Perceptions and Contradictions: Author or Novelist?

I was interested (and, okay, a little peeved) to read an article in last week's Daily Telegraph magazine whereby a female writer was referred to as a novelist. This in itself is nothing to feel angst about, except that at the end of the piece, it said, 'Next week: author Adam Thirlwell.' And I thought, what makes her a novelist and him an author? Are the two terms truly interchangeable or do they have subtly different connotations?

To me, the description 'author' sounds more official, more respected, more… authoritative. I mean, the term 'authoritative' even has 'author' in it. Which suggests that to be an author is to be official.

Authoritative: (1) Accepted as a reliable source of knowledge; (2) having authority; official. 

Author: (1) The writer of a book, article, play, etc; (2) someone who writes professionally. 

Whereas 'novelist' just seems a bit more, well, relaxed. A novelist could be anybody, could cover anything. But an author? An author has a voice.

Is this true, though, really? My dictionary says:

Novelist: A writer of a novel or novels.

Novel: (1) A book length fictional story usually involving relationships between characters, their emotional crises and events concerning them; (2) such writing as a literary genre.

This belies my interpretation of the differences between 'author' and 'novelist'. It certainly doesn't make a novelist out to be anything less superior than an author. Except that novelists write fiction, whereas the term 'author' is more all-encompassing: it can include writers of fiction and non-fiction, writers of plays, writers of poetry.

My question is, why did the magazine refer to Samantha Shannon as a novelist and Adam Thirlwell as an author? If she wrote fiction and he wrote non-fiction, the difference would perhaps be clear. Except that's not the case. He also writes fiction; therefore, he is as much a novelist as she is. So why not call him a novelist too? Especially if being a novelist is no better or worse than being an author.

But is it? In my mind, despite the dictionary definitions above, a 'novelist' sits just a rung lower than an 'author'. Not because I think that that is the case (I do not, genuinely), but because that is the leaning that society has put onto the term 'novelist'. That somehow writers of fiction - or writers of fiction that is not literary - are not as 'good' as writers of everything else.

This, of course, brings us to the perceived difference between 'literary fiction' and 'genre fiction'. And perception is everything. Back to the dictionary:

Literary: (1) Referring or relating to, or concerned with literature or writing; (2) said of a person: knowing a great deal of canonical literature; (3) said of a word: formal.

Literature: (1) Written material, such as novels, poems and plays, that is valued for its language and content; (2) the whole body of a particular country or period in time; (3) the whole body of information published on a particular subject; (4) the art or works produced by a writer; any printed matter, especially advertising leaflets.

Genre: A particular type or kind of literature, music or other work.

The definition of literary indicates that anything concerned with writing can be literary, no matter it's content. But the first definition of literature indicates that the quality of language and content reflect on how 'literary' a piece of writing can be considered to be. This hits the nail on the head, I think: 'literary' works - the works an 'author' might produce - have a special quality of language and content, whilst the works of a 'novelist' might perhaps not reach this exalted standard. Even though the 4th definition of literature appears to contradict this interpretation, I'm inclined to say that the standards of 'literature' versus 'genre' are, again, perceived by society to be different.

Which brings me back to the question of why the Daily Telegraph might have chosen to refer to Samantha Shannon as a novelist and Adam Thirlwell as an author, and why this left me feeling peeved.  Because: (1) Samantha Shannon is a female writer while Adam Thirlwell a male writer (female writers being traditionally viewed as of lesser quality than male writers which is obviously a complete fallacy) and (2) Samantha Shannon writes sci-fi/fantasy while Adam Thirlwell's work is of a more 'literary' level (even though I think I've just demonstrated that, strictly speaking, no matter the 'genre' a writer piece of work is, by it's very definition, literary).

My point being that Samantha Shannon is every bit an author as Adam Thirlwell is; and Adam Thirlwell is every bit a novelist as Samantha Shannon is. It is only, perhaps, our perceptions of any difference between these two terms that makes any difference. So if they're ultimately the same thing, perhaps this discussion was completely pointless? Except, of course, that perception is everything, no matter the reality that lies underneath it.