In the Media: February 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.

This fortnight, Frances Hardinge became the first children’s author to win the Costa Book of the Year Award since Philip Pullman in 2001. Hardinge’s interviewed in The Guardian. Aria Akbar in The Independent used Hardinge’s win to remind us that adults can and do read children’s books too, ‘Here’s hoping this ‘moment’ for children’s fiction leads to a golden age‘ while Caroline O’Donoghue asked, ‘Why is it so easy to fall in love with children’s books?‘ on The Pool.

The other bookish talking point has been around those titles Marion Keyes named ‘Grip-Lit’ i.e. so gripping you don’t want to stop turning the pages. Alexandra Heminsley writes, ‘Grip-lit, and how the women in crime fiction got interesting‘ on The Pool, while Sophie Hannah says, ‘Grip-lit? Psychological thrillers were around long before Gone Girl‘ in The Guardian.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Suzanne Joinson, ‘Writing, Travelling and the Creative Act‘ on Literary Hub
• Alison Kinney, ‘In Praise of the DIY Book Party‘ on Literary Hub
• Bridget Read, ‘Janet Malcom: Biased, Mean and Brilliant‘ on Literary Hub
• Elizabeth McKenzie, ‘Surrealism and Decomposition or How I Wrote My Novel‘ on Literary Hub
• Leslie Jamison and Alice Gregory, ‘When Is Criticism Unfair?‘ in The New York Times
• Charlotte Shane, ‘Secrets Among Distractions: The Power of Wimmelbooks‘ on Hazlitt
• Tara Isabella Burton, ‘Dark Books‘ on Aeon
• Hannah Ewens, ‘Remembering Sarah Kane, the Playwright Who Changed British Theater Forever‘ on Vice
• Nayomi Munaweera, ‘A Tale of Two Author Photos: Gender, Race and the Body Represented‘ on Electric Literature
• Lolita Chakrabarti, ‘“Red Velvet”, and what’s wrong with theatre today‘ in The Independent
• Marie Mutsuki Mockett, ‘Our Fairy Tales Ourselves: Storytelling from East to West‘ on Literary Hub
• Jeannine Hall Gailey, ‘The Amazing Disappearing Woman Writer‘ on The Rumpus
• Various, ‘‘Big books by blokes about battles’: Why is history still written mainly by men?‘ in The Guardian
• Tracy Chevalier, ‘My Hero: Charlotte Brontë‘ in The Guardian
• Pankaj Mishra, ‘on Arundhati Roy: Hindu nationalists ​have many ways to silence writers‘ in The Guardian
• Rachel Cooke, ‘Is English literature since 1918 really such a man’s world?‘ in The Guardian
• Robert McCrum, ‘The 100 best nonfiction books: No 1 – The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert (2014)‘ in The Guardian
• Jhumpa Lahiri, ‘I am, in Italian, a tougher, freer writer’ in The Guardian
• Saima Mir, ‘British literature needs black and asian women – and not just as a trend‘ in The Guardian
• Emer O’Toole, ‘A dictionary entry citing ‘rabid feminist’ doesn’t just reflect prejudice, it reinforces it‘ in The Guardian
• AL Kennedy, ‘Doctor Who reminded me how precious storytelling is‘ in The Guardian
• Honor Cargill, ‘What it’s like to write a book with your mum‘ in The Guardian
• Hilary Mantel, ‘on Elizabeth Jane Howard: the novelist she tells everyone to read‘ in The Guardian

Personal essays/memoir:

• Amy Long, ‘“Mom, I’m Taking Opiates Again, I’m Fine.”‘ on Literary Hub
• Catherine Talese, ‘Travels to Nowhere‘ on Literary Hub
• Jessica Ritchey, ‘Unfathomable Life: A Writer Grieves for Her Father, through Five Movies‘ on RogerEbert.com
• Nancy Westaway, ‘Modern Grief‘ on The Walrus
• Corina Zappia, ‘Mole Biopsies and Other Love Notes‘ on The Rumpus
• Charlotte O’Brien, ‘Plankton (A Body of Stars)‘ on The Rumpus
• Adele Oliviera, ‘Violet‘ on Longreads
• Ariel Lewiton, ‘To Anyang‘ in Guernica
• Elif Batuman, ‘Cover Story: The head scarf, modern Turkey, and me.‘ in The New Yorker
• Miranda Sawyer, ‘I have lived over half of my life‘ in The Guardian

Feminism:

• Emma Winsor Wood, ‘Powerlifter‘ in The Morning News
• Rebecca Mead, ‘“Sexual Politics” and the Feminist Work That Remains Undone‘ in The New Yorker
• Daisy Buchanan, ‘An open letter to Piers Morgan‘ on The Pool
• Daisy Buchanan, ‘Facebook’s “Motherhood Challenge” feels like it’s there to pit women against each other‘ on The Pool

Society and Politics:

• Lisa Miller, ‘Who Knows Best‘ in The Cut
• Vesna Plazacic, ‘At Least the Bombs Aren’t Falling‘ on Maisonneuve
• Gina Mei, ‘Who Gets to Wear a Cheongsam?‘ on Racked
• Jill Lepore, ‘Baby Doe‘ in The New Yorker
• Judy Wajcman, ‘Fast-World Values‘ on Aeon
• Tiffany Jenkins, ‘My Secret Life‘ on Aeon

Film, Television, Music, Art and Fashion:

• Soraya Roberts, ‘Winona, Forever‘ on Hazlitt

The interviews:

• Cheryl Strayed on Literary Hub, Part One and Part Two
• Karen Salyer McElmurray on The Rumpus
• Danielle Dutton on The Rumpus
• Helen Ellis on The Rumpus and in The Guardian
• Vickie Stringer on The Rumpus
• Rachel Cantor on