Hand More Quotes From Elizabeth Hand But talent—if you don't encourage it, if you don't train it, it dies. It might run wild for a little while, but it will never mean anything. Like a wild horse. If you don't tame it and teach it to run on track, to pace itself and bear a rider, it doesn't matter how fast it is. It's useless. Elizabeth Hand horse running mean There is a love of wood, as of other things that do not answer to our touch. Elizabeth Hand woods answers I went to college to study drama where I discovered I had no talent and after a period of dropping out majored in cultural anthropology which of course meant more masks and dancing. I studied what interested me and so I had to become a writer because my education had left me unsuited for a decent well-paying job. Elizabeth Hand college jobs drama The irruption of the supernatural into our world is a much more enticing notion to explore than the same thing happening in some past time, or in a wholly imaginary world. Elizabeth Hand notion our-world past Real myths are often strange and startlingly unfamiliar, and don't always give up their meanings easily; you have to tease them out, and for me, that's one of the pleasures of reading older collections of lore. Elizabeth Hand giving-up real reading I wanted to have very strong female characters. I just thought it was always the way the world should be. Elizabeth Hand strong character world It sounds creepy, but I always liked the idea of disappearing then becoming something new. That of course was before I disappeared. Elizabeth Hand creepy sound ideas Endless longing; a face you'd known since childhood, since birth almost; a body that moved as though it were your own. These were things you never spoke of, things you never hoped for; things you could never admit to. Things you'd die for, and die of. Elizabeth Hand childhood body faces You build a character, a shell, and if you build it right, something comes to live inside it. Elizabeth Hand shells ifs character I was a tomboy as a kid - I was skinny and had cropped hair and was often mistaken for a boy - and up until I was about six, I had my own very fluid ideas of gender in that I believed that, somehow, an individual could choose whether or not s/he wanted to be a boy or a girl. Elizabeth Hand gender girl hair ideas I didn't read much SF as a kid - I was a total Tolkien geek - but I started reading Samuel Delany and Angela Carter and Ursula LeGuin in high school, and I was definitely taken with the notion that here was a literature that could explore various notions of gender identity and how it affects the culture at large. Elizabeth Hand gender identity culture school I read '1984' at a precocious age, like 8, and when I did the math, I realized that Julia, Winston Smith's lover, was born the same year I was, 1957. I read that book over and over again with the 1960s as a backdrop: anti-war and anti-bomb protests and this general pervasive sense of doom. Elizabeth Hand year born age book I still love it. I love lots of other music, too, and always have, but punk's the soundtrack of my youth. I think you never escape the music you're listening to and seeing when you're seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years old. Elizabeth Hand you youth music love I love artists. I find them fascinating. To me, there really is a genuine magic in what they do. Elizabeth Hand me genuine magic love I've always wanted to write an airport book. Elizabeth Hand airport write always book