Vic Smith

Therapeutic Benefits of Visionary Fiction – Examination – Part 3
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Therapeutic Benefits of Visionary Fiction – Examination – Part 3

This is part 3 of the Visionary Fiction as Personal Therapy Series, which was inspired after I learned about bibliotherapy in my psychology classes.  It led me to discover an article by Debbie McCullis in the February, 2014 issue of the Journal of Poetry Therapy.  McGullis listed  a four step process used in bibliotherapy, which…

Celebrating Visionary Fiction Pioneer Monty Joynes

Celebrating Visionary Fiction Pioneer Monty Joynes

Monty Joynes’ achievements are too many and his writings, Visionary Fiction and otherwise, too numerous and varied to cover in the space allotted to a single post. Here I can just hope to put enough, garnished with links leading deeper, to arouse VF authors to curiosity about the life and work of a writer who deserves to be studied and emulated as a stellar model of both the spirit and substance, the art and the craft, of visionary fiction.

Visionary and Metaphysical Fiction: Wedding Bells?
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Visionary and Metaphysical Fiction: Wedding Bells?

Perhaps those nerdy BISAC categorizers knew more than they let on when they gave VF and MF a joint address in their code. To paraphrase a famous biblical injunction: “What BISAC has joined together let no writer put asunder.” Instead of arguing whether it is VF or MF, perhaps we can settle for V&M, with separate studies and/or bedrooms provided for the persnickety.

VF as a Genre: Part 4 – Populating BISAC’s VF Category
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VF as a Genre: Part 4 – Populating BISAC’s VF Category

IN THE EARLIER SEGMENTS OF THIS SERIES we imparted good news (the up-and-coming BISAC system provides a high-level unique code for Visionary & Metaphysical Fiction) and bad news (authors and vendors don’t use the code often enough to make VF books easily accessible to readers). In this section I’ll follow up on the complexities of proper categorization and make some suggestions that will not handicap the individual VF author in the short run but build a robust VF collection in the near future.

VF as a Genre: Part 2-The BISAC Solution
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VF as a Genre: Part 2-The BISAC Solution

(The second of a three-part series that explores a hidden root of  the problem in popularizing Visionary Fiction as a genre and proposes a nifty ready-made solution to it.) Click link to read Part 1: The Fiction Prejudice Marketing Categories Since libraries aim to retain books and bookstores to sell them, no wonder a category system…

VF as a Genre: Part 1-The Fiction Prejudice
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VF as a Genre: Part 1-The Fiction Prejudice

(The first of a three-part series that explores a hidden root of  the problem in popularizing Visionary Fiction as a genre and proposes a nifty ready-made solution to it.) All Fiction to the Back of the Bus If you’ve felt that writing fiction is sometimes perceived as second-class to writing non-fiction, know that the apparent prejudice…

Carl Jung and Visionary Fiction (Part 2)
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Carl Jung and Visionary Fiction (Part 2)

To read or review “Carl Jung and Visionary Fiction, Part 1, click HERE. “Universal in Worldview and Scope” The VFA characterizes Visionary Fiction as “universal in worldview and scope.” The Jungian visionary novel “is not concerned with the individual even when it is written about an individual,” Keyes says. “Exploring the individual experience is a…

Carl Jung and Visionary Fiction (Part 1)
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Carl Jung and Visionary Fiction (Part 1)

Psychological Fiction versus Visionary Fiction It may come as a shock, or at least a revelation, to Visionary Fiction readers and writers that Carl Jung, the eminent Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology, defined Visionary Fiction and described it in detail in a lecture delivered in 1929, “Psychology and Literature,” included in the…