In the Media, April 2017, Part Two

In the media is a fortnightly round-up of features written by, about or containing female writers that have appeared during the previous fortnight and I think are insightful, interesting and/or thought provoking. Linking to them is not necessarily a sign that I agree with everything that’s said but it’s definitely an indication that they’ve made me think. I’m using the term ‘media’ to include social media, so links to blog posts as well as as traditional media are likely and the categories used are a guide, not definitives.

Photograph by Pari Dukovic

The Handmaid’s Tale is having a moment due to the television serial airing this coming week and the current political situation in America (and beyond).

• Madeleine Davies, ‘The Misogynist Future of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale Feels Terrifyingly Within Reach‘ on Jezebel
• Rebecca Mead, ‘Margaret Atwood, the Prophet of Dystopia‘ in The New Yorker
• Rebecca Mead, ‘Margaret Atwood’s Grimly Relevant Additions to “The Handmaid’s Tale” Audiobook‘ in The New Yorker
• Katrina Onstad, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale: A Newly Resonant Dystopia Comes to TV‘ in The New York Times
• Willa Paskin reviews the show on Slate
• Anne Helen Peterson, ‘The Radical Feminist Aesthetic Of “The Handmaid’s Tale”‘ on Buzzfeed
• Emily Temple, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale Adapts More than the Novel: Here Is America‘ on Literary Hub

As one series begins, another ended this week:

• Emma Gannon, ‘It’s time to move on from ‘Girls’…but I’ll always love Lena‘ in Glamour
• Sophie Gilbert, ‘What Was Missing From the Girls Finale‘ on The Atlantic
• Erica Jong, ‘Why Do Female Characters Have to Be “Likeable”‘ on the BBC
• Anna Leszkiewicz, ‘The final episode of Girls revealed Hannah Horvath’s two most important relationships‘ in the New Statesman
• Halima Marcus, ‘The Very Best Episodes of Girls Are Perfect Short Stories‘ on Electric Literature
• Jia Tolentino, ‘On Finally Watching “Girls”, A Different and Better Show than I’d Been Led to Imagine‘ in The New Yorker
• Elizabeth Wurtzel, ‘Of course ‘Girls’ spoke to my life. Its brilliance is that it could speak to everyone’s‘ in The Washington Post

And in women win prizes, ‘Heather Rose wins the Stella Prize for a novel that wouldn’t ‘let her go’‘ as reported by The Sydney Morning Herald.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Negar Azimi, ‘The Extravagant Jane Bowles: Always on the Edge of Something‘ in The New York Times
• Megan Mayhew Bergman, ‘The Feminine Heroic‘ on The Paris Review
• Joanna Cannon, ‘Breaking and Mending‘ on her blog
• Sarah Churchwell, ‘Sylvia Plath, a voice that can’t be silenced‘ in The Guardian
• Paula Cocozza, ‘21st-century fox: how nature’s favourite outsider seduced the suburbs‘ in The Guardian
• Deidre Coyle, ‘Men Recommend David Foster Wallace to Me‘ on Electric literature
• Meghan Daum, ‘The Quality of Life Report, 2017‘ on VQR
• Adyita Desi, ‘Woman with Power Is Woman Unchecked: Reading Narratives of Indian Women‘ on The Millions
• Lissa Evans, ‘How my novel about film-making was turned into a film‘ in The Guardian
• Merve Fejzula, ‘Zadie Smith and Multiculturalism after Brexit‘ on Black Perspectives
• Elizabeth Fremantle, ‘“Cringing” Historical Novelists: on Mantel at the Oxford Lit Fest‘ on The History Girls
• Sarah Gerard, ‘Mourning My Grandfather Through The Velveteen Rabbit‘ on Literary Hub
• Louise Glück, ‘On Realism and Fantasy‘ on Literary Hub
• Sophie Hopesmith, ‘Women Who Shock‘ on Dead Ink Books
• Terry Huang, ‘Gender Gap in Non-Professional Writer Submissions‘ on The Black List
• Danielle Jackson, ‘Life in North Memphis, and the Women Who Taught Me to Read‘ on Literary Hub
• Lucy Mangan, ‘This way to the ginger pop shop! The day I stepped into the pages of the Famous Five‘ in The Guardian
• Edie Meidav, ‘Discovering the Power of Storytelling in a Tattered Old Pulp Paperback‘ on Literary Hub
• Jennifer Mills, ‘The beauty regimen of a woman writer‘ on Overland
• Eilis O’Hanlon, ‘“She’s a thief who steals others’ hard-won words” – on the plagiarist who stole her novel‘ in The Irish Independent
• Sarah Paretsky, ‘From Joan of Arc to Little Women, A History of Heroes‘ on Literary Hub
• Pamela Paul, ‘Why You Should Read Books You Hate‘ in The New York Times
• Grace Payley, ‘Of Poetry and Women and the World‘ on FSG Work in Progress
• Ella Risbridger, ‘The letters Sylvia Plath wrote to her therapist are not ours to see‘ on The Pool
• Michèle Roberts, ‘The fallen woman: prostitution in literature‘ in The Guardian
• Lucy Scholes, ‘The Sisters Who Are Secretly Evil‘ on the BBC
• Doree Shafrir, ‘Not Everyone Is Meant To Have A Book Club‘ on Buzzfeed
• Kathryn Schultz, ‘Literature’s Arctic Obsession‘ in The New Yorker
• Rebecca Solnit, ‘Get That Life: How I Became a Writer, Historian, and Activist‘ in Cosmopolitan
• Sarah K. Stephens, ‘What Edith Wharton Taught Me about Marriage‘ on The Millions
• Beth Underdown, ‘Not From Around There: finding a place in historical fiction‘ on Northern Soul
• Saskia Vogel, ‘The Swedish Gangster’s Wife’s Bag‘ on The Paris Review
• Kyle Winkler, ‘Gertrude Stein: Unlikely Comp Teacher‘ on The Millions

Personal essays/memoir:

• Pearl Abraham, ‘Dreams of My Mother for One Last Passover‘ on Literary Hub
• Kerri Arsenault, ‘Growing Up in Maine’s “Cancer Valley”‘ on Literary Hub
• Jami Attenberg, ‘How Sicily Cemented an Unlikely Friendship‘ in The New York Times
• DeMisty D. Bellinger, ‘Tell Me Something Good‘ on The Rumpus
• Katie Booth, ‘The Bathrobe: On Quilting and Memory‘ on Catapult
• Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza, ‘The Law of Historical Memory​’ on Catapult
• Elizabeth Crain, ‘On Girls, Trump, and Everyone I Ever Dated Before My Husband‘ on Literary Hub
• Elizabeth Ellen, ‘Messages for a Balloon: On Relocation and Families‘ on Catapult
• Jennifer Epperson, ‘When Good Hair Is Natural Hair‘ on Lenny
• Megan Galbraith, ‘Sin Will Find You Out‘ on Catapult
• Deepti Kapoor, ‘I Come from a Place on Your Bucket List‘ in Granta
• Maris Kreizman, ‘My “Sick” Body‘ on Medium
• Andrea Lauren, ‘Don’t Think Twice and the Power of Improvising Through the Unknown‘ on The Rumpus
• Vivien Lee, ‘The Loneliness Recipe‘ on Hazlitt
• Kimberly Melton, ‘Good Hair‘ on Oregon Humanities
• Grace Prassad, ‘Feathers from Home, and Other Family Heirlooms‘ on Catapult
• Elisabeth Sherman, ‘Am I Asian Enough?‘ on Catapult
• Tasha Kerry Smith, ‘Not Everything Legal is Clean‘ on Catapult
• Madeleine Thien, ‘The Land in Winter‘ on Granta
• Lidia Yuknavitch, ‘Civic Memory, Feminist Future‘ on Electric Literature
• Lidia Yuknavitch, ‘I Will Always Inhabit the Waters‘ on Literary Hub
• Iza Wojciechowska, ‘Family Trees‘ on Vela
• Laura Zera, ‘Waiting to Go Home: On Being a Traveler in Trinidad‘ on Catapult

Feminism:

• Laura Bates, ‘What I have learned from five years of Everyday Sexism‘ in The Guardian
• Sady Doyle, ‘Women Don’t Need to Apologize Less—Men Need to Learn How to Apologize‘ in Elle
• Petula Dvorak, ‘On Easter, Mary Magdalene will be maligned as a prostitute. Except she wasn’t‘ in The Washington Post
• Jean Hannah Edelstein, ‘It feels almost impossible to escape the desire to make my body smaller‘ on The Pool
• Ashley C. Ford, ‘Millennial Women Are Conflicted About Being Breadwinners‘ on Refinery29
• Hadley Freeman, ‘Successful, lairy, scary – what does a vulnerable woman look like?‘ in The Guardian
• Ann Friedman, ‘When Women Pursue Sex, Even Men Don’t Get It‘ on The Cut
• Maya Harris, ‘Equal Pay Day Isn’t a Holiday. It’s a Call to Fight.‘ on Lenny
• Maddie Holden, ‘Why the Sentiment Behind Cosmopolitan’s Appalling Diet Tweet Is Not Unusual‘ on HighSnobiety
• Rachel Holmes, ‘A new feminist statue is a great idea. Shame they picked the wrong feminist‘ in The Guardian
• Brionne Janae, ‘No One Looks for Black Girls‘ on Bitch Media
• Jennifer McShane, ‘Why We’re Done With The Idea Of “Likeable” Women‘ on Image
• Vonny Moyes, ‘Why sex for rent is not a deal like any other‘ in The National
• Leslie Nguyen-Okwu, ‘The Forgotten Language that Only Women Once Knew‘ on Ozy
• Emer O’Toole, ‘The Sisters of Charity presided over abuse. They must not run a maternity hospital‘ in The Guardian
• Kate Ristow, ‘Why Didn’t I Get Help for Postpartum Depression Sooner?‘ on The Cut
• Sophie Walker, ‘Brexit will be disastrous for women unless we fight the rollback of our rights‘ in The Guardian

