Backlist Books of the Year

At the end of 2019, I challenged myself to read 100 books from my own shelves. What I meant by from my own shelves were the books that had been sitting there some time, often for years. I was fed up of not getting to books that I knew I wanted to read because there was always something shiny and new in front of me. The pandemic helped, of course; losing most of your work and being forced to stay at home will do that. I finished the 100 in early December. Here are the ones I really really loved.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake – Aimee Bender (Windmill)

I thought this would be twee, I was so wrong. The story of a girl who realises she can taste people’s emotions; the story of her brother who begins to disappear. It’s about trauma and depression and it’s perfect.

The Western Wind – Samantha Harvey (Jonathan Cape)

A Brexit allegory disguised as a Medieval whodunnit. Utterly compelling.

Fleishman Is in Trouble – Taffy Brodesser-Akner (Wildfire)

A soon-to-be-ex-wife and mother disappears. A terrible soon-to-be-ex-husband who thinks he’s great has his story narrated by his ‘crazy’ friend. A piercing look at heterosexual marriage and a send-up of the Great American Novel. Longer review here.

Things we lost in the fire – Mariana Enriquez (translated by Megan McDowell) (Granta)

Dark, dark, dark stories. So haunting, so brilliant.

Exquisite Cadavers – Meena Kandasamy (Atlantic)

A Oulipo style novella showing how fiction can be created from life, but it isn’t the same thing. Longer review here.

Ongoingness: The End of a Diary – Sarah Manguso (Graywolf Press)

Manguso wrote a daily diary until she had her first child. This is full of ideas of letting go which are so brilliant I copied many of them on to Post-Its and stuck them above my desk. It’s published by Picador in the UK.

we are never meeting in real life – Samantha Irby (Faber)

Irby is my discovery of the year. Her essays are laugh-out-loud funny and entertaining but they are also about her life as a working class, disabled Black woman with a traumatic childhood. Revolutionary.

Heartburn – Nora Ephron (Virago)

Funny; good on cooking and marriage. Devastating final chapter.

Fingersmith – Sarah Waters (Virago)

Clever crime novel about class, the art of theft and pornography. Superb structure. A masterpiece.

The Chronology of Water – Lidia Yuknavitch (Canongate)

Yuknavitch’s non-chronological memoir about the fifteen lives she has lived. It’s about dying (metaphorically), swimming (literally and metaphorically) and living (literally). It fizzes.

Bear – Marian Engel (Pandora)

The headline is this is a book about a woman who has sex with a bear. It’s really about female autonomy. It’s being republished in the UK in 2021 by Daunt Books.

Magic for Beginners – Kelly Link (Harper Perennial)

Kelly Link is a genius. These stories are so rich in detail; she takes you from a situation that seems perfectly normal to a wild, subverted world that also seems perfectly normal. Incredible.

Parable of the Talents – Octavia E. Butler (Headline)

The novel that predicted a president who would aim to ‘Make America Great Again’. It’s as much the story of a mother / daughter relationship formed under significant trauma as it is the story of a country at war with itself. Longer review here.

Copies of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Fleishman is in Trouble, Exquisite Cadavers, we are never meeting in real life, The Chronology of Water and Parable of the Talents were courtesy of the publishers as listed. All others are my own copies.

Nudibranch – Irenosen Okojie & Earthseed – Octavia E. Butler #DiverseDecember #4 #5

Life intervened yesterday, so it’s a double bill of #DiverseDecember recommendations today.

Nudibranch – Irenosen Okojie

Irenosen Okojie’s short stories are unpredictable, wild, inventive, magical and often heart-wrenching rides. In Nudibranch we meet – amongst others – a woman losing herself; time-travelling silent monks; some unexpected zombies; a heart-eating goddess; mechanical boys, and an albino man who brings fountains to a small town in Mozambique. 

Perhaps the standout story in the collection is the winner of the 2020 AKO Cane Prize for African Writing ‘Grace Jones’. The tale of a Grace Jones’ impersonator, Okojie is interested in who this woman really is; what is she hiding behind her lookalike costume? It’s a breath-taking, hard hitting story and you can read it here.

Earthseed: Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents – Octavia E. Butler

In a dystopian North America, Lauren Oya Olamina lives in a gated community with her family – her academic / preacher father, her stepmum and her siblings. Lauren is hyperempathetic which means she feels the pain of other living creatures. This creates a vulnerability that can be dangerous for her. When the compound is attacked, she begins a journey north, collecting other people along the way. Lauren decides to start preaching her ideas for a new religion which believes that ‘God is Change’. 

Parable of the Talents is narrated by Lauren’s daughter Asha Vere along with diary entries from Lauren. These help Asha to understand her mother and how she has ended up in her current situation. While the first book is focused on community, there is a shift in the second to family. Events are played out against a backdrop of a rising political figure called Andrew Steele Jarret. Jarret is a Christian fundamentalist / White supremacist whose slogan is ‘Make America Great Again’. Yes, really. These books are gripping and fascinating. 

Nudibranch is published by Dialogue Books; Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents are published by Headline. All copies are my own.

Backlist Books of the Year 2018

Some of the best books I read this year weren’t published in 2018 so I thought I’d put them in a separate round-up. I always try and keep this to ten books, I haven’t managed it this year, here’s twelve instead.

Union Street – Pat Barker

One day I’ll learn to read a writer’s work before judging it. I’ve always assumed that Pat Barker wrote books about men in war, then I had to read The Silence of the Girls to write the copy for her Manchester Literature Festival event. I posted a picture of me reading it on my personal Instagram and the brilliant Adelle Stripe mentioned Barker’s earlier, feminist works which she thought I’d like. She was right. Union Street begins with Kelly, stalked by an older man, then moves along the street, chapter-by-chapter, to tell the tales of the other women and girls. It’s a grim read filled with neglect, abuse, pregnancy and death but it captures life for white working class women and still feels as relevant in 2018 as it would’ve done in 1982.

Home Fire – Kamila Shamsie

Home Fire moves Sophocles’ Antigone to the present, telling the story of twins Isma and Aneeka and their brother Parvaiz. When the young women meet Eamonn Lone, son of the UK’s first Muslim Home Secretary, all of their lives are irrevocably changed. A compelling retelling which places a spotlight on the West’s treatment of Muslims and ideas of integration. My full review is here.

Sing, Unburied, Sing – Jesmyn Ward

Narrated by 13-year-old Jojo, his mother Leonie, and the ghost of a boy named Richie, Sing, Unburied, Sing tells the story of a Black family in Southern America who can’t escape the ghosts of the past. Ward intertwines family history with that of Black people in North America and uses the present day to show the damage that history has wrought. It’s a devastating and timely tale. My mini-review is here.

A Thousand Paper Birds – Tor Udall

Another example of my work leading me to a book I’d previously overlooked. I was asked to interview Udall as part of a panel at Jersey Festival of Words and A Thousand Paper Birds was a real surprise. Jonas’ wife is dead. He retreats to Kew Gardens as a place to try and heal. There he meets Chloe, Harry and Millie, all of whom are keeping their own secrets. Beautifully written and affecting, an absolute gem.

Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions – Valeria Luiselli (some sections translated by Lizzie Davies)

Another timely work. In 2015, Luiselli began working as a volunteer translator interviewing unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border from Mexico to the United States. Through the questions the children are asked, Luiselli tells some of their stories and the wider tale of how these children are being failed. My full review is here.

Things I Don’t Want to Know – Deborah Levy

Conceived as a response to George Orwell’s ‘Why I Write’ and the first in a trilogy about Levy’s life and work, Things I Don’t Want to Know is a feminist discussion on women’s writing. Levy talks about the need to speak up, to write calmly through rage, to find a space in which to write. I underlined a lot.

Die, My Love – Ariana Harwicz (translated by Sarah Moses & Carolina Orloff)

An unnamed woman struggles with new motherhood in a new country. She’s angry and frustrated but also full of love and lust, all of which spill out at inappropriate moments. Harwicz questions society’s expectations of women in this inventive, sharp novella. My full review is here.

The White Book – Han Kang (translated by Deborah Smith)

A fractured, often brutal book about Han’s sister who died two hours after she was born. Han uses the colour white repetitively as a meditation on grief and loss, writing her sister back into existence. Beautifully translated by Smith, The White Book is short and highly affecting but not without hope.

Kindred – Octavia Butler

One of the bookish things I’ve most enjoyed this year is taking part in the #ReadWomenSF discussions on Twitter, led by the writer G X Todd. It’s meant I’ve read a number of books that have been sitting on my shelves for some time and Kindred was one of them. In 1976, Dana, a young Black woman, is pulled into 1815 where she saves a young white boy’s life. He is the son of a plantation owner and one of Dana’s relatives. Through Dana, Rufus and Dana’s white husband, Kevin, Butler explores structural inequality, complicity and the normalising of horrific behaviour, all of which doesn’t seem so distant in 2018.

The Poison Tree – Erin Kelly

Last year I loved Erin Kelly’s He Said/She Said so this year I went back to the beginning and read her debut, The Poison Tree. In 1997, Karen meets Biba and is swept into her bohemian lifestyle. In 2007, Karen and her daughter Alice, collect their husband and father from prison. We know that at the end of the summer in 1997 two people died. But we don’t know how and we don’t know who. Tightly plotted and compelling with a perfect ending.

Die a Little – Megan Abbott

Megan Abbott is one of those writers that everyone seems to rave about so I decided to start at the beginning with her debut. Set on the edges of Hollywood during the Golden Age, Die a Little, tells the story of school teacher Lora King’s investigation into her new sister-in-law, Alice Steele, a Hollywood wardrobe assistant. As her findings build, Lora uncovers a world of drugs and sex work as well as some secrets about her own life. Possibly the only book I’ve ever read that I thought was too short.

Resurrection Bay – Emma Viskic

Caleb Zelic’s best friend dies in his arms in the opening pages of Resurrection Bay and the pace doesn’t let up until the end of the book. His best friend has been murdered and Caleb’s turns investigator to find out who did it. His mission is made all the more interesting – and sometimes scary – because Caleb’s deaf meaning sometimes he picks up on cues others might miss and other times he doesn’t hear people sneaking up on him. There are subplots involving his estranged relations – a brother and a wife – and some fun with Australian sign language too. My review of the follow-up And Fire Came Down is here, along with an interview with Emma Viskic.

Trauma in Sci-Fi and Fantasy: Kindred by Octavia Butler and Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

My favourite thing on Twitter at the moment is the monthly discussions about sci-fi and fantasy books by women, led by the writer Gem Todd (author of Defender and Hunted as GX Todd). Each month we vote on a selection of books before reading and then discussing the most popular choice. In May and June we discussed two novels by black women which dealt with different types of trauma – the classic Kindred by Octavia Butler and the Afrofuturist, soon-to-be a HBO series, Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor.

Kindred is the story of Dana, a 26-year-old black woman living a few miles from LA with her white husband, Kevin. It’s 1976. As they unpack the boxes in their new home, Dana begins to feel dizzy and sick. She’s pulled from 1976 to 1815 where a young white boy, Rufus, is drowning. Dana saves him but then is almost shot by the boy’s father. As she stares down the barrel of his rifle, she travels forwards to 1976 where Kevin tells her she’s only been missing for a few seconds.

Later that evening, Dana finds herself back with Rufus who is now three or four years older and attempting to set fire to the curtains in the room he’s in. It soon becomes clear that Rufus is the son of a plantation owner and also a relative of Dana’s.

Over the course of the novel, Dana is repeatedly called to Rufus when he is in mortal danger. She’s tied to him in the sense that she seems to be the only person who can save him from himself and also because she exists due to his relationship with her ancestor, Alice, a free black girl who lives outside the bounds of the plantation with her mother, who is also free.

The complexity of Dana’s link to Rufus allows Butler to explore ideas of structural inequality, complicity and the way in which horrific behaviour can be normalised.

Kevin and I became more a part of the household, familiar, accepted, accepting. That disturbed me too when I thought about it. How easily we seemed to acclimatize. Not that I wanted us to have trouble, but it seemed as though we should have had a harder time adjusting to this particular segment of history – adjusting to our places in the household of a slaveholder.

Kindred is a difficult and disturbing read – as it should be. The moral complexity of Butler’s tale also makes it a thoughtful one and raises questions about our own behaviour in a time where white supremacy is highly visible once again.

Onyesonwu is the protagonist of Who Fears Death, the title being the meaning of her name in an ancient language. Onyesonwu is an Ewu – the product of rape – and has been shunned because of it. The novel begins with her telling us that the father who raised her, who looked beyond what she was to who she was, died. In the four years since his death a lot has happened. She dictates this to an unknown scribe with a laptop during the two days she has left to live.

She tells of her upbringing in the desert with her mother. Of finally settling in a town and going to school. Of the friends she makes, including Mwita, a boy who is also Ewu. She also reveals that she is more than she seems:

“There was a vulture,” I said. “Looking right at me. Close enough for me to see its eyes. I threw a rock at it and as it flew off, one of its feathers fell off. A long black one. I…went and picked it up. I was standing there wishing I could fly as it did. And then…I don’t…”
“You changed,” Mwita said. He was looking at me very closely.
“Yeah! I became the vulture. I swear to you! I’m not making this..”
[…]
“You’re an Eshu,” he said.
“A what?” The word sounded like a sneeze.
“An Eshu. You can shape-shift, among other things.”

Onyesonwu is being hunted by something that repeatedly appears to her as an oval eye. In order to help her harness her powers and defeat the thing that seeks her, she tries to get Aro, the sorcerer, to teach her. He rejects her while apprenticing Mwita. Why? Because she’s a girl.

Who Fears Death is a coming of age story that deals with first love, friendship and sex. It also looks at power – who has it, how it can be used, how to defeat it and what happens when it goes wrong. Okorafor considers how society treats women, including men who would view themselves as supportive of women but still fall foul of their own egos. The book’s strength lies in Onyesonwu’s youth and flaws – she doesn’t transform into a strong, all-conquering woman but has to deal with her fallibility and her mistakes – and also in the friendship between four young women, including Onyesonwu, which develops as the novel progresses. It’s an interesting and inventive story but also a slightly overlong one.

Thanks to Headline for the review copy of Kindred.

In the Media, March 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 traditional media are likely and the categories used are a guide, not definitives.

