Sorry, I've only just had an e-mail about replies to this thread, so Ani, I didn't see your request for more info about 20 years ago!! If you still want more info, let me know!

Magg, I can pretty confidently say that Graham, the MA course directot at Lancaster is not a literary snob at all (he was my tutor) and I'm pretty sure you'd be taken seriously as a crime writer.

Cath

I think genre is a game it's better to avoid playing, though the industry will try to make you, and the creative writers sometimes use it as a rather reductive shorthand. There are Crimes in Dickens after all, and you could make a case for A Midsummer Night's Dream as Fantasy. (But I'm over-sensitive because my novels involve a lot of history, sex and love, but I'd rather than die than call it historical romance, because everyone would think it was Barbara Cartland!)