Photograph by Adrienne Mathiowetz

Society and Politics:

• Eula Biss, ‘Murder Mystery‘ in The TLS
• Caren Chesler, ‘The Blood of the Crab‘ on Popular Mechanics
• Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, ‘My generation has to choose between a child or a career. We can’t afford both‘ in The Guardian
• Caitlin Flanagan, ‘How Late-Night Comedy Fueled the Rise of Trump‘ on The Atlantic
• Elisa Gabbert, ‘Earth Is Not Vengeful—It’s Just Indifferent‘ on Pacific Standard
• Erika Hayasaki, ‘How a Single Gene Could Become a Volume Knob for Human Suffering‘ on Wired
• Gaby Hinsliff, ‘The viral image of Saffiyah Khan is an antidote to an era of escalating male rage‘ on The Pool
• Kate Imbach, ‘Fairytale Prisoner by Choice: The Photographic Eye of Melania Trump‘ on Medium
• Sarah Kendzior, ‘Trump craves praise. We praise him for bombings. What possibly could go wrong?‘ in The Globe and the Mail
• Sarah Lyall, ‘Will London Fall?‘ in The New York Times
• Eimear McBride, ‘in the West Bank: “All that is human in me recoils from this”‘ in The Irish Times
• Rachel Monroe, ‘#Vanlife, the Bohemian Social-Media Movement‘ in The New Yorker
• Suzanne Moore, ‘In dark times, this image has a glorious message – resistance is not futile‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah Nicole Prickett, ‘Free the Roses‘ on Hazlitt
• Jana G. Pruden, ‘A Radical Grief‘ in The Globe and the Mail
• Sarah Scholes, ‘Brain-Altering Science and the Search for a New Normal‘ on Pacific Standard
• Elif Shafak, ‘Turkey could be about to leap from division to despotism‘ in The Guardian
• Sonia Weiser, ‘Do Women Actually Wear Men’s Dress Shirts After Sex?‘ on Racked

Film, Television, Music, Art, Fashion and Sport:

• Sarah Barker, ‘The Brutality of the Barkley Marathons‘ on Deadspin
• Angelica Jade Bastíen, ‘What the Debate Around Black American and British Actors Gets Wrong‘ on Vulture
• Francine Prose, ‘“Sex and the City” in Hell‘ in The New York Review of Books
• Fariha Róisín, ‘Kids Like Us‘ on Hazlitt
• Donna Seaman, ‘Surrealist Gertrude Abercrombie, Queen of the Bohemian Artists‘ on Literary Hub

The interviews/profiles:

• Sara Ahmed on Literary Hub
• Diana Athill on Lenny Letter
• Jennifer Finney Boylan on Vice
• Durga Chew-Bose in The Guardian and on Literary Hub
• Patty Yumi Cottrell in The Paris Review and on Electric Literature
• Jessa Crispin in The Observer and on Vox
• Rachel Dolezal (interviewed by Ijeoma Oluo) on The Stranger
• Sarah Gerard on Electric Literature
• Zoe Gilbert on The Word Factory
• Camilla Grudova on Minor Literature[s]
• Paula Hawkins on Northern Soul
• L.S. Hilton on The Pool
• Donna Leon in The Guardian
• Deborah Levy in The TLS
• Alia Malek in Gurenica
• Helen McClory on The Skinny
• Lisa McInerney in The Guardian and on TSS Publishing
• Dorthe Nors on The Man Booker Prize and Words Without Borders
• Hanna Nowinski on Teen Vogue
• Sarah Perry in The Radio Times
• Claudia Rankine in The Paris Review
• Emma Ramadan on Conversational Reading
• Samantha Schweblin on Words Without Borders
• Shanthi Sekaran on The Rumpus
• Olivia Sudjic on Flavorwire
• Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan on The Rumpus
• Angie Thomas on The Rumpus
• Mónica de la Torre on Literary Hub
• Laura Waddell on Nothing in the Rule Book
• Joanna Walsh on Review 31
• Lidia Yuknavitch on Electric Literature

The regular columnists:

• Ijeoma Oluo on The Establishment
• Lucy Mangan in Stylist
• Roxane Gay in The Guardian US
• Caitlin Moran in The Times
• Ella Risbridger in The Pool
• Sali Hughes in The Pool
• Bim Adewunmi in The Guardian
• Sophie Heawood in The Guardian
• Eva Wiseman in The Observer
• Tracey Thorn in The New Statesman
• Chimene Suleyman and Maya Goodfellow on Media Diversified
• Josie Pickens on Ebony
• Lizzy Kremer on Publishing for Humans
• Juno Dawson in Glamour
• Louise O’Neill in the Irish Examiner
• Jendella Benson on Media Diversified
• Lola Okolosie in The Guardian
• Sarah Gerard, ‘Mouthful‘ on Hazlitt
• Books by Women We’d Love to See in English on Literary Hub

The Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction Longlist 2017

It’s after midnight and I’m on a train, typing this on my phone. The Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction Longlist 2017 has just been announced and my initial thought is: wow.

Wow that books I loved and hoped would be on the list are there: Midwinter by Fiona Melrose; The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry; The Power by Naomi Alderman; Stay With Me by Ayòbámi Adébáyo; First Love by Gwendoline Riley; The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride; Little Deaths by Emma Flint.

Wow that I predicted seven of the list – my highest score ever.

Wow that there are 16 books, rather than the promised 12. It shows that the past 12 months have been exceptional for writing by women. However, with just over three weeks until the shortlist announcement, it does make things challenging for the Shadow Panel.

And wow that Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi isn’t on the list. Every year this prize misses an exceptional book and this is a stunning omission, made all the more noticeable when there are only three books by women of colour on a list of sixteen.

The list in full. I’ve linked to my reviews for those I’ve already covered and will add to this as I read the rest:

First Love – Gwendoline Riley

Stay With Me – Ayòbámi Adébáyo

Do Not Say We Have Nothing – Madeleine Thien

The Essex Serpent – Sarah Perry

The Dark Circle – Linda Grant

The Lesser Bohemians – Eimear McBride

The Mare – Mary Gaitskill

Barkskins – Annie Proulx

The Power – Naomi Alderman

Little Deaths – Emma Flint

The Woman Next Door – Yewande Omotoso

Hag-Seed – Margaret Atwood

The Gustav Sonata – Rose Tremain

The Lonely Hearts Hotel – Heather O’Neill

Midwinter – Fiona Melrose

The Sport of Kings – C.E. Morgan

My Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2017 Wishlist

It’s almost that time of year again; The Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist is announced on International Women’s Day, Wednesday 8th March. Once again, I’ll be charing a shadow panel, the other members of which I’ll introduce on Friday. Before both of those things though, I’m going to have a stab in the dark at what might be on the longlist. My success rate is why I refer to this post as my wishlist as opposed to a prediction.

This year the longlist has been reduced from 20 to 12 titles, making it easier to read along and debate what might make the shortlist. Eligible titles are those published between the 1st April 2016 and the 31st March 2017 and written in English.

I’ve reviewed all of the titles I’ve chosen except Stay With Me by Ayòbámi Adébáyò, which I’ll review this week, and Autumn by Ali Smith (which I’ve read but not yet reviewed); click on the covers of the other books to read my reviews.

In the Media, January 2017

In the media is a fortnightly round-up of features written by, about or containing female writers that have appeared during the previous fortnight and I think are insightful, interesting and/or thought provoking. Linking to them is not necessarily a sign that I agree with everything that’s said but it’s definitely an indication that they’ve made me think. I’m using the term ‘media’ to include social media, so links to blog posts as well as as traditional media are likely and the categories used are a guide, not definitives.

Image by Abigail Grey Swartz

Where is there to start other than with articles about the new American regime?

On the Women’s March:

• Paula Akpan, ‘Women’s March and the Selective Memory of Mainstream Feminism‘ on Galdem
• Ijeoma Oluo, ‘When You Brag That The Women’s Marches Were Nonviolent‘ on The Establishment
• Ashley Weatherford, ‘What Does It Take to Make You March?‘ on The Cut
• Kara Brown, ‘I Want to Trust the Women’s Marchers‘ on Jezebel
• Stephanie Boland, ‘What will happen to women’s rights now that Donald Trump is President?‘ in The New Statesman
• Zoë Beaty, ‘Why are we still so surprised when men stand up for women’s rights?‘ on The Pool
• Josephine Livingstone, ‘The Problem With “Pussy”‘ on New Republic
• Janet Mock’s Speech on The Cut
• Gaby Hinsliff, ‘How Susanna and Piers came to represent reason versus populism‘ on The Pool
• Sady Doyle, ‘The March Was Flawed and Messy and Glorious‘ in Elle
• Ann Friedman, ‘Was This Your First March? Don’t Stop Now.‘ on The Cut
• Rebecca Traister, ‘The Future of the Left Is Female‘ on The Cut
• Bim Adewunmi, ‘The Road Women Marched On This Weekend Was Paved By Black Resistance‘ on Buzzfeed
• Vonny Moyes, ‘Why do we still march, you ask? Because there’s still work to do‘ in The National
• Zoe Williams, ‘Memo to Piers Morgan: Why do we march? It’s not just protest, it’s about love‘ in The Guardian
• Jia Tolentino, ‘The Radical Possibility of The Women’s March‘ in The New Yorker
• Angela Davis’ Speech on Elle
• Megan Garber, ‘The Inauguration, and the Counter-Inauguration‘ on The Atlantic
• Eve Ensler, ‘The Women’s March heralds a renaissance of resistance‘ in The Guardian
• Rebecca Traister, ‘The Complicated, Controversial, Historic, Inspiring Women’s March‘ in The Cut
• Poorna Bell, ‘As A Woman Of Colour, This Is What Women’s March London Means To Me‘ on Huffington Post
• Lauren Elkin, ‘When women march, they are seen. And they are heard‘ on The Pool
• Heidi Mitchell, ‘I’m Anti-Trump, But I Refuse to March‘ in The Cut
• Ann Friedman, ‘A March Can Change Your Life‘ in The Cut
• Linda Sarsour, ‘#WhyIMarch‘ on Women’s Media Centre

On Melania:

• Megan Garber, ‘On Pitying Melania‘ on The Atlantic
• Jess Zimmerman, ‘Compassion for Melania Is Misguided — But It Isn’t Wrong‘ on The Cut
• Roxana Robinson, ‘Donald Trump: Making the Word ‘Pussy’ Great Again, Bigly‘ on Literary Hub
• Marisa Bate, ‘Should we feel sorry for Melania Trump?‘ on The Pool

On American society under Trump:

• Camille Dungy, ‘Unwelcome in My Country, Unwelcome in My Church‘ on Literary Hub
• Mehrsa Baradaran, ‘I Was a “Terrorist Country” Refugee Who’d Grown Up Shouting “Death to America.” America Trusted Me Anyway.‘ on Slate
• Andrea Pitzer, ‘What We Get Wrong About Hannah Arendt‘ on Longreads
• Lee Matalone, ‘R.I.P. #8: Inauguration Day‘ on The Rumpus
• Rebecca Traister, ‘Fake News, Fake Science and Why Doctors Lie About Abortion‘ on The Cut
• Tyrese Coleman, ‘How I Lost My Hometown‘ on Catapult
• Marilynne Robinson, ‘With President Trump, American democracy faces its greatest test‘ in The Guardian
• Yaa Gyasi, ‘Why the next four years will be a test for all of us‘ in The Guardian
• Katie MacBride, ‘Why Today Feels Like Grieving The Loss Of A Loved One‘ on The Establishment
• Lisa Ko, ‘20 Lessons on How to Be American‘ on The Offing
• June Eric-Udorie, ‘Nobody can inspire like Michelle Obama can inspire‘ on The Pool
• Ann Patchett, ‘Barack Obama, Our President of Love‘ in Time
• Alana Semuels, ‘Do Regulations Really Kill Jobs?‘ on The Atlantic
• Kathryn VanArendonk, ‘Why You Should Watch Donald Trump’s Inauguration‘ on Vulture
• Allison Robicelli, ‘I Work in the Restaurant Industry. Obamacare Saved My Family’s Life.‘ on Eater
• Sady Doyle, ‘It’s Time to Take Sexism Seriously as a Political Force‘ in Elle
• Emily Ladau, ‘I’m A Disabled Woman Who’s NOT Celebrating Meryl Streep’s Golden Globes Speech‘ on The Establishment
• Gaby Hinsliff, ‘Meryl Streep’s anti-Trump speech is brave and brilliant in the face of intimidation ‘ on The Pool
• Rebecca Traister, ‘WARNING: Abortion’s Deadly DIY Past Could Soon Become Its Future‘ in The Cut

On Trump:

• Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin, ‘Like any woman working with a misogynist, Theresa May should call out Donald Trump’s sexism‘ in The New Statesman
• Adrienne Lafrance, ‘Calling Out a Presidential Lie‘ in The Atlantic
• Laurie Penny, ‘Searching for Time-Travelers on the Eve of the Trump Inauguration‘ on Pacific Standard
• Olga Kazan, ‘How to Overcome Political Irrationality About Facts‘ on The Atlantic
• Ruby Lott-Lavigna, ‘What does it mean for a leader when their entire country’s music culture rejects them?‘ in The New Statesman
• Jill Abramson, ‘‘Alternative facts’ are just lies, whatever Kellyanne Conway claims‘ in The Guardian
• Robin Wright, ‘Trump’s Vainglorious Affront to the C.I.A.‘ in The New Yorker
• Molly Crabapple, ‘Trump’s here. We have four years to write a better story‘ in The Guardian
• Helen Lewis, ‘Stop saying identity politics caused Trump‘ in The New Statesman
• Sara Nović, ‘Rhyme & Reason: Sign Language’s Anti-Authoritarian Streak‘ in Blunderbuss
• Molly Ball, ‘Welcome to the Trump Presidency‘ on The Atlantic
• Mona Eltahawy, ‘Welcome to a new era of politically sanctioned patriarchy‘ in The Guardian
• Sabine Heinlein, ‘A Prisoner’s View of the Trump Administration‘ on Literary Hub
• Amanda Hess, ‘Trump, Twitter and the Art of His Deal‘ in The New York Times
• Rebecca Solnit, ‘From Lying to Leering‘ in The LRB
• Dani Garavelli, ‘May caught in Trump’s post-truth trap‘ in The Scotsman

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Roxane Gay, ‘On Empathy, Race, and the Work of Alice Childress‘ on Literary Hub
• Sarah Perry, ‘‘I was weak, despairing, confused’: did writing a novel make me ill?‘ in The Guardian
• Sheila Kohler, ‘After losing my sister to a violent death, I turned to the solace of writing‘ on The Pool
• Lyz Lenz, ‘Taking a Stand with Roxane‘ on The Rumpus
• Julie Scelfo, ‘How Clara Hale and Audre Lorde Helped to Make New York‘ on Literary Hub
• Mariah Stovall, ‘On Falling Out of Love with Punk (and in Love with Books)‘ on Literary Hub
• Manjula Martin, ‘Against Fame: On Publishing, Popularity, and Ambition‘ on Catapult
• Melissa Febos, ‘The Heart-Work: Writing About Trauma as a Subversive Act‘ on Poets & Writers
• Adelia Saunders, ‘The Power and Politics of Language, from Oppressor to Oppressed‘ on Literary Hub
• Ottessa Moshfegh, ‘Finding Meaning in Going Nowhere‘ on The Atlantic
• Amanda Coe, ‘The Body in the Frame‘ on Huffington Post
• Sarah Hughes, ‘People, the final frontier: how sci-fi is taking on the human condition‘ in The Guardian
• ‘Meet the new faces of fiction for 2017‘ in The Guardian
• Clare Thorp, ‘Why we still need bookshops – in 2017 and always‘ on The Pool
• Diana Athill,’on Molly Keane: ‘I admired many authors. But Molly, I loved’‘ in The Guardian
• Janine Mikosza, ‘How Not to Speak Polish: On Language, Pain and (Not) Writing Memoir‘ on Electric Literature
• Christina Sharpe, ‘The Weather‘ on The New Enquiry
• Teow Lim Goh, ‘Tenacity, the Key to the Writing Life‘ on Literary Hub
• Danuta Keen, ‘The Da Vinci Code code: what’s the formula for a bestselling book?‘ in The Guardian
• Samantha Ellis, ‘How sibling rivalry made Anne the ‘neglected’ Brontë‘ on Penguin
• Anna Mazzola, ‘Bad Women: Do We Still Demonise Female Offenders?‘ on The Platform
• Emma Flint, ‘What makes the ‘perfect’ murder?‘ on PanMacmillan
• Alana Massey, ‘The Unbearable Niceness of Being‘ on Literary Hub
• Elizabeth Day, ‘Reading about nature is pure comfort when the world is full of chaos‘ on The Pool
• Emily Temple, ‘A Brief Survey of the Great American Novel(s)‘ on Literary Hub
• Lucy Worsley, ‘Jane Austen at 200: still a friend and a stranger‘ in The Guardian
• Tessa Hadley, ‘Some of my best ideas come in the bath’ in The Guardian
• Joanne Harris, ‘On Ghostwriting, Celebrity and That Guardian Review.‘ on her blog
• Susanna Rustin, ‘Winifred Holtby: author, feminist, campaigner‘ in The Guardian
• Katherine Arden, ‘on the landscape that inspired The Bear and the Nightingale‘ on Penguin
• Cathy Rentzenbrink, ‘Reading Lives‘ on International Literature Showcase
• Ruth Graham, ‘Why This Norwegian Novelist Should Be the Next Elena Ferrante‘ on Slate
• Eimear McBride, ‘The problems with erotica‘ in The New Statesman
• Samantha Ellis, ‘The Brontës’ very real and raw Irish roots‘ in The Irish Times
• Samantha Ellis, ‘The Brontës and Hester Chapone‘ on Brontë Blog
• Min Jin Lee, ‘On Selling Your First Novel After 11 Years‘ on Literary Hub
• Fiona Macdonald, ‘The Racy Side of Jane Austen‘ on The BBC
• Katherine Cowdrey, ‘Khorsandi withdrew from Jhalak Prize for fear of ‘alienating’ audience‘ in The Bookseller
• Noo Saro-Wiwa, ‘Playboy cars and pentecostal stars‘ in The TLS
• Emma Geen, ‘The Unbearable Lightness of ‘Being an Author’‘ on her blog
• Samantha Ellis, ‘Where are all the heroine mothers in fiction?‘ on The Pool
• Emily Gould, ‘Most Women In Publishing Don’t Have The Luxury Of Being Unlikable‘ on Buzzfeed

Personal essays/memoir:

• Evelyn Hampton, ‘Weightlessness‘ on Catapult
• Susan C. Ryan, ‘A Disaster Not to Be Found: On Survival (and Ultrasounds)‘ on Catapult
• Linda Chavers, ‘Fluids‘ on The Rumpus
• Porochista Khakpour, ‘Portrait of the Artist as a Debut Novelist‘ on Literary Hub
• Caroline O’Donoghue, ‘The pros and cons of growing up in a Naked House‘ in The Pool
• Jennifer Maritza McCauley, ‘But There Is Also Rosa‘ on Passages North
• Enuma Okoro, ‘This is your morning‘ on Aeon
• D.M. Moehrle, ‘Womanly Arts‘ on The Rumpus
• Leia Menlove, ‘Drowning Little Things‘ on Catapult
• Zara Rahmen, ‘Close Calls‘ on Real Life
• Anjali Enjeti, ‘Drinking Chai to Savannah: Reflections on Identity, Inclusion and Power in the South‘ on Longreads
• Hermoine Holby, ‘rediscovering 60s ye-ye icon françoise hardy in the 90s‘ in i-D
• Noël Duan, ‘Beauty Shopping With My Mother, a Former Cultural Revolution Red Guard‘ on Racked
• Jody Allard, ‘Why I’ve Given Up On Being Healthy‘ on Buzzfeed
• Monica Uszerowicz, ‘Survivor Syndrome; or, Snacking While Jewish‘ on Avidly
• Angela Chen, ‘Why I No Longer Make Predictions‘ on Catapult
• Robyn Wilder, ‘My husband is the better parent – and it rankles‘ on The Pool
• Alice Jolly, ‘Donor siblings: do the ties of blood matter?‘ in The Guardian
• Lauren Alwan, ‘Arab Past, American Present: My Family’s Invisible History‘ on Catapult
• Laura Michele Diener, ‘Late Afternoon with Shadows Lengthening‘ on Numéro Cinq
• Laurie Frankel, ‘How do grandparents respond when their grandson becomes a granddaughter?‘ on The Pool
• Kathleen Alcott, ‘‘Restaurants have taught me who I am’‘ in The Guardian
• Charlotte Shane, ‘When Desire Goes Dark‘ on Hazlitt
• Nicky Loomis, ‘Pinecone Man‘ on Catapult
• D.S. ‘On Faith and Sexuality‘ on Dardishi
• Jamila Osman, ‘A Map of Lost Things: On Family, Grief, and the Meaning of Home‘ on Catapult
• Alexandra Heminsley, ‘The emotional challenges of IVF, and how one woman found solace in the sea‘ on The Pool
• Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, ‘The Woman Scared of Her Own Kimono‘ on Catapult
• Laura Goode, ‘Against Confession: On Intersectional Feminism, Radical Catholicism, and Redefining Remorse‘ on Longreads
• Isabel Hardman, ‘When my mind stopped working, I realised just how badly we treat mental health‘ in The Telegraph
• Anne Helen Peterson, ‘Living In The Beautiful Bubble Of The Not-Quite Internet‘ on Buzzfeed
• Alexandra Heminsley, ‘My swimming odyssey: ‘It felt like a last chance to prove what I was capable of’‘ in The Guardian

Feminism:

• Jessye McGarry, ‘Why I’m Waiting for The Right Man to Tell Me I Should Read ‘Infinite Jest’‘ on Reductress
• Diane Shipley, ‘The sexist reality of being a woman with M.E.‘ on The Pool
• Moira Weigel, ‘How Ultrasound Became Political‘ on The Atlantic
• J.C. Pan, ‘Love’s Labor Earned‘ on Dissent
• Gaby Hinsliff, ‘Older motherhood offers women the ultimate in having it all‘ in The Guardian
• Rachel Monroe, ‘Sexual Assault in the Amazon‘ in The Cut
• Jen Palmares Meadows, ‘We Be Bleeding‘ on The Rumpus
• Sophie Wilkinson, ‘These Women Were all Prescribed the Pill – None of Them Needed it for Contraception‘ on The Debrief
• Clare Vaye Watkins, ‘A Trip of One’s Own‘ in New Republic
• Daisy Buchanan, ‘Media mockery of sex workers creates dangerous conditions for women‘ on The Pool
• Daisy Buchanan, ‘Casey Affleck’s Golden Globes win shows Hollywood’s double standard in action‘ on The Pool
• Meena Kandasamy, ‘Bengaluru attacks: Misogyny by night and day‘ on Aljazeera
• Lucy Rycroft-Swift, ‘I wore men’s clothes for a month – and it changed my life‘ on The F Word
• Connie Kuhns, ‘Strange Women‘ on Geist

Society and Politics:

• Kathryn Hughes, ‘Embarrassing bodies: what did the Victorians have to hide?‘ in The Guardian
• Amelia Tait, ‘The myth of Generation Snowflake: how did “sensitive” become a dirty word?‘ in The New Statesman
• Michele Kirsch, ‘My life as a cleaner in London‘ in The Independent
• Julie Beck, ‘Does Corruption Happen Slowly, or All at Once?‘ on The Atlantic
• Tahmina Begum, ‘You Talk Like a White Girl‘ on gal-dem
• Amelia Tait, ‘The best days of the internet are over – now our privacy will suffer‘ in The New Statesman
• Deafinitely Girly, ‘Deaf Girly and the Gap advert‘ on her blog
• Ruby Tandoh, ‘Bad fad – on how clean eating turned toxic‘ in The Guardian
• Vanessa Hua, ‘You might be thinking of someone else?‘ in The San Francisco Chronicle
• Ijeoma Oluo, ‘The Exploitation Of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Legacy By White Supremacy‘ on The Establishment
• L.A. Kauffman, ‘In 1971, the People Didn’t Just March on Washington — They Shut It Down‘ on Longreads
• Brooke Jarvis, ‘Who Decides Who Counts as Native American?‘ in The New York Times
• Clare Chambers, ‘Time to abandon marriage?‘ in The TLS
• Jennifer Young, ‘Peetskill Blues‘ on Hazlitt
• Toni Jensen, ‘Women in the Fracklands: On Water, Land, Bodies, and Standing Rock‘ on Catapult
• Morgan Jerkins, ‘In Search of Black Atlantis‘ on Hazlitt
• Melinda Wenner Moyer, ‘A bug for Alzheimer’s?‘ on Aeon
• Carly Silver, ‘How Ancient Cure-Alls Paved the Way for Drug Regulation‘ on The Atlantic
• Laurie Shrage, ‘We need a contract for co-parenting, not just for marriage‘ on Aeon
• Rachel Aviv, ‘How Albert Woodfox Survived Solitary‘ in The New Yorker
• Jo Marchant, ‘This 3,500-Year-Old Greek Tomb Upended What We Thought We Knew About the Roots of Western Civilization‘ on Smithsonian
• Kathleen Hale, ‘Murder on Union Hill Road‘ on Hazlitt

Film, Television, Music, Art, Fashion and Sport:

• Emily Yahr, ‘From guilty pleasure to Emmy Awards: The delightfully weird history of Lifetime movies‘ in The Washington Post
• Victoria Coren Mitchell, ‘I’m so glad to spoil this film for you‘ in The Guardian
• Frances Katz, ‘Is Your TV Turned On? True Stories from the Cable Trenches‘ on Catapult
• Limara Salt, ‘Why are interracial relationships so rare in film?‘ on The Pool
• Helena Fitzgerald, ‘Bruce Springsteen: The Ultimate Dad‘ on The Catapult

The interviews/profiles:

• Alexandra Kleeman on Bookanista in The Guardian
• Janie Chang and Shilpi Gowda on Literary Hub
• Cat Marnell in The Cut
• Roxane Gay in The New York Times and Vogue 
• Sarah Pinborough in The Bookseller
• Joyce Carol Oates in The TLS
• Elizabeth Hand on Literary Hub
• Anne Applebaum on Spiegel
• Vic James on Reader Dad
• Yaa Gyasi in The Bookseller and The Guardian
• Claudia Rankine in The New Yorker
• Fiona Melrose on The Writes of Woman
• Kathleen Rooney on Literary Hub
• Mary Miller on Electric Literature
• Ayelet Waldman in The New York Times
• Bernadine Evaristo on the British Council
• Katherine Rooney on Electric Literature
• Erica Ferencik on Electric Literature
• Tara Betts on The Rumpus
• Ottessa Moshfegh on The Fanzine
• Elif Batuman in The New Yorker
• Xiaolu Guo in The Guardian
• Lucy Jane Bledsoe on The Rumpus
• Emma Flint on Foyles and in The Bookseller
• Deborah Lipstadt in The Guardian
• Mary Karr on Lenny
• Jo Mazelis on Alephi
• Jhumpa Lahiri on Medium
• Lindsey Lee Johnson on Electric Literature

The regular columnists:

• Laurie Penny in The New Statesman
• Lucy Mangan in Stylist
• Roxane Gay in The Guardian US
• Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in The Independent
• Caitlin Moran in The Times
• Lauren Laverne in The Pool
• Ella Risbridger in The Pool
• Sali Hughes in The Pool
• Bim Adewunmi in The Guardian
• Sophie Heawood in The Guardian
• Eva Wiseman in The Observer
• Tracey Thorn in The New Statesman
• Chimene Suleyman and Maya Goodfellow on Media Diversified
• Josie Pickens on Ebony
• Bridget Christie in The Guardian
• Lizzy Kremer on Publishing for Humans
• Juno Dawson in Glamour
• Kashana Cauley on Catapult
• Louise O’Neill in the Irish Examiner
• Jendella Benson on Media Diversified
• Lola Okolosie in The Guardian
• Sarah Gerard, ‘Mouthful‘ on Hazlitt
• Books by Women We’d Love to See in English on Literary Hub

Books of the Year 2016, Part Two

Yesterday I revealed my pre-2016 published fiction and 2016 non-fiction books of the year. Today it’s turn the of the 2016 fiction list and what an absolute corker of a year it’s been. (It needed to be to make up for the dire straits that is real life.) I’ve read and reviewed lots of good books so I’ve been very strict for this list and only included books I thought were superb and would happily re-read again and again. Click on the book covers to take you to my full reviews.

The Essex Serpent – Sarah Perry

If you’ve read my review or follow me on Twitter, it’ll be no surprise that this is my Book of the Year. Set over the course of a year, newly widowed Cora Seabourne decamps from London to Essex with her companion, Martha, and her withdrawn, unusual son, Francis. There she encounters two things which will change her life: the legend of the Essex Serpent, apparently returned and killing man and beast, and local reverend Will Ransome, who’s more modern in his thinking than Cora expects and is quite a match for her intellectually. With themes of science and religion, love and friendship this book is as smart as it is engaging. I didn’t read this book, I lived inside it. Pure joy.

 

The Lesser Bohemians – Eimear McBride

Eily leaves Ireland for London and drama school, determined to lose her virginity. When she does, it’s with Stephen, a relatively famous actor, who she assumes she’ll never see again. Of course it’s only a matter of weeks before she does and, despite the twenty-year age gap – she’s eighteen and he thirty-eight, a relationship, of sorts, begins. Over the course of a year in the 1980s, Eily and Stephen fall in and out of love and Stephen reveals his dark past. Written in a similar staccato, interior style to her debut, McBride places the reader in Eily’s head and we live out the year with her. Superb.

 

Martin John – Anakana Schofield

Martin John is an ‘inadequate molester’. Exiled to London from Ireland by his mother, following an incident in a dentist’s waiting room, Martin John follows his rituals and circuits to ensure he stays on the right side of the law. But he’s already made a mistake and now Baldy Conscience has stayed too long in John’s house they’ll be consequences. John’s mother’s story is also very interesting, equal parts heartbreaking and disturbing. An unusual subject told in an experimental, circular style, this really does linger long after you’ve finished reading it.

Under the Visible Life – Kim Echlin

The story of two women, Mahsa Weaver and Katherine Goodnow, who have two things in common: 1) jazz 2) their mixed heritage and the issues which have come with it. Two women who want independence but are prevented from having it in different ways due to their different cultural backgrounds – although all of their issues fall under the banner of patriarchy. Piercingly astute on women’s lives, loves and friendships.

 

 

 

Human Acts – Han Kang (translated by Deborah Smith)

The story of the aftermath of the student uprising in Gwangju, South Korea in 1980. Beginning with ‘The Boy’, Dong-Ho outside the municipal gymnasium, listening to the memorial service for the bodies being brought to the gym for families to identify and moving through a number of narrative voices, including the body of Dong-Ho’s friend, Jeong-dae. Shocking, violent and eyeopening.

 

 

My Name Is Leon – Kit de Waal

Carol is struggling following the birth of her second son, Jake. Tony, Jake’s father has no intention of leaving his long-term partner and family and Byron, nine-year-old Leon’s father, did a runner when he was due to go to court. She has no financial support and is suffering from postnatal depression. When Tina, the neighbour, calls social services, Jake and Leon are taken into care, going together to a foster carer’s house. Leon spends his time looking out for Jake, thinking about the things that happened when he lived with his mum and hoping that his mum will get better and come back for them. Instead, Carol disappears and white baby Jake is adopted. Leon, nine-years-old with light brown skin, is left behind with Maureen, the foster carer, with little hope of anyone offering him a permanent home. Heart breaking and precise, de Waal nails a child’s perspective, writing convincingly about a situation not often covered in literature.

Let Me Tell You About a Man I Knew – Susan Fletcher

1889. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. There we find Jeanne Trabuc, wife of Charles – ‘The Major’ – the warden of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, hospital for the mentally ill. A new patient arrives, an artist by the name of Vincent Van Gogh. Jeanne strikes up a friendship with the artist which becomes a catalyst for her long hidden feelings about her life. A wonderful novel about marriage – how it changes over time, how you can never really know someone even after thirty years – and the power of art to change the way you view the world.

 

 

Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun – Sarah Ladipo Manyika

Doctor Morayo Da Silva is approaching her 75th birthday. Former academic, ex-wife of an ambassador, she’s seen the world and lived it all. Now settled in San Francisco living a steady, reliable life…or so she tells us. The multiple narrators of this fascinating tale might not agree. Dr Morayo Da Silva is a wonderful character: a woman in her 70s who’s lived a varied life, unafraid to dress as she pleases, contemplate tattoos, read voraciously and discuss sexuality and how she’s found life as a woman and as a person of colour. A gem.

The Power – Naomi Alderman

A male academic, living in a matriarchy, writes a book about how women gained power – personally, through an electric current which becomes live in their bodies, and politically. The story follows three women: Roxy, a gangster’s daughter; Margot, a mayor, and Allie, an abused foster daughter, as they overturn their situations and begin to run the world. All of this is documented by a male journalist, Tunde, the first to capture the power on camera. Violence, corruption, sexual and domestic abuse, this is indeed a powerful read.

 

 

Eileen – Ottessa Moshfegh

24-year-old Eileen lives at home with her cruel, ex-cop father. She works at the juvenile detention centre where she fancies one of the prison guards who never acknowledges her existence. The week before Christmas, 1964, Rebecca Saint John arrives at the institution to be the first ever director of education. She takes a shine to Eileen and Eileen’s life takes a very dark turn indeed.

 

If You Look for Me, I Am Not Here – Sarayu Srivatsa 

Mallika, Siva’s Amma, becomes pregnant with twins: a boy and a girl. The girl, Tara, arrives with the umbilical cord still around her neck and dies moments later. The boy, Siva, survives. But Mallika wanted a girl and her grief for Tara leads her to reject Siva and accuse her husband of killing Tara. Brought up as a boy by his father and grandmother and a girl by his mother, Siva spends his childhood and adolescence questioning whether he is a boy or a girl. His story is interwoven with that of George Gibbs, an Englishman who used to live in their house. Dealing with pertinent issues of gender through interwoven stories of two cultures, the tales are completely engrossing and the writing’s both inventive and precise.

Dodge and Burn – Seraphina Madsen

An exercise in imagination that takes the reader on a road trip across the west of the USA and the possibilities of experimental fiction. Framed by news reports of a missing American heiress, Eugenie Lund, the story of her childhood and subsequent trip is told mostly through her notebooks. Virtually imprisoned as part of a social experiment by Dr Vargas, Lund’s childhood was an unusual one which ended when her sister disappeared. This is the story of her search for Camille. A welcome addition to the cult fiction genre, reclaiming something from generations of male writers. Hurrah!

In the Media: November 2016, Part One

In the media is a fortnightly round-up of features written by, about or containing female writers that have appeared during the previous fortnight and I think are insightful, interesting and/or thought provoking. Linking to them is not necessarily a sign that I agree with everything that’s said but it’s definitely an indication that they’ve made me think. I’m using the term ‘media’ to include social media, so links to blog posts as well as as traditional media are likely and the categories used are a guide, not definitives.

What else can begin this fortnight’s coverage?

• Lindy West, ‘Blaming political correctness for Trump is like blaming the civil rights movement for Jim Crow‘ in The Guardian
• Rebecca Traister, ‘Shattered‘ in The Cut
• Various, ‘Waking Up in Trump’s America, Part 1‘ in The New Enquiry
• Dayna Tortorici, ‘What Can Feminists Do?‘ on n+1
• Elizabeth Drew, ‘How It Happened‘ in The New York Review of Books
• Mira Jacob, ‘Here’s What I’m Telling My Brown Son About Trump’s America‘ on Buzzfeed
• Sarah Churchwell, ‘Hillary Clinton didn’t fail us. We failed her‘ in The Guardian
• Various on the US election in The Guardian
• Michelle Dean, ‘Don’t Stop Believin’‘ in New Republic
• Linda Mannheim, ‘after the shock waves of the us elections, how do we locate ourselves?‘ on 3:am
• Heather Wells Peterson, ‘What Can Art Do After Trump?‘ on Literary Hub
• Masha Gessen, ‘Autocracy: Rules for Survival‘ in The New York Review of Books
• Garnette Cadogan, ‘Staying and Fighting, and Finding Strength in Poetry‘ on Literary Hub
• Leslie Jamison, ‘The Day After Trump Won‘ on Granta
• Nicole Chung, ‘The Day After The Election, I Told My Daughter The Truth‘ on Buzzfeed
• Bim Adewunmi, ‘What Is America So Afraid Of?‘ on Buzzfeed
• Laurie Penny, ‘On the Election of Donald J Trump‘ in The New Statesman
• Ashley Weatherford, ‘If Trump Scares You, You’re Getting a Glimpse of What It Feels Like to Be Black in America‘ in The Cut
• Ann Friedman, ‘Finish Your Ugly-Crying. Here’s What Comes Next.‘ in The Cut
• Gloria Steinem, ‘After the election of Donald Trump, we will not mourn. We will organize‘ in The Guardian
• Lindy West, ‘Her Loss‘ in The New York Times
• Lola Okolosie, ‘How to tell the children about Trump? After all, they deserve the truth‘ in The Guardian
• Maureen Langloss, ‘It’s A Man’s World‘ on her blog
• Ayahna Hamilton, ‘“Progress”, Black Women and the US Presidential Election‘ on gal-dem
• Hadley Freeman, ‘I’ve heard enough of the white male rage narrative‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah Ditum, ‘Donald Trump has grabbed America by the pussy, and it’s women who will suffer‘ in the New Statesman
• Amelia Tate, ‘Control, Alt-Right, Retweet: How social media paved the way for President Trump‘ in the New Statesman
• Anne Enright, ‘Never has male anatomy been so waved about in politics‘ in The Irish Times
• Allison Pearson, ‘Why misogyny was The Donald’s trump card‘ in The Telegraph
• Maya Goodfellow, ‘Make no mistake – Donald Trump’s victory represents a racist “whitelash”‘ in the New Statesman
• Caroline Crampton, ‘Voting for Trump and Brexit: what the working class revolt is really about‘ in the New Statesman
• Kelcey Parker Ervick, ‘How We Talk About Women’s Lives‘ on Literary Hub
• Joanna Walsh, ‘Time to reclaim language: words are more important than ever in the age of post-truth politics‘ in the New Statesman
• Bridget Minamore, ‘As a woman of colour I foresaw Trump was going to win‘ on The Pool
• Nicole Chung, ‘Parenting the Election‘ on Hazlitt
• Chloé Cooper Jones, ‘Miami Dispatch: Unmoored Realities on the Campaign Trail‘ on Medium
• Pamela Newkirk, ‘The Myth of a Post-Racial America‘ on Literary Hub
• Susan Straight, ‘I Drove 3,582 Miles to Vote for the President‘ on Literary Hub
• Nicole Dennis-Benn, ‘My First Visit to the Church of American Democracy‘ on Literary Hub
• Lauren Elkin, ‘Donald Trump, Anti-Flaneur‘ on Literary Hub
• Barbara Kingsolver, ‘End this misogynistic horror show. Put Hillary Clinton in the White House‘ in The Guardian
• Jill Filipovic, ‘The Men Feminists Left Behind‘ in The New York Times
• Jessa Crispin, ‘Madam Prescient‘ on The Baffler
• Nikole Hannah-Jones, ‘Trump’s Inconvenient Racial Truth‘ in The New York Times
• Olga Khazan, ‘The Lasting Harm of Trump-Style Sexism‘ on The Atlantic
• Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, ‘What Hillary Clinton’s Fans Love About Her‘ in The Atlantic
• Isabel Fonseca, ‘Voters, guns and hurricanes‘ in The TLS
• Rebecca Solnit, ‘New York City Is a Book Conservatives Should Read‘ on Literary Hub
• Emily Harnett, ‘On the Horror of Language, and the Horror of Trump‘ on Literary Hub
• Elaine Showalter, ‘Pilloried Clinton‘ in the TLS

Photograph by Nye’Lyn Tho

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Aminatta Forna, ‘The Many Ways in Which the Heart Can Break‘ on Literary Hub
• Martha Greengrass, ‘Running with the Wolves: An Introduction to The Bloody Chamber‘ on Waterstones
• Jenn Ashworth, ‘A moment that changed me: stealing the book that saved my life‘ in The Guardian
• Sabina Murphy, ‘What Can Historical Fiction Accomplish that History Does Not?‘ on Literary Hub
• Anna Wilson, ‘Full-body Reading’ on Aeon
• Saba Imtiaz, ‘Searching for a 14th-Century Scribe in Modern Jordan‘ on Literary Hub
• Sara Schaff, ‘When Your Characters Live Inside Your Childhood Home‘ on Literary Hub
• Kathy Gale, ‘Successful Women‘ in The Bookseller
• Naomi Frisby, ‘Coverage of Experimental Fiction Writing Is a Half-Formed Thing‘ on Tilted Axis
• Gabrielle Bellot, ‘A Young Woman Called Death…‘ on Literary Hub
• Gaby Wood, ‘Elena Ferrante: how to see an invisible author‘ in The Telegraph
• Elena Ferrante, ‘I believe that books, once written, have no need of their authors‘ in The Observer
• Miranda Carter, ‘Dining with death: crime fiction’s long affair with food‘ in The Guardian
• Linda Grant, ‘I can’t write after lunch, in a public place, or when anyone is in the house‘ in The Guardian
• Arisa White, ‘In Praise of Our Black Women Poets‘ on Literary Hub
• Natalie Jerome, ‘Dear next generation…‘ in The Bookseller
• Candice Carty-Williams, ‘I’m Temi? I’m Temi from The Glamma Kids, you know?‘ in The Bookseller
• Margaret Busby, ‘Is it still a case of plus ça change?‘ in The Bookseller
• Ama Josephine Budge, ‘We must constantly question what our own agenda might be‘ in The Bookseller
• Kelsey McKinney, ‘Out of Print: The Original Nancy Drew Novels‘ on Lenny
• Sara Nović, ‘What Does an Artist Look Like?‘ on The James Franco Review
• A.J. Ashworth, ‘Introducing Writers on Rejection: A new series‘ on her blog
• Sarah Domet, ‘The Search for Home in American Fiction‘ on Literary Hub
• Alexander Chee, ‘Elena Ferrante, Private Novelist‘ on New Republic
• Emma-Jane Kirby, ‘Open to Ghosts: Writing The Optician of Lampedusa‘ on Waterstones’ blog
• ‘Virago publishers share the books that made them feminist‘ in Stylist
• Carina del Valle Schorske, ‘On the Perilous Potential of Feminist Silence‘ on Literary Hub
• Elaine Blair, ‘Elena Ferrante: Hiding in Plain Sight‘ in The New York Times
• Tanya Landman, ‘The MPs’ expenses scandal breathed life into history‘ in The Guardian
• Elena Ferrante, ‘What An Ugly Child She Is‘ in The New Yorker
• Lennie Goodings, ‘Feminism, pornography and lots of crying in the loos: 43 years of Virago‘ in The Telegraph
• Lyz Lenz, ‘Why We Love to Be Haunted‘ on Literary Hub
• Evie Gaughan, ‘Gender Bias in the Literary World‘ on Women Writers, Women’s Books

Personal essays/memoir:

• Rachel Klein, ‘When the Body Breaks Its Silence‘ on Catapult
• Cari Luna, ‘Under Threat of the Really Big One‘ on Catapult
• Millissa Kingbird, ‘Woman Standing at Rock‘ on The Rumpus
• Nancy Matson, ‘My Low-Wage Job at the Circus‘ on Catapult
• Amy Zhang, ‘Lotus Pods and Jambalaya in Jianguomen: Memory and Change in a Beijing Neighborhood‘ on Catapult
• Salley Vickers, ‘I didn’t love my mum enough to kill her‘ in The Times (£)
• Holly Müller, ‘Fascism and Its Echoes, and the Othering of the Mentally Ill‘ on Literary Hub
• Deborah Jackson Taffa, ‘This American Paradise‘ on The Rumpus
• Jacqueline Doyle, ‘What Did You Say?‘ on Medium
• Deepti Kapoor, ‘All the Things I Thought About When We Were Naming My Nephew (aka A गुलाब by Any Other Name; aka Song for Kian)‘ on Catapult
• Emma Sloley, ‘Nudists Always Play Volleyball‘ on Catapult
• Kally Mays, ‘We, the Hunted: Dogs, Resistance, and Survival‘ on Catapult
• Merritt Tierce, ‘Carved in Wood‘ on The Paris Review
• Louise Penny, ‘The Last Promise‘ on AARP
• Susan Straight, ‘Every Month Is Black History Month‘ on Literary Hub
• Mariam, ‘So, What Generation Immigrant Are You?‘ on Femsplain
• Scaachi Koul, ‘There’s No Recipe For Growing Up‘ on Buzzfeed
• Emma Straub, ‘Teenage Dream‘ on Tin House
• Mikella Clements, ‘When Your Family Business Isn’t a Family‘ on Catapult
• Helena Fitzgerald, ‘The Accidental City‘ on Catapult

 

Feminism:

• Sharine Taylor, ‘Body Politics: Beyoncé, Teyana Taylor, and the Liberation of Black Women Through Dance‘ on Noisey
• Mila Kunis, ‘You’ll Never Work In This Town Again…‘ on A Plus
• Olga Khazan, ‘A Diary of Toxic Love‘ on The Atlantic
• ‘Stanford Sexual Assault Case Survivor Emily Doe Speaks Out‘ in Glamour
• Ashley Nelson Levy, ‘Of Course By Now You Know This Story‘ on Catapult
• Megan Garber, ‘How Rom-Coms Undermine Women‘ on The Atlantic
• Claire Heuchan, ‘For the White Woman Who Wants to Know How to be My Friend: A Black Feminist Guide to Interracial Solidarity‘ on Sister Outrider
• Caroline O’Donoghue, ‘There will always be a place in the world for witches‘ on The Pool

Society and Politics:

• Marian Bull, ‘California Dreaming‘ on Eater
• Antonia Juhasz, ‘Inside the Battle Over the Dakota Access Pipeline‘ in Pacific Standard
• Paris Lees, ‘Punching Bags‘ on Vice
• Amy Wollard, ‘Tent Revival‘ on VQR
• Marilynne Robinson, ‘Against Oligarchy‘ on Literary Hub

Film, Television, Music, Art, Fashion and Sport:

• Dafna Izenberg, ‘In The Air Again‘ on Hazlitt
• Alana Massey, ‘Your Brands and Lovers‘ on Real Life
• Amber Butchart, ‘Why our love affair with leopard print is never going to die‘ on The Pool
• Soraya Roberts, ‘Adrienne Shelly Will Take You There‘ on Hazlitt

The interviews/profiles:

• Jillian Tamaki on Room
• Jenn Ashworth on Wales Arts Review
• Zadie Smith in The Bookseller, Vanity Fair and The Telegraph
• Belle Boggs on The Rumpus
• Anakana Schofield in the New Statesman and on The Writes of Woman
• Malka Older on The Rumpus
• Helena Kelly in The Bookseller
• Sarah Ladipo Manyika in the New Statesman and on The Writes of Woman
• Eimear McBride in the New Statesman
• Rachel Cusk in the New Statesman
• Eleanor Hooker in The Irish Times
• Petina Gappah in The Guardian
• Dodie Bellamy in The White Review
• Alexandra Kleeman in Guernica
• Jade Chang on Electric Literature
• Esmé Weijun Wang on The Rumpus and Catapult
• Ann Patchett in Guernica
• Michelle Tea in BOMB Magazine
• Vi Khi Nao in Electric Literature
• Therese Oneill on The Millions
• Kelly Luce on Electric Literature and Tin House
• Fanny Howe on Literary Hub
• Jane Alison on The Rumpus
• Jasna Ani on Words Without Borders
• Wendy C. Ortiz on Electric Literature
• Cristina Sánchez-Andrade on Bookanista
• M.J. Carter on From First Page to Last
• Anne Carson in The Guardian

The regular columnists:

• Laurie Penny in The New Statesman
• Lucy Mangan in Stylist
• Roxane Gay in The Guardian US
• Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in The Independent
• Caitlin Moran in The Times
• Lauren Laverne in The Pool
• Ella Risbridger in The Pool
• Sali Hughes in The Pool
• Bim Adewunmi in The Guardian
• Sophie Heawood in The Guardian
• Eva Wiseman in The Observer
• Tracey Thorn in The New Statesman
• Chimene Suleyman and Maya Goodfellow on Media Diversified
• Josie Pickens on Ebony
• Bridget Christie in The Guardian
• Lizzy Kremer on Publishing for Humans
• Juno Dawson in Glamour
• Kashana Cauley on Catapult
• Louise O’Neill in the Irish Examiner
• Jendella Benson on Media Diversified
• Lola Okolosie in The Guardian
• Sarah Gerard, ‘Mouthful‘ on Hazlitt
• Books by Women We’d Love to See in English on Literary Hub

The Lesser Bohemians – Eimear McBride

Before him I thought that when love came it would come perfectly. Not in a dingy room on dirty sheets and not caring at all about those things.

Remember those heady days when you set off for university? Young, fresh, desperate to see the world and all it had to offer? Eily has left Ireland for London and drama school. She’s intoxicated by the city:

Get out at Barbican.

Her first into the salient wind, fists of grasping hair. Me blinking the grit over the bridge and after her. Brick and towers. Lour and paint. Here’s nowhere like any life I’ve learned. Even going under, it goes on up. She’s saying how it’s ugly and I think not. I think it is Metropolis.

It’s also her introduction to drink, drugs and, she hopes, sex. Despite her Irish landlady who doesn’t allow her to have men in her room and complains constantly about her using all the hot water, Eily sets out to lose her virginity.

She meets Stephen when the ash from his cigarette drops onto her hand as they’re standing at the bar in a busy pub. He’s a relatively famous actor, although she doesn’t know that. They have some tetchy discussions about reading Dostoyevsky, love and youth and Eily lies to him about how much travelling she’s done.

When they go back to his and begin to undress, she begins to worry about what she’s about to do: ‘But Oh my God, I just Oh God, exhale. Ah now Ireland too much shame.’ He attempts to ally her fears, acknowledges it’s her first time and gains her consent.

Kissing then sloping me, shifting his weight Ready? Yes. And he. Jesus Christ! No don’t pull away. It hurts. I know but it’s not quite in yet. I can’t. You can, just let me, he says It’ll never be as bad again. How do you fucking know? Educated guess. Then Oh fuck, he goes That’s it. And he is all against me. And he is inside. Attempting to kiss through a pain running wild from his body into mine. I bite my own lip and stare above. Ceiling swirls there. Cracks. Worlds beyond the pain not improving. Now. Or now. Or yet. I wish I hadn’t. I’d never done this. I wish he didn’t know.

It ends badly but he convinces her to stay the night. When she leaves the next morning, she doesn’t look back, choosing instead to remember how much she loves London: ‘This is the finest city I think and, no matter how awkward or bloodily, I am in it now too’.

What Eily doesn’t bank on is seeing Stephen again, this time in the National Theatre, where he makes a beeline for her and convinces her to leave before the play’s over. Despite the twenty-year age gap – she’s eighteen and he thirty-eight – a relationship, of sorts, begins.

Remember this moment. I will remember this because, even though this morning’s not much of his life, it’s very much of mine. Whatever happens, nothing will be the same after and nothing will be like it again.

The novel’s narrated by Eily in a similar style to the one McBride used in A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, although I think this is generally less staccato than her debut. Sentences are rhythmic and sometimes rhyme, with echoes of Shakespeare built into some of the phrases. However, at the mid-point of the book, Stephen delivers a monologue, in straight prose, telling Eily (and the reader) the full horror of his childhood. He has some dark secrets which he’s never shared before. It seems fitting that McBride chose a monologue for him, as he’s the type of character who would have to tell all in one go or not at all.

Events in both Stephen and Eily’s lives bring into question memory and individual viewpoints, of people choosing what to see and what to remember. McBride explores the damage the past can do to the present through Stephen and Eily’s behaviour and the constantly changing status of their relationship.

In a recent review of the novel in The New York Times, Jeanette Winterson commented:

There’s endless sex in this novel. If the writing were terrible, we’d be in “Fifty Shades” territory. But McBride is good at describing heterosexual sex because she doesn’t describe it in the usual ways…

Well, of course there’s lots of sex, this is a couple in the early days of their relationship. But I don’t think McBride’s success in writing about sex is merely down to the style of the writing, it’s also because she writes sex that’s messy and real. This isn’t Hollywood, it’s a bedsit in Camden and a thousand other rooms around the world.

I feel similarly about The Lesser Bohemians as I did The Essex Serpent; I didn’t read this novel, I lived inside its pages. McBride has a rare talent for placing you inside the character, seeing what they see, feeling how they feel. I was filled with joy and wrenched apart again and again; it was exhausting and exhilarating. I revelled in it. On the back of the book, there’s a quote from Anne Enright in which she declares Eimear McBride ‘a genius’, she’ll get no argument from me.

 

Thanks to Faber & Faber for the review copy.

Coverage of Experimental Fiction Writing Is a Half-Formed Thing

The brilliant Tilted Axis Press, who this year have published fantastic experimental fiction books by Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay and Hwang Jungeun, asked me to write something for their blog. Anything I liked, they said. So I wrote about the lack of coverage of experimental fiction written by women. And I wrote it in an experimental non-fiction style. Because, why not? You can read it here.

(Sincere apologies to Eimear McBride for the title but it was too good/bad to pass up.)

Eimear McBride at Manchester Literature Festival

‘I didn’t know what I was doing,’ says Eimear McBride on starting the novel that would become The Lesser Bohemians. Once writing was underway, however, she realised it was about a relationship between a woman in her late teens and a man in his thirties and that there would be constant change in the status of their relationship.

The book started with London, the London McBride had known in the nineties. The protagonist came through that. She’s a very different girl to the one in A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, she has the ‘capacity for making connection to the world’ says McBride.

She wanted to write about being Irish at that time, before the Good Friday Agreement ended The Troubles. It was ‘much more different to be Irish’ she says. There was a terrorist stigma. She also wanted to write about the other type of Irish immigrant to the one that’s often portrayed in literature – the one who went somewhere that they really like! McBride says that’s not part of the Irish immigrant story. She says her protagonist sees London as ‘Babylon’. She goes from ‘black and white to living in glorious technicolour’.

McBride says she’s interested in what is said and unsaid, what is hidden and what is revealed. An actor and a drama student seemed to be the perfect vehicle for this. For Steven, the actor, it’s his rakishness versus his underlying life. McBride says she builds her characters using methods she learned in drama school. She refers to it as ‘method writing’.

When she was writing A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, ‘character is what I was primarily interested in’ and ‘looking at the totality of the moment’. She says she thought about what they were thinking, she thought about their physicality. The moment’s stretched out in what she refers to as ‘straight’ writing, but this is unnatural. She was aiming to do in writing what an actor does with their body when they’re inhabiting a character.

The play that was created from A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing McBride describes as ‘quite an odd experience’. She was concerned as to how the play would tackle the material as the novel allowed her to connect the reader directly to the character, to what was going on internally. There’s no external description of her in the book. She was never an object. The book was a shared experience between the writer and the character. However, she says, Aoife Duffin, the actress who performed the play did so with little ego and understood the character so well.

Discussion returns to The Lesser Bohemians and how McBride moved to writing about sex and male sexuality. She said she approached with caution and that ‘it is a lie’ that women can’t write men. She says the way she wrote about sex was the way she wrote about everything else. She imagines her characters as people, pre-gender. She writes from a human perspective, not a gendered one. She also listened to a lot of male singer-songwriters as she felt they revealed their vulnerabilities. ‘Novelists are a bit more bombastic.’

The novel’s about two key things: the first is people finding ways they can live with their own vulnerability/the memory of their vulnerability. The second is how people choose to interpret the past. What happens to an event when people recall being told about it and then retell it themselves? The past can be an enemy and a friend. Your past is open to everyone; you don’t get final say on your past. She asks, how much can you ever know even about your own story?

The interviewer asks her how she feels about her work being compared to Joyce and Woolf. ‘I love it; it’s brilliant’, McBride jokes, following her comment up with, ‘It’s an odd thing’. She says that A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing was ‘borne out of failure for so long’ that comparisons to Joyce were a way for people to talk about the book, even though McBride says that she and him are doing different things. ‘I’m asking the reader to be humane’, while Joyce asks the reader to be clever. What’s she’s doing is ninety degrees from Finnegan’s Wake. ‘What is specific about human life?’ she asks.

In the Media: October 2016, Part Two

In the media is a fortnightly round-up of features written by, about or containing female writers that have appeared during the previous fortnight and I think are insightful, interesting and/or thought provoking. Linking to them is not necessarily a sign that I agree with everything that’s said but it’s definitely an indication that they’ve made me think. I’m using the term ‘media’ to include social media, so links to blog posts as well as as traditional media are likely and the categories used are a guide, not definitives.

A woman didn’t win The Man Booker Prize this year but there was still some interesting coverage of the prize and the shortlisted writers:

• Deborah Levy interviewed in the New Statesman
• Marta Bausells, ‘The Rise of the Small Press on the Man Booker Shortlist‘ on Literary Hub
• Ottessa Moshfegh interviewed on the Penguin Blog and in The New Yorker
• ‘How to write a Man Booker novel: six shortlisted authors share their secrets‘ in The Guardian
• Marta Bausells, ‘Inside the World of Judging the Man Booker Prize‘ on Literary Hub

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Zadie Smith, ‘Dance lessons for writers‘ in The Guardian
• Dave McKenna, ‘The Writer Who Was Too Strong To Live‘ on Deadspin
• Jane Bernstein, ‘How I Helped Tell a Soldier’s Story‘ on Literary Hub
• Emily St. John Mandel, ‘The Gone Girl With The Dragon Tattoo On The Train‘ onFiveThirtyEight
• Megan Marshall, ‘Elizabeth and Alice‘ in The New Yorker
• Rachel Vorona Cote, ‘Are You an Anne Shirley or an Emily Starr?‘ on Literary Hub
• Seo Hee Im, ‘Sex, violence and The Vegetarian: the brutality of Han Kang’s Booker winner‘ in The Guardian
• Sara Nović, ‘Who Can Speak for the Deaf Community‘ on Literary Hub
• Rachael Nevins, ‘Fall to Pieces: On Elena Ferrante and My Own Frantumaglia‘ on Hazlitt
• Maddie Rodriguez ‘Anne Brontë, Anger, and the Resonance of Assault in the Tenant of Wildfell Hall‘ on BookRiot
• Shelley DeWees, ‘The Publisher Who Rejected Jane Austen‘ on Literary Hub
• Eleanor Brown, ‘‘I like the way he kisses my hand’: My grandmother’s life in jazz age Paris‘ in The Guardian
• M.L. Stedman, ‘On First Seeing Your Novel on the Big Screen‘ on Literary Hub
• Chloe Caldwell, ‘What I Think of the Fact That You Keep Asking Me What My Family Thinks of My Writing‘ on Catapult
• Sarah Schulman, ‘White Writer‘ in The New Yorker
• Sarah Hughes, ‘Shirley Jackson: the US queen of gothic horror claims her literary crown‘ in The Observer
• Ali Smith, ‘Ali Smith on the prime of pop artist Pauline Boty‘ in The Guardian
• Leah Schnelbach, ‘Imaginative Anthropology: In Celebration of Ursula K. Le Guin‘ on Tor.Com
• Nneka Okona, ‘On Travel Memoirs by Black Women Writers‘ on Literary Hub
• James Lasdun, ‘How Patricia Highsmith’s Mr Ripley Rises from Genre to Myth‘ on Literary Hub
• Wendy Jones, ‘What was really going on with English women?‘ in The Guardian
• MariNaomi, ‘The Making of a Comics Memoir‘ on Catapult
• Margaret Drabble, ‘I am not afraid of death. I worry about living’ in The Guardian
• Meg Elison, ‘If Women Wrote Men the Way Men Write Women‘ on McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

Personal essays/memoir:

• Sarah Thomas, ‘Inheritance and Time Travel‘ on Catapult
• Ciara O’Rourke, ‘The Other Sister‘ in Seattle Met
• Michelle Tea, ‘A Walking Tour Of The Places Where I Hit Rock Bottom‘ on Buzzfeed
• Dianca Potts, ‘Hallowed Hell House‘ on Lenny
• Alyssa Martino, ‘Vacancies‘ on Catapult
• Eli Goldstone, ‘Bad Dreams‘ on Granta
• Jodi Ettenberg, ‘Learning to Cope With Chronic Pain (And Why I’m Establishing a Home Base)‘ on Legal Nomads
• Mila Jaroniec, ‘Imprecise Magic‘ on Lenny
• Stephanie Land, ‘The Love of a Thousand Muskoxen: Grieving a Love Lost to Time and Sickness‘ on Longreads
• Sonia Weiser, ‘Scrabble With My Mum‘ on Catapult
• Nimko Ali, ‘What does it feel like to flee war as young child?‘ on The Pool
• Kelsey McKinney, ‘The Art of the Box Score‘ on Hazlitt
• Melissa Matthewson, ‘On Coupling: An Inventory‘ in Guernica
• Nadja Spiegelman, ‘When Beauty Makes You Vulnerable‘ on The Cut
• Emily Alford, ‘How Makeup Helped Me Reclaim My Face‘ on Buzzfeed
• Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers, ‘Learning to Embrace Guanxi: On Living Communally in China‘ on Literary Hub
• Niina Pollari, ‘Minor Gains‘ on Catapult
• Amani Al-Khatahtbeh, ‘On Being the Media’s Token Muslim Girl‘ on The Cut
• Lily Dunn, ‘The Fog and the Sea‘ on Granta
• Sonya Chung, ‘How I Learned That Beauty Doesn’t Have To Hurt‘ on Buzzfeed
• JD Ho, ‘Vegetables for a Dead President‘ on Catapult
• Rushaa Louise Hamid, ‘How I Found Myself When My Skin Changed Its Identity‘ on Buzzfeed

Feminism:

• Bibi Lynch, ‘Do not brand me a failure. I’m a survivor. All unhappily childless people are’ in The Guardian
• Heather Skyler, ‘The Boy Who Groped Me and the Flute Case That Saved Me‘ on Catapult
• Liz Meriwether, ‘Laughing Until We Cry: Conversations About Getting Flashed, Grabbed, and Groped‘ on The Cut
• Rachel Klein, ‘When the Body Breaks its Silence‘ on Catapult
• Andrea Bennett, ‘Chain Reaction‘ on Masionneuve
• Lynn Enright, ‘Why does it feel awkward to admit you’re on a diet?‘ on The Pool
• Sophie Wilkinson, ‘Addressing the toxic combination of misogyny and homophobia‘ on The Pool
• Laurie Penny, ‘Fear of a Feminist Future‘ on The Baffler
• Daisy Buchanan, ‘When women are surrounded by misogyny, they are going to internalise it‘ on The Pool

Society and Politics:

• Molly Ball, ‘Trump’s Graying Army‘ on The Atlantic
• Emma Bracy, ‘We Are Always Defined From a Distance‘ on Hazlitt
• Gaby Hinsliff, ‘Are we now persecuted for speaking up for the vulnerable?‘ on The Pool
• Ijeoma Oluo, ‘I’m not ready for the Obama era to end‘ in The Guardian
• Eimear McBride, ‘Brexit has disfigured the tolerant Britain I’ve known‘ in The Guardian
• Alex Wagner, ‘Marriage After Trump‘ on The Atlantic
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Gloria Steinem and Rashida Jones, ‘To the First Lady, With Love‘ in The New York Times
• Molly Ball, ‘In Ferguson, the Seeds of Trump’s Defeat‘ in The Atlantic

Film, Television, Music, Art, Fashion and Sport:

• Gabrielle Bellot, ‘Hayao Miyazaki and the Art of Being a Woman‘ on The Atlantic

The interviews/profiles:

• Naomi Alderman on The Writes of Woman and in The Guardian
• Vanessa Hua in The Los Angeles Review of Books
• Belle Boggs and Monica Youn on Literary Hub
• Toni Morrison on Literary Hub
• Emma Donoghue on Lenny
• Emily Witt on Literary Hub
• Therese Oneill on Salon
• Larissa Pham on Electric Literature
• Jess Kidd on Jo Hogan Writes
• Irenosen Okojie in 3:am Magazine
• Hannah Hart on Hello Giggles
• Claudia Rankine in The Guardian
• Joanna Kavenna on Literary Hub
• Britt Bennett on The Rumpus
• Zadie Smith in The New York Times

The regular columnists:

• Laurie Penny in The New Statesman
• Lucy Mangan in Stylist
• Roxane Gay in The Guardian US
• Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in The Independent
• Caitlin Moran in The Times
• Lauren Laverne in The Pool
• Ella Risbridger in The Pool
• Sali Hughes in The Pool
• Bim Adewunmi in The Guardian
• Sophie Heawood in The Guardian
• Eva Wiseman in The Observer
• Tracey Thorn in The New Statesman
• Chimene Suleyman and Maya Goodfellow on Media Diversified
• Josie Pickens on Ebony
• Bridget Christie in The Guardian
• Lizzy Kremer on Publishing for Humans
• Juno Dawson in Glamour
• Kashana Cauley on Catapult
• Louise O’Neill in the Irish Examiner
• Jendella Benson on Media Diversified
• Books by Women We’d Love to See in English on Literary Hub