My tidbit from Malice Domestic today is really more "food for thought" than anything else. At the conference, there was a survey being handed out, asking folks if "cozy" should be replaced by some other term. For those not familiar with the term, a "cozy mystery" usually has an amateur sleuth (often female), no "on screen" or graphic blood, gore, or sex, and no (or very little) profanity. For further discussion of what goes into a cozy mystery check out Definition of a Cozy Mystery here or Writing the Cozy Mystery here.
Anyhow, there is a general feeling I've sensed (and heard expressed) that cozy mysteries do not get their due. That, in the world of crime fiction, "big thrillers," "literary mysteries," and so on are better respected, more heavily promoted, get the bigger bucks (in advances), and are higher on the review chain.
I'm not going to dive into that kettle of fish (or mangle any other idioms), but I do find it interesting that there's a belief that, by changing whatever you call this genre, you can somehow change how people view it. If we were to call cozy mysteries something else, they would still be what they are. If we labeled such mysteries as, oh, I don't know, "extreme mysteries" would it make a difference, do you think? Can you come up with another label for these sorts of cat-and-teapot traditional mysteries? (If you are still not sure what constitutes "cozy," think Jessica Fletcher and Cabot Cove).
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