Cross- Pollination
Imagine, for a moment, that you’re standing on top of a grassy hill. Spread out before you is a vast meadow of wildflowers. It’s an ocean of undulating color—slow, kaleidoscopic waves as far as the eye can see. It’s the peak of summer and the fragrant breeze smells of fertility—rich soil and uninhibited growth.
That sprawling meadow is the current landscape of popular fiction.
The golden yellows of mainstream fiction are everywhere—patches of daisies and towering sunflowers—but so, too, are the various shades of genre fiction. The scarlet sage, red poppies and crimson clover scattered about constitute romance. Fantasy is blue sage and chicory. The whites of wild carrot and wood anemone are science fiction. Purple flowers like cow vetch and violets are mystery and thrillers. The orange of the tiger lilies is horror.
It’s a spectacular sight, and if you look closer, you’ll notice vast stretches where the flowers have cross-pollinated to create new blooms with multi-colored petals of varying sizes and shapes. The beauty of this new, hybrid flora is breathtaking—reds blending with