It’s Mothers’ Day in the UK today, so inevitably there’s been lots of writing about mothers – being one, having one, not having one – this week. Contributors including Jackie Kay, Jeanette Winterson and Helen Simpson wrote about ‘… my mother before I knew her‘ inspired by Carol Ann Duffy’s poem ‘Before You Were Mine’ in The Guardian; Liz Dashwood asks, ‘What do I *really* want for Mother’s Day?‘ on The Pool; Rivka Galchen talked about ‘The Only Thing I Envy Men‘ in The New Yorker; Robyn Wilder wrote, ‘Maternity leave: the reality versus the expectations‘, Emily Eades wrote, ‘Becoming a mother without your own mother to rely on‘ and Sinéad Gleeson wrote, ‘Mothers, and the pram-in-the-hall problem‘ all on The Pool (Do follow the link to the Anne Enright clip on that last piece. Spot on and very funny); Susan Briante wrote, ‘Mother Is Marxist‘ on Guernica; Kate Townshend asked, ‘Is it possible for a mother and daughter to be *too* close?‘, Samira Shackle said, ‘Returning to my mother’s homeland helped me to make sense of my place in the world‘, Cathy Rentzenbrink said, ‘There is no such thing as a smug mother, we’re all terrified and struggling‘ and Rosalind Powell wrote, ‘I didn’t give birth, but I became a mother‘ all on The Pool; Sarah Turner wrote, ‘Mother’s Day Without Mum‘ on The Unmumsy Mum

Sadly, Louise Rennison died this week. Philip Ardagh wrote, ‘My Hero: Louise Rennison‘ in The Guardian. Shannon Maughan wrote her obituary for Publishers Weekly.

The woman with the most coverage this fortnight is Sanjida Kay with ‘Where’s the Diversity in Grip-Lit?‘ on The Asian Writer; ‘on Switching Genres‘ on The Literary Sofa, and ‘Fairytales‘ on Women Writers, Women’s Books

Exciting news as forthcoming novels from Jilly Cooper, Zadie Smith and Ali Smith were announced this fortnight.

And I’ve added Kaushana Cauley’s new Intersections column for Catapult to the regulars list at the bottom of the links. It’s well worth a read.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Eve Ainsworth, ‘Toxic love: YA’s bad boys need to stay between the covers‘ in The Guardian
• Hanya Yanagihara: ‘Don’t we read fiction exactly to be upset?’ in The Guardian
• Jessie Burton, ‘Success, Creativity and the Anxious Space‘ on her blog
• Claire Fuller, ‘Some things I’ve learned in my year of being published‘ on her blog
• Bree Crowder, ‘Four Young Adult Authors Share Why They Write Funny Books‘ on Bustle
• Karen Swallow Prior, ‘Jane Eyre and the Invention of the Self‘ on The Atlantic
• Deborah Moggagh, ‘Man Booker Prize has an unhealthy effect on the market, says author Deborah Moggagh‘ in The Independent
• Claire Fallon, ‘Our Favourite Children’s Books Are Super Problematic‘ on the Huffington Post
• Alison Flood, ‘Tessa Hadley among nine winners of surprise $150,000 literary awards‘ in The Guardian
• Sian Cain, ‘Toni Morrison wins PEN/Saul Bellow award for contribution to American fiction‘ in The Guardian
• Jo Hall, ‘If We Can Imagine Dragons: On Writing Non-Heterosexual Relationships in Fantasy‘ on Holdfast
• Alison Stine, ‘On Poverty‘ on Kenyon Review
• Joan Schenkar, ‘What Patricia Highsmith did for love: ‘The Price of Salt’ and the secrets behind ‘Carol’‘ in the Los Angeles Times
• Louise Walters, ‘I didn’t want to resort to self-publishing, but it’s an exhilarating change‘ in The Guardian
• Gaby Wood, ‘How Karl Ove Knausgaard and Elena Ferrante won us over‘ in The Telegraph
• Moira Redmond, ‘Leap year fear: a literary history of women proposing marriage‘ in The Guardian
• Katy Derbyshire, ‘Women in Translation: Why Does It Matter?‘ on Free Word
• Eva Jurczyk, ‘No More Books by Men‘ on The Awl
• Elizabeth Strassner, ‘How To Tell If You’re In a Flannery O’Connor Story‘ in The Toast
• Anne Boyd Rioux, ‘How to Make Sure Your Writing Is Forgotten‘ on The Rumpus
• Holly Williams, ‘From The Roaring Queen to Downton Abbey: the afterlives of Virginia Woolf‘ in the New Statesman
• Anna North, ‘What Publishing a Novel Taught Me About Life‘ on Waterstones’ Blog

• Kate Jenkins, ‘Harper Lee and the Myth of a Post-Racial America‘ on Literary Hub
• Sian Cain, ‘Fear of Flying still soars above tabloid outrage‘ in The Guardian
• Brigit Katz, ‘These forgotten female crime writers had no time for femme fatales or dowdy housewives‘ on Women in the World
• Idra Novey, ‘Writing While Translating‘ on Literary Hub
• Elizabeth Minkel, ‘Teen readers aren’t in crisis, they’re just making their own rules‘ in The Guardian
• Jaya Saxena, ‘I Know I Should Like Reading More But There Are Things About The Act Of Reading That Make It Very Difficult‘ in The Toast
• Deirdre Sullivan, ‘The seed of Needlework was anger, and I wanted it to feel raw’ in The Irish Times
• Jesmyn Ward remembers Harper Lee: ‘She saw and responded to the humanity of each and every one of us’ on Entertainment Weekly
• Vipash Bansal, ‘Remembering Octavia Butler: 1947-2006‘ on Media Diversified
• Chris Power, ‘A brief survey of the short story: Elizabeth Taylor‘ in The Guardian
• Brooke Magnanti, ‘Where are the normal women in fiction?‘ on One Book Lane
• Robin Stevens, ‘Boys could enjoy stories about girls, and vice versa – if only we’d let them‘ in The Guardian
• Chelsea G. Summers, ‘A History of Horny‘ on Hazlitt
• Brit Mandello, ‘Dear Joanna Russ: A Letter for an Inimitable Writer‘ on Tor.Com
• Sunny Singh, ‘Why set up a prize for writers of colour?‘ in The Bookseller
• Rory Samantha Green, ‘Born Lucky: my mum Jackie Collins and her wild child alter ego‘ in The Guardian
• Laura Barnett, ‘Finding ideas isn’t usually a problem‘ in The Guardian
• Joanna Cannon, ‘Mental illness is always a problem, so we will always need books about it‘ in The Guardian
• Jonathan Sturgeon, ‘The Paradoxical Legacy of Harper Lee‘ on Flavorwire
• Tricia Tongco, ‘Meet Faith, The Body-Positive Superhero Of Our Dreams‘ on the Huffington Post
• Melissa Harrison, ‘How cars ruined our love of the countryside‘ in The Guardian
• Shelley Harris, ‘The Secret Life of Mothers‘ on the WHSmith Blog
• Morgan Jerkins, ‘Black Women Writers and the Secret Space of Diaries‘ in The New Yorker

 

Personal essays/memoir:

• Esther Wang, ‘Watching And Reading About White People Having Sex Is My Escape‘ on Buzzfeed
• Megan Galbraith, ‘Sin Will Find You Out‘ on Catapult
• Georgina Kleege, ‘On Being Who I Am: My Life as a Tall Blind Woman‘ in The Toast
• Briallen Hopper, ‘Relying on Friendship in a World Made for Couples‘ in The Cut
• Sarah Resnick, ‘H‘ on n+1
• Rosalind Jana, ‘The One Piece Of Clothing That Makes Me Feel Extraordinarily Sexy‘ on Refinery 29
• Alana Massey, ‘Why I’m Buying a House Without a Family to Put in It‘ on The Cut
• Anna Holmes, ‘I Feel Destined to Be Single, and That’s Okay‘ on The Cut
• Kade Walker, ‘Veronica Dies in Jamaica‘ on The Rumpus
• Ellen Urbani, ‘There Is No Such Thing as a True Story‘ on The Rumpus

Feminism:

• Rebecca Traister, ‘The Single American Woman‘ in The Cut
• Aria Dean, ‘Closing the Loop‘ on The New Inquiry
• Eleanor Ross, ‘Why estate agent sexism could be costing you‘ on The Pool
• Gaby Hinsliff, ‘It’s the £30bn cut you’ve never heard of. And women are bearing the brunt‘ in The Guardian
• Ann Friedman, ‘So You’re a Celebrity Who Calls Yourself a Feminist. Now What?‘ in The Cut
• Linda Chavers, ‘To Black Girls Everywhere‘ on The Offing
• Caroline Paul, ‘Why Do We Teach Girls That It’s Cute to Be Scared?‘ in The New York Times

Society and Politics:

• Caitlin Moran, ‘How to start – and win – an argument online‘ in The Guardian
• Hadley Freeman, ‘So the privately educated are the new underclass? Spare me the sob story‘ in The Guardian
• Chimene Suleyman, ‘Trump has succeeded in an America that is already pre-disposed to racial suspicion‘ on Media Diversified
• Sarah Churchwell, ‘Hillary Clinton’s haters and the glass ceiling of American politics‘ in the New Statesman
• Molly Crabapple, ‘What Life Is Like Inside the Besieged, War-Torn Syrian City of Aleppo‘ on Vice
• Julia Lee, ‘When People of Color Are Discouraged From Going Into the Arts‘ in The Atlantic
• Dorothy Cummings McLean, ‘Marriage Is an Accomplishment‘ on Quadrapheme
• Kate Spicer, ‘Does where you go to school affect your ability to succeed?‘ on The Pool
• Jamilah King, ‘How Black Women Like Me Reckon With America’s Political Process‘ on Mic

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

• Rachel Syme, ‘The Return to Predictability‘ on Complex
• Anna Leszkiewicz ‘The Ghostbusters trailer shows the new film is categorically not aimed at men‘ in the New Statesman
• Emma Brockes,  ‘Whether it’s Ali G or Tina Fey, ironic racism just isn’t funny any more‘ in The Guardian
• Venus Williams, ‘Why I’m Going Back to Indiana Wells‘ on The Players’ Tribune
• Joan Smith, ‘Now we know – the BBC’s macho culture protected predatory men for decades‘ in The Guardian
• Allison P. Davis, ‘Why Are White People Trying to Ruin ‘Formation’?‘ on The Cut
• Anohni, ‘Why I Am Not Attending the Academy Awards‘ on Pitchfork
• Gwynne Watkins, ‘Before #OscarsSoWhite: The Forgotten Story of Queer Nation’s 1992 Academy Awards Protest‘ on Yahoo
• Elisabeth Donnelly, ‘Boston Rules‘ on Hazlitt
• Caroline O’Donoghue, ‘Kesha: the musical equivalent of the drunk girl in the short dress‘ on The Pool
• Kiva Reardon, ‘Mainstream Creep: Keeping Feminist Film Criticism Subversive‘ on Hazlitt

The interviews:

• Han Kang in The White Review (translated by Deborah Smith)
• Louise O’Neill in Elle
• Helen Stephenson on The Pool
• Chinelo Okparanta on For Books’ Sake
• Tracy Chevalier in The Bookseller and The Telegraph
• Rachel B. Glaser on For Books’ Sake
• Molly Crabapple on Literary Hub
• Shelley Harris on The Writes of Woman and One Book Lane
• Kathleen Spivak on The Rumpus
• Rebecca Traister on Jezebel and Elle (with Roxane Gay)
• Mona Awad on Electric Literature
• Virginia Reeves on Literary Hub
• Jennifer Clement on Pen America
• Monica Wendel on Vida
• Sara Taylor in The Big Issue
• bell hooks (with Emma Watson) in Paper
• Ottessa Moshfegh in The Observer
• Emma Donoghue on Public Books
• Meg Rosoff on Bookanista
• Sarah Ruhl in The New York Times
• Sarah Bakewell on The Bookseller
• Marian Keyes in the Bath Chronicle
• Laura van den Berg and Emily St. John Mandel on the FSG blog
• Joyce Maynard on Literary Hub
• G. Willow Wilson on Black Nerd Problems
• Sharon Horgan on Creative Review
• Elizabeth Kadetsky on The Rumpus
• Lucy Kalanithi in Stylist
• Jacky Fleming on The Pool
• Petina Gappah on NPR
• Carol Tulloch in The Observer
• Caitlin Moran on The Debrief
• Deborah Smith on The Quietus

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

In the Media, February 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 traditional media are likely and the categories used are a guide, not definitives.

On Friday, the death of Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird was announced. Obituaries followed from Ed Pilkington and Matthew Teague in The Guardian; Eric Hamburger also in The Guardian; Casey N. Cep in The New Yorker, and The Irish Times, and appraisals of her work from Michiko Kakutani, ‘In Harper Lee’s Novels, a Loss of Innocence as Children and Again as Adults‘ in the New York Times; Sarah Churchwell, ‘Harper Lee: author battled to reconcile racial justice with a racially unjust society‘ and Elaine Showalter, ‘Harper Lee: an American novelist deserving of serious attention‘ both in The Guardian; Michelle Dean, ‘Did Go Set a Watchman spoil Harper Lee’s literary legacy?‘ in The Guardian; Katy Waldman, ‘What Is Harper Lee’s Legacy After Go Set a Watchman?‘ on Slate, and Alex Clark, ‘Why Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird endures to tell its tale of radical change‘ in The Observer

You might have heard that a fortnight ago Beyoncé released a new song ‘Formation’ which she went on to perform at the SuperBowl. Lots of people had lots to say about it. LaSha wrote, ‘Kendrick Lamar won’t face backlash like Beyoncé: Socially conscious art, sexual expression and the policing of black women’s politics‘, Priscilla Ward wrote, ‘White Beyoncé haters don’t get it: “Formation” isn’t “race-baiting” — but it is unapologetically about race‘ both on Salon; Banseka Kayembe wrote, ‘Beyonce Gets Political: Here’s Why it Matters‘ on the Huffington Post; Shantrelle Lewis wrote, ‘“Formation” Exploits New Orleans’ Trauma‘ on Slate; Nikita Richardson did ‘A Deep Dive into the Important, Unapologetic Blackness of Beyoncé’s ‘Formation’‘ on Hello Giggles; Suzanne Moore said, ‘Black Pride at the Super Bowl? Beyoncé embodies a new political moment‘ in The Guardian; The Pool asked, ‘Four women on what Beyoncé’s Formation means to them‘, and Anna Leszkiewicz said, ‘Beyoncé and #BlackLivesMatter: why “Formation” is her most radical release to date‘ in the New Statesman.

