> If authors who have the choice overwhelmingly prefer to position their works as "literary" rather than "genre" when they could fit into either category, doesn

> If authors who have the choice overwhelmingly prefer to position their works as "literary" rather than "genre" when they could fit into either category, doesn't that say there's something asymmetric about how we treat the two? Well, as the article says, "literary fiction is one of the larger chunks of the popular adult fiction pie." "Literary" fiction can reach a larger audience. Anecdotally, it's pretty common for me to hear an SF novel recommendation given with the proviso, "it's not like other science fiction." There's a larger audience for "fiction in general" than for speculative fiction, so it makes sense that authors would reach for that larger piece of the pie.