If 'cli-fi' genre term bothers some people in the sci-fi world because of what they perceive as its alleged 'clit-lit' weirdness, maybe try using ''CF'' as scifi uses ''SF'' - OPED

If the Cli-Fi term bothers people because of clit-lit weirdness, try using CF as scifi uses SF.

This idea was suggested to me by a top sci fi author in the Twitterverse!

It's a good alternative for this who still can't take the cli-fi term for what it is.

Just use CF.

Means CLIMATE FICTION, no?

https://pcillu101.blogspot.tw/2015/07/how-most-sci-fi-fans-react-negatively.html



'Cli-fi' still sometimes gets mistaken for ''clit-lit'' ('clitoris lit'?) even two years after NPR did the first major 'cli-fi' news piece...

 

In the long and intertwined history of genres, there's always been a lot humor involved in people's initial reactions to hearing or seeing the new term in print. Sometimes new terms boggle the mind. That's the nature of novelty, and that's the nature of language. It's always the reason the the gods invented humour.

Case in point: when LabLit was first introduced over in Britain, some wags and pundits were not exactly smitten by the new term right away, and some people even tweeted things like: "Lablit? I guess that's a new genre for lab rats!" and "Lablit? Uh, white coats anyone? Take those lab rats away! 'Lablit' will never catch on."

When "chicklit" first appeared on the publishing scene, a lot of people ribbed it for being "a BBQ chicken genre" and a lot of people still don't like the term. But it has its legions of fans and followers and many writers write in the genre loop as well. There's no predicting what works and what doesn't.

There are always naysayers and there is always humor. Thank the Goddess for humour!

Then there's YA, pronounced WHY ''A'' and standing, of course, for Young Adult novels. When it first appeared in the scene, some first reactions by newbies encountering the weird initialism for the very first time in print, said things like: "YA? What's that supposed to mean? First thing that came to mind was yadayadayada! It'll never catch on."

Now to the news at hand, so to speak.

With the rise of a new literary genre that's been dubbed "cli-fi," there's been very little backstabbing or naysaying, but there has been a lot of humor of the ''sometimes unprintable in a family newspaper''  kind. But the Twitterverse has take a liking to the cli-fi term and a simple google or Twitter search will reveal hundreds, thousands of cli-fi Tweets, posts, websites, blogs and opeds. But what interests me here is what's going on with some people on Twitter in terms of their first encountering the cli-fi term (which is pronounced just like sci-fi and is a shortening of "cli-mate fi-ction." Simple. Easy to read and easy to prnounce. Nothing sexy about it at all.

But welcome to the Cli-Fi Twitterverse where HUMOR rules the day, and it's fun to read the tweets.

One of the first people to tweet about cli-fi was the novelist Caitlin Kiernan in Providence, Rhode Island. She's a top American novelist, the author of several important novels, among them "The Drowning Girl" and "The Red Tree," both of which have recently been optioned for movies.

Author Kiernan, on first encountering the "cli-fi" term in print, took her Twitter feed to tell her friends and followers: ''Frankly, I see "cli-fi," and the first thing I think of is "clit-fic." But it's an established fact I have a dirty mind."

Ms. Kiernan's Twitter page lists her as ''author, paleontologist, humanist and atheist, bookworm, liberal, trigger, malcontent, lesbian, environmentalist." Her Wikipedia entry is detailed and full of book lists and interview links. I was happy to meet her on Twitter, and I liked her humorous cli-fi reaction, so I shot her a short ermail and asked her if I could print her Tweet on my blog and give her her name, or if she preferred to be listed as anonymous to protect privacy.

She wrote back to me in Internet Time and said via Twitter:

''Eh, you can quote me. Caitlín R. Kiernan tends to admit to her words.''

Via email she wrote: ''Please feel free to quote me, by name.''

 

So I did and I am. I like good honest people with a good sense of humor.

 

Caitlin also told me via email: ''My latest novel is 'The Drowning Girl: A Memoir' (published in 2012)."

 

Here is her Wikipedia page, too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caitl%C3%ADn_R._Kiernan

 

Now back to cli-fi and humor blog post I am writing. Not only am I posting this on my blog and tweeting the link around the world to all who might be interested in the humor of all this, I was also recently contacted by a reporter for Atlantic magazine in Boston who wants to do a culture piece on the way some people have initially reacted to first seeing or hearing the cli fi term in print. So get ready for a big national splash soon.

 

Some more examples of the kind of Kiernanian humor that I have also spotted on Twitter are online. You can find many more with a simple Twitter search for the terms "cli-fi" and "cli-lit", well, you know the drill....

And that's just the TIP of the iceberg. Twitter files have over 1,000 humour jibes at the rise of cli fi and it's fun. Without a sense of humor, where would humankind be?

 

So I want to thank novelist Caitlin Kiernan for her tweets and emails and her mantra of speaking her mind. I love that in her!