Print Run Podcast · Erik Hane and Laura Zats

Episode 183—The Only Genre Is My Feelings

·31 min·2 clips

They conclude that genre words signal audience, canon, and structure more than magic itself.

Print Run begins the new year on a sober note. Eric Hain and Laura Zatz acknowledge the murder in South Minneapolis and the occupation of their city by ICE before they do anything else, and that hard reality becomes a bridge into a more abstract but still practical conversation about how genre labels work in publishing. The question is slippery. The hosts spend much of the episode teasing apart whether a book with only a small speculative element should be called surrealist fiction, historical fantasy, or historical fantasy with speculative elements, and they keep circling back and restating themselves because the point is not to land on a slogan but to keep testing where the category edges actually sit. History changes the pressure. Eric and Laura argue that fantasy details in historical fiction carry a different burden of believability than they would in contemporary fiction, and they use examples like a sentient scarecrow to show how a tiny fantastical turn can feel either obvious or strange depending on the setting. The distinction matters. They treat the gap between a big high-fantasy world and a book with only a little spice on top as a real editorial problem, not just a matter of taste, and that lets the episode move easily between reader expectations, submission language, and the way different publishing houses want to describe the same manuscript. The talk stays loose. It feels like two industry people thinking out loud together, with quick corrections, small jokes, and plenty of "wait, maybe" energy that keeps the conversation from hardening into received wisdom. Then they turn sharper. The back half of the episode becomes a complaint about nonfiction and the habit of announcing lessons too early, with Eric and Laura pushing back on the idea that readers need publishers to underline the moral before the story can be trusted. Readers get defended. The hosts argue, with some irritation and a little humor, that fiction should be handed to readers cleanly and left for them to interpret rather than steered toward the approved meaning. The rant has momentum. Eric in particular sounds increasingly ready to keep going, and Laura keeps the exchange moving just enough that the episode stays conversational instead of collapsing into one long complaint. The ending leaves room. They wrap by promising that the full nonfiction rant of 2026 can happen later if Eric can be sufficiently worked up, which gives the episode a neat sense of unfinished business. The tone stays human. For listeners who like book-world arguments that are specific, slightly sardonic, and grounded in how publishing actually works, it is an easy episode to recommend.

As heard by us

A sharp genre debate that stays grounded, funny, and attentive to how books get labeled.

Print Run starts with a nod to the Twin Cities week and then settles into a sharp, low-key question: what should a book be called when its speculative touch is small but still matters?

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For the listener who wants politics up top, a light historical-fantasy question in the middle, and a publisher-label rant at the end.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Print Run Podcast