Last weekend was Valentine’s Day; there was plenty of writing around that too. Emma Dowling wrote, ‘Love’s Labour’s Cost: The Political Economy of Intimacy‘ on Verso Books; Eleanor Franzén wrote ‘V Daze‘ on Elle Thinks; Eileen Myles, ‘on the Excruciating Pain of Waiting for Love‘ and Heather Haverilesky, ‘What Romance Really Means After 10 Years of Marriage‘ on The Cut; Marie Phillips wrote, ‘What I learnt from a year of being in love‘ and Emer O’Toole shared, ‘The Rules, and how I fell in love‘ both on The Pool; Lauren Duca asked, ‘Is There Such a Thing As a Feminist Marriage Proposal?‘, Laura June revealed, ‘What I Thought Romance Meant, Age 12–Present‘ and Meaghan O’Connell told us, ‘Getting Married in One Week Was the Most Romantic Thing I Ever Did‘ all in The Cut; Emma Flowers wrote, ‘Finding, Nearly Losing and Finally Building Love Across Two Genders‘ on the Huffington Post; Heidi Julavits on ‘My High-School Boyfriend, the Con Artist‘ in The Cut; Tiffany Yannetta wrote, ‘Lights, Camera, Love‘ on the history of dating shows on Racked, and Alana Massey said, ‘Tinder Is the New Meet-Cute‘ in The Cut.

Congratulations to Ríona Judge McCormack who won the inaugural Galley Beggar Press short story competition with ‘Blackburn‘. And The Stella Prize announced its 12 book longlist for 2016.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Janet Ellis,‘I submitted my book under a pseudonym’ in The Telegraph
• Sarah Pinborough, ‘“The first outline was way more weird than the final novel” – on writing 13 Minutes‘ on One Book Lane
• Katherine Clements, ‘The Real Wicked Lady‘ on The History Girls
• Elen Caldecott, ‘Children’s books: a middle class ghetto?‘ in The Guardian
• Grady Hendrix, ‘Beloved: The Best Horror Novel the Horror Genre Has Never Claimed‘ on Tor.Com
• Laura Malonee, ‘The Subversive Women Who Self-Publish Novels Amid Jihadist War‘ on Wired
• Cathy Retzenbrink, ‘Lucy Kalanithi, a mourning wife on her husband’s brilliant legacy‘ on The Pool
• Susan Burton, ‘The Quietly Subversive Fictions of Dana Spiotta‘ in The New York Times
• Lisa Levy, ‘The Fine Grim Line Between Love and Stalking: On the Crime Fiction of Caroline Kepnes‘ on Literary Hub
• AFP, ‘Love, Rage, Silence: Secret Lives of Afghanistan’s Female Poets‘ in The Express Tribune
• Belinda McKeon, ‘The Night that Sylvia Plath Met Ted Hughes‘ on Literary Hub
• Edan Lepucki, ‘The Anxiety of Influence: Children’s Books and Their Grown-Up Counterparts‘ on The Millions
• Emily Harnett, ‘When Art Cannot Console Us In Death‘ on Literary Hub
• Anna Hope, ‘The inspiration for an asylum set on the Yorkshire Moors‘ on the Penguin blog
• Rosalind Harvey, ‘A Response to “Beyond Bolaño and Beyond”‘ on Full Stop
• Lisa McInerney, ‘Writers on Location: on Cork City‘ on The Literary Sofa
• Melissa Keil, ‘When is YA going to shape up to body diversity?‘ in The Guardian
• Maddie Crum ‘Some Books Just Aren’t Made To Be Adapted For The Screen, And That’s OK‘ on Huffington Post
• Gila Lyons ‘Female Friendships and Online Literary Sexism‘ on The Rumpus
• Polly Vernon, ‘All the attention came from women telling me how stupid my book was‘ in The Guardian
• Kathryn Evans, ‘How writing YA helped me make sense of my childhood‘ on Scottish Book Trust
• Robert McCrum, ‘The 100 best nonfiction books: No 3 – No Logo by Naomi Klein (1999)‘ in The Guardian
• Tracy McVeigh, ‘Ferrante fever sees ‘dangerous’ Naples turn into a tourist hotspot‘ in The Observer
• Valerie Grove, ‘My hero: Margaret Forster‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah Crompton. ‘Girl, uninterrupted: staging Eimear McBride’s chaotic masterpiece‘ in The Guardian
• William Deresiewicz, ‘Where Have You Gone, Annie Dillard?‘ on The Atlantic
• Kavita Das, ‘On Parsing‘ on VIDA
• Emily Sipiora, ‘Françoise Sagan and Luxury Existentialism‘ in The Northwest Review of Books
• Katie Cotton, ‘Women in picture books: are we there yet?‘ on Scottish Book Trust
• Martin Chilton, ‘How Valley of the Dolls went from a reject to a 30-million best-seller‘ in The Telegraph
• Candy Gourlay and Laura Dockrill, ‘Why we love enchantment in children’s books‘ in The Guardian
• Daniel Peña, ‘Octavia Butler’s Notebook Represents All The Anxieties Of Writers Of Color‘ on Ploughshares
• Niina Pollari, ‘The Marvelous Bonfire‘ on Catapult
• Nandini Balial, ‘On Finding Yourself in the Work of Jhumpa Lahiri‘ on Literary Hub
• Siyanda Mohutsiwa, ‘I’m Done With African Immigrant Literature‘ on Okay Africa
• Andrew Harrison, ‘Framed! Meet the creators shaking up modern comics‘ in The Guardian
• Claire Armitstead, ‘Margaret Forster, award-winning author, dies at 77‘ in The Guardian
• Hannah Tennant-Moore, ‘The Best Literary Writing About Sex‘ on Literary Hub
• Catherine Nichols, ‘One Weird Trick That Makes a Novel Addictive‘ on Jezebel
• Eleanor Franzén, ‘On Culture: The Dark Side of Beatrix Potter‘ on Litro
• Máire T Robinson, ‘Sheela-na-gigs and writing what you don’t know‘ in The Irish Times
• Chibundu Onuzo, ‘Yes, I’m black. But an ethnic minority? Forget it‘ in The Guardian
• Anne Boyd Rioux, ‘Eight Classic Female Bildungsromane You Should Know About If You Don’t Already‘ in The Toast
• Esther Kuforiji, ‘Stories of Blackness — Chapter 4: Literary Festivals‘ on Medium
• Julia Eccleshare, ‘Gillian Avery obituary‘ in The Guardian

Personal essays/memoir:

• Liz Dashwood, ‘Grown-ups are allowed to have meltdowns, too‘ on The Pool
• Joyce Maynard, ‘What Luck Means Now‘ in The New York Times
• Erin Lee Carr, ‘Still Rendering‘ on Medium
• Danielle Bacher, ‘My Autistic Brother’s Quest for Love‘ in Esquire
• Bruna Dantas Labato, ‘Notes on Record-Keeping‘ on Ploughshares
• Joanna Horton, ‘Hard Luck: On Motherlessness‘ in The Toast
• Edan Lepuki, ‘The Secret, Magical Underwear That Only Moms Know About‘ in The Cut
• Kim Pittaway, ‘After‘ on Hazlitt
• Jennifer Hanks, ‘Somewhere Across The Sea‘ in Lumen
• Nicolette Loizou, ‘Travelling in Fiji‘ on Litro
• Esther Schor, ‘My Last JDate‘ in Tablet
• Antonia Honeywell, ‘I was driven out of my beloved church by homophobia‘ in The Telegraph
• Marian Keyes , ‘on the Agony of Small Goodbyes‘ on The Pool
• Susan Shapiro, ‘Both Sides Now‘ on Tablet
• Carmen Maria Machado, ‘The Moon Over the River Lethe‘ on Catapult
• Sarai Walker, ‘Yes, I’m Fat. It’s O.K. I Said It.‘ in The New York Times
• Miriam Foley, ‘Remembering Román‘ on Litro
• Susan Daitch, ‘Treasure Hunters‘ on Guernica
• Farah Róisín, ‘Why Them?‘ on Hazlitt

Feminism:

• Anna James, ‘What’s behind the lack of female pilots?‘ on The Pool
• Jia Tolentino, ‘What Should We Say About David Bowie and Lori Maddox?‘ on Jezebel
• Laura Munoz, ‘To Men I Love, About Men Who Scare Me‘ on Medium
• Dolly Alderton, ‘Hey, spurious polls. This is the *perfect* woman‘ on The Pool
• Emma Lindsay, ‘What I Learned From Dating Women Who Have Been Raped‘ on Medium
• Caroline O’Donoghue, ‘On the sad inevitability of the grown man and the teenage girl‘ on The Pool
• Caroline Criado-Perez, ‘Companies are to publish their gender pay gaps – but will this lead to financial equality?‘ on the New Statesman
• Louise O’Neill, ‘I wonder if my ex-boyfriends thought female sexuality was something to be laughed at‘ in the Irish Examiner
• Sandra Newman, ‘Woman Facts‘ on McSweeney’s
• Robyn Wilder, ‘Why is the P-word so cringingly awful?‘ on The Pool
• Rebecca Solnit, ‘The Case of the Missing Perpetrator‘ on Literary Hub
• Sophie Mayer, ‘The Legend of Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp‘ on Berfrois
• Sady Doyle, ‘Progressive‘ on her Tumblr
• Aricka Foreman and Mimi Wong, ‘Except, All Of Us: Women & the Myth of Safety‘ on The Offing
• Laura June ‘When You’re Pregnant, Nothing Seems in Your Control‘ on The Cut

Society and Politics:

• Kyla Marshell, ‘The Other World Where Everyone Lives‘ in The Blueshift Journal
• Elspeth Reeve, ‘The Secret Lives of Tumblr Teens‘ on New Republic
• Michelle Goldberg, ‘Is a Surrogate a Mother?‘ on Slate
• Alana Massey, ‘Checking Your Date’s Instagram Isn’t ‘Stalking,’ It’s Research‘ on The Cut
• Meena Kandasamy, ‘“I Am An Anti-National…Count Me Out”‘ on Outlook
• Aaminah Khan, ‘I Don’t Need White Progressives Telling Me, A Queer Muslim, About Homophobia In Islam‘ on Harlott
• Lisa Rab, ‘Poverty in Charlotte: ‘It Was Never Okay’‘ in Charlotte Magazine
• Beulah Maud Devaney, ‘Which Cities Would Be Most Likely to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse?‘ on City Metric
• Jihan Crowther ‘What Dating Abroad Taught Me About Stateside Racism‘ on Jezebel
• Jaya Saxena, ‘Some Unorganized Mixed Race Thoughts‘ in The Toast
• Lineal Ajello, ‘More and More War Stories‘ on Guernica
• Susan Gillman, ‘Remembering Slavery, Again‘ in The Los Angeles Review of Books
• Eleanor Margolis, ‘The new young fogeys‘ in The New Statesman
• Emiko Jozuka, ‘The Woman Who Makes Prosthetic Pinkies for Ex-Yakuza Members‘ on Motherboard

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

• Joy Resmovits, ‘The UCLA gymnast who became a viral sensation by just being herself on the floor‘ in the LA Times
• Elizabeth Day, ‘Happy Valley’s women: flawed, funny and completely brilliant‘ on The Pool
• Elizabeth Sankey, ‘In praise of Ab Fab, female friendship and not caring what other people think‘ on The Pool
• Lorrie Moore, ‘The Shame of Wisconsin‘ in The New York Review of Books
• Caroline O’Donoghue, ‘Superheroes have to deal with the same problems the rest of us do‘ on The Pool
• Alexandra Molotkow, ‘The Uncomfortable Power of Pop-Music Cruelty‘ on The Cut
• Hannah Giorgia, ‘Why Do Black Women In Movies Have To Choose Between A Weave And A Relationship?‘ on Buzzfeed
• Cali Hughes, ‘Red is so much more than a colour. It’s a state of mind.’ on the 4th Estate blog
• Lisa Owens, ‘Does Don’t Tell The Bride actually contain the secrets to a happy life?‘ on The Pool
• Lisa Hix, ‘Out of the Shadow of Aunt Jemima: The Real Black Chefs Who Taught Americans to Cook‘ on Collectors Weekly
• Jamie Lauren Keiles, ‘I’m a Hat Person Now‘ on The Cut

The interviews:

• Elizabeth Strout in The Guardian
• Kelly Link on The Millions
• Elena Ferrante in The Gentlewoman
• Idra Novey on Hazlitt, Electric Literature, Weird Sister and Literary Hub
• Janet Ellis in The Bookseller
• Hilary Spiers on Greenacre Writers
• Ann Neuman and Sheri Fink in Guernica
• Marie Annhearte Baker in Room
• Marjorie Liu in Guernica
• Jhumpa Lahiri on Slate, the Wall Street Journal and  Literary Hub, Parts One and Two
• Belinda McKeon on Electric Literature
• Lucy Kalanithi in The Guardian
• Sara Majka on Electric Literature
• Salena Godden on The Woven Tale Press
• Marina Warner on The Literateur
• Ann Goldstein on NPR
• Antonia Honeywell on Greenacre Writers
• Angela Flournoy on The Rumpus
• Sarah Perry on Radio Praha
• Meg Rosoff in The Guardian
• Han Kang on Literary Hub
• Joanna Walsh in Tank
• Alida Nugent on The Rumpus
• Natasha Wimmey on Broadly
• Caroline Bergvall on Asymptote
• Jo Bloom in Psychologies
• Elizabeth McKenzie on Literary Hub
• Sharon Guskin in The Bookseller
• Cate Kennedy on Paul McVeigh’s website
• Sara Gruen and Sarah McCoy on Salon
• Gillian Slovo in The Observer
• Melissa Green in the Los Angeles Review of Books

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

In the Media: 30th November 2014

In the media is a weekly round-up of features written by, about or containing female writers that have appeared during the previous week 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. Also, just a note to make it clear that I’m using the term ‘media’ to include social media, so links to blog posts as well as traditional media are likely.

Friday night saw the winner of this year’s The Green Carnation Prize revealed. Congratulations to Anneliese Mackintosh whose book Any Other Mouth came top of a very strong shortlist. You can read about the decision on The Green Carnation Prize blog. Anneliese’s reaction is on her blog. It’s interesting to see Mackintosh’s book described as a fiction, memoir, short story hybrid, particularly as there’s been a focus on women writing memoirs this week.

Susanna Rustin is in The Guardian talking about ‘Why women are the masters of the memoir‘; Ceridwen Dovey writes ‘The Pencil and the Damage Done: The perverse attraction of autobiographical fiction‘ in The monthly; Lydia Kiesling writes ‘Meghan Daum won’t apologise: How she forged a new generation of confessional writing‘ on Salon, while Hannah Gersen writes on Meghan Daum, ‘Her Well-Spent Adulthood‘ on The Millions.

If you want to read some memoir essays, Lucinda Rosenfeld has ‘The Battle Hynm of the Papier-Mâché Mother‘ in The New Yorker; Sunny Singh writes, ‘To Become a Woman and a Writer, One Must Cast Aside Modesty‘ on her blog; Soniah Kamal writes, ‘Girls from Good Families‘ on The Butter; there’s an excerpt from Viv Albertine’s Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys on Vulture, while Sam Baker lists her pick of the best biographies and memoirs of 2014 in Harpers Bazaar.

Sadly, this week saw the death of crime writer, PD James. Ruth Rendall talked about their 40-year friendship in The Guardian. Linda Semple took a different angle on Slate looking at James’ homophobia.

The Scottish Book Trust chose Book Week Scotland to celebrate libraries. Many writers penned love letters to their chosen libraries, you can read letters from A.L Kennedy and Jacqueline Wilson in The Guardian and Alison Irvine, Anne Donovan, Francesca Simon, Helen Grant, Joanne Harris, Kate Tough, Lari Don, Lesley McDowell, Lin Anderson, Maggie Craig, Shari Low and Zoe Venditozzi on the Scottish Book Trust site. Rosie Garland also wrote about her passion for libraries to celebrate The Feminist Library on their blog.

And finally, The Guardian reported on a Goodreads survey in which they discovered that readers prefer authors of their own sex. Before anyone tells me we don’t need #readwomen2014 or this blog anymore, wait until this year’s VIDA statistics are published.

The best of the rest essays/articles:

• Tatyana Movshevich, ‘I Am From Dzerzhink‘ in Litro
• Anya A.H. Jamieson, ‘Black Blessings: Toni Cade Bambara and Octavia E. Butler‘ on The Feminist Wire
• Sam Baker, ‘What happens to your wardrobe when you leave life on the front rows‘ in The Telegraph
• Alex Engebretson, ‘Marilynne Robinson’s Singular Vision‘ on The Millions
• Daniel E. Pritchard, ‘To Revive the Lyric: Hoa Nguyen‘ in The Critical Flame
• Charlotte Seager, ‘When characters are difficult to get on with‘ in The Guardian
• Robin Stevens, ‘Murder Most Unladylike and diversity in children’s fiction‘ on Author Allsorts
• Josephine Livingstone, ‘Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues Isn’t Just for Queers’ on Slate
• Alicia Lutes on Doctor Who hiring it’s first female writer in six years on Nerdist
• Roxane Gay, ‘Only Words‘ on Michael Brown on The Butter
• Edwidge Danticat, ‘Enough Is Enough‘ also on Michael Brown in The New Yorker
• Stephanie Young, ‘Waterline, Part 1‘ on Drunken Boat
• Eleanor Updale, ‘Helping Miss Worthington‘ on The History Girls
• Sadie Stein, ‘Head Cases‘ on migraines in The Paris Review
• Sabrina Khan, ‘The Importance of Diversity in YA Fiction‘ on Women Writers, Women’s books
• Tuula Karjalainen, ‘Tove Jansson’s Moominland: What was the inspiration for Finland’s most famous family?‘ in The Independent
• Beluah Maud Devaney, ‘Little Women’s Unfortunate Brothers‘ in The Guardian
• Beverly Lyon Clark, ‘Why Louisa May Alcott’s Morality Still Resonates with Readers‘ on Huffington Post
• Claire Fuller, ‘And the winner is…‘ on her blog
• Rachel Holmes, ‘How Eleanor Marx Changed the World‘ on the New Statesman
• Valeria Costa-Kostritsky, ‘Letter from: the heart of Chechnya‘ in The Calvert Journal
• Rachel Donadio, ‘Italy’s Great, Mysterious Storyteller‘ (Guess who that is…) in The New York Review of Books
• Rivka Galchen, ‘What Kind of Funny Is He?‘ on Kafka in the LRB
• Kate Mayfield, ‘My Terrifying Thanksgiving‘ on her blog
• Mary Lécuyer, ‘The Puzzle of Puzzles/And that we call Being‘ in The Stockholm Review
• Marcia Lynx Qualey, ‘Small World: Impac prize’s version of global literature is distinctly parochial‘ in The Guardian
• Lily Dunn, ‘Writing Motherhood‘ on Mslexia
• Antonia Honeywell, ‘Three Months till Publication‘ on her blog
• Hilary Mantel on judging the Hilary Mantel Prize in The Guardian (Yes, it’s real.)
• Felicia R. Lee on Claudia Rankine in The New York Times

Photo by Dan Hansson

The interviews:

• Deborah Levy on Short Story Masterclass
• Tessa Hadley on Short Story Masterclass
• Sandra Ozzolo Ferri and Sandro Ferri, the husband and wife team who founded Europa Editions and discovered Elena Ferrante on Publishers Weekly
• Tena Štivičić on the National Theatre’s Soundcloud
• Fiona McCrae, Publisher of Graywolf Press on their blog via Guernica
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie via Brittle Paper
• Jacqueline Woodson in The Guardian
• Jane Smiley on The Millions
• Shelly Oria in The Paris Review
• J.C. Todd on Bloom
• Sarah Koenig talking about Serial on Slate
• Ali Smith in The New York Times
• Ava Chin on Bloom
• Megan Amran on Flavorwire
• Jodi Picoult in The Telegraph
• Marilynne Robinson on the New Statesman
• Joanne Harris in The Herald
• Celese Ng on The Writes of Woman (yes, I linked to my own blog)
• Catherine Hall on The Writes of Woman (and again)

If you want some fiction/poetry to read:

• ‘The Untelling‘ by Claire Fuller on Bookanista
• ‘Canada‘ by Katherine Stansfield in The Guardian
• Claudia Rankine reads from Citizen on Lemon Hound
• ‘Engineer‘ by Helen Mort in the TLS
• Contemporary Irish Women Poets on Poethead (links to several poems)
• ‘Leaving Her‘ by Deborah Pintonelli on Literary Orphans
• Two Sentence Thanksgiving Stories on Salon (45 of them!)
• An extract from ‘The Crooked House‘ by Christobel Kent on The Crime Vault
• ‘The Price’ and other poems by Jane Clarke on Poethead

Or some non-fiction:

• Claire-Louise Bennett reading from her essay ‘I Am Love‘ at the launch of Gorse Journal No. 2

The lists:

• The 10 Best Books of 2014 in Time Out New York
• The 15 Best Non-fiction Books by Black Authors in 2014 on The Root
• 10 Obscure Non-Fiction Books by Your Favorite Fiction Writers on Flavorwire
• 5 Must-Read Poetry Collections by Women on Ravishly
• 10 Reasons to Love Marilynne Robinson on For Books’ Sake
• 9 PD James Quotes Every Writer Needs to Read on Buzzfeed
• Five African Novels to Read Before You Die on The Conversation

And the best pieces I’ve read this week:

• Amina Gautier, ‘On Male Verbal Privilege‘ on Read Her Like an Open Book
• Shannon Barber, ‘We Deserve It‘ in Nailed (reposted following the Michael Brown decision this week)
• Eva Stalker on ‘The TBR20 Project: Taking a Break from Too Many Books‘ on her blog
• Isabel Rogers, ‘In my beginning is my end‘ – Friday QuickFic on her blog
• Lynsey White, on ageing and writing on her blog. White has blogged every day of NaNoWriMo and written almost 75,000 words on her WIP. All of the blogs are worth reading.
• Gaby Wood on Fairytales in The Telegraph (starts with Neil Gaiman but covers many others too)

Unsung Female Writers (Part Three)

When I ran the Unsung Female Writers’ lists parts one and two, JacquiWine contacted me and suggested I ask some male bloggers to share their suggestions. What a fantastic idea, I thought, so I contacted two of my favourite male bloggers, both of whom are great champions of women writers.

Today, I’m delighted to welcome Eric from lonesomereader and David from Follow the Thread to share the women writers they think we should be reading.

David reads and reviews mostly fiction and although he’s happy to read any book as long as it’s good, he particularly enjoys reading speculative fiction. This year he’s aiming for two-thirds of his reading to be either literature in translation or English language works from outside the UK or the USA. He also reviews for a number of publications and is the current guest editor for Fiction Uncovered.

Nina Allan

(Photograph from ninaallan.co.uk)

Nina Allan’s work sits on the boundary between literary and speculative fiction, skilfully combining both with a strong sense of the southern English landscapes in which her stories are often set. Most of her work to date has been short fiction, including the collections The Silver Wind, a fragmented portrait of loss depicting multiple versions of the same characters; and Stardust, which chases the dream of a film actress through past, present and future. But perhaps the best place to start is The Race, Allan’s recently published debut novel, which begins as a tale of the racing of genetically enhanced greyhounds, and turns into an examination of individuals having to re-evaluate their place in the world.

Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006)

Octavia Butler was one of the most significant African-American writers of science fiction, whose work explored issues of race, gender, and power struggle, amongst others. Her books ranged from Kindred, the tale of a contemporary African-American woman sent back to the early 19th century; to the “Lilith’s Brood” trilogy, in which the remnants of humanity are rescued by an alien species able to manipulate genetics. From the work of Butler’s that I’ve read, I would suggest starting with Parable of the Sower, whose protagonist founds her own humanist religion in a near future afflicted by environmental damage. It was the first in a series which was left unfinished after two volumes by Butler’s sudden death at the age of 58.

 

Liz Jensen

Liz Jensen is a difficult writer to pin down, as she never quite does the same thing twice (which is always a good thing as far as I’m concerned!). She has written a mystery from the viewpoint of a boy in a coma (The Ninth Life of Louis Drax); painted a satirical portrait of contemporary Britain seen through the eyes of a 19th-century time traveller (My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time); and told an unsentimental tale of life on the Home Front (War Crimes for the Home). If you’ve never read Jensen before, try The Rapture, a sharp study of a paralysed psychotherapist trying to prove her worth whilst treating a girl who is apparently able to predict catastrophe.

 

Yoko Ogawa

Yoko Ogawa is a highly prolific author in her native Japan, but only four of her books have appeared in English to date (all ably translated by Stephen Snyder). These tend towards the dark and macabre, as demonstrated her collection of linked stories, Revenge (shortlisted for this year’s Independent Foreign Fiction Prize), or Hotel Iris, her novel about a teenage girl’s relationship with an older man. But Ogawa’s work also has a lighter side, which can be seen in The Housekeeper and the Professor, the charming tale of a woman who goes to work for a mathematician with short-term memory problems. Any of Ogawa’s books would make a good entry-point, but the three novellas in The Diving Pool stand as a fine showcase of her range.

 

Caroline Smailes

Nothing that Caroline Smailes writes is straightforward; she uses form and structure to transform her subjects. For example, Black Boxes explored the closed emotional worlds of a mother and daughter through their own private ‘black boxes’ – the mother’s conversations with herself about her memories, and the daughter’s diary. 99 Reasons Why was an ebook-only novella with multiple endings, which could be selected at random through your ereader. You might like to begin with Smailes’s most recent novel, The Drowning of Arthur Braxton, which transplants water sprites to a municipal swimming pool in the north of England, but with a real sense of menace and magic.

Eric has had a ‘passion for turning the page’ since he was six. He has a Masters in Studies in Fiction from UEA and writes his own stories too. His novel Enough won the Pearl Street Publishing First Book Award.

Amanda Craig

Writer and journalist Amanda Craig is certainly worthy of more attention and praise. She has produced several excellent books including novels that take you on a girl’s journey in Tuscany, re-imagine a Shakespeare play, uncover the secrets of a British boarding school, survey the changing immigrant population of London and examine the vicious world of journalism. I would recommend starting with her extremely moving novel IN A DARK WOOD about mental illness and the hidden meaning of fairy tales.

 

Angela Carter

Normally I would grudgingly respect judges’ decisions in literary prizes, but the snubbing of Carter on the 1991 Booker shortlist was criminal. She was one of the most innovative English writers of the 20th century and dying from cancer at the time her final novel WISE CHILDREN was released. As with all of this stunning writer’s work, it is a brilliantly inventive book and should have been acknowledged.

 

Rachel Ingalls

Who is Rachel Ingalls? A private and elusive writer who has produced only several slim volumes of writing since the 1960s. Her writing delves into the fantastic where hard reality buffets up against the surreal. Read MRS CALIBAN about a housewife’s love affair with an aquatic being who has a taste for avocados. It’s an inspired, complex, subversive masterwork.

 

Joyce Carol Oates

It’s too easy to gape at Oates’ staggering productivity and dismiss her as a writing machine. Yes, there are over 60 novels, over 35 story collections, more than a dozen non-fiction books – plus poetry, plays, anthologies, young adult novels and more every year. Do not despair! This is a dedicated artist whose writing always surprises and engages you. Begin with her novel THE GRAVEDIGGER’S DAUGHTER and carry on exploring this complex, intelligent writer whose writing you’ll always want to come back to.

 

Jean Rhys

In the 1930s Rhys published a string of intense and beautifully melancholy short novels, but then faded into relative obscurity for 25 or so years. When she successfully returned to the public eye with WIDE SARGASSO SEA many people were surprised she was still alive as they had assumed she committed suicide given the depressing tone of her previous novels. Of course, any fan of JANE EYRE must read Rhys’ novel WIDE SARGASSO SEA, but her early novels deserve exploration – particularly GOOD MORNING, MIDNIGHT whose devastating ending provides the perfect counterpoint to Joyce’s ULYSSES.

 

Huge thanks to both David and Eric. Some brilliant choices, as ever some I’ve read, some I’ve heard of and some I’ll be looking up now. Hope you’ve found someone who looks interesting to you too.