I'm not sure I could write a straight urban fantasy any more than I could write a straight contemporary story. I would end up being intimidated by all the small details.
In the publishing sense, 'urban fantasy' does not mean 'black,' and that's pretty ironic, considering that it's a euphemism everywhere else. It would be great to get that back.
I think a lot of people want people who actually have qualities they don't find attractive as a way of being able to change them. It's fascinating, because people think if they can change the other person, they can change themselves. It's a complex phenomenon. It's a fantasy that's actually about being able to come to terms with ourselves.
Sometimes the fantasy writers set their novels in an ancient Earth, sometimes a parallel Earth, or, quite often, they offered no explanation at all as to the temporal and geographic location.
Building on the work of George Macdonald, William Morris and Edward Plunkett, what became known as high fantasy was more or less invented by J. R. R. Tolkien.
The more we're governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible. Or, what's impossible? What's a fantasy?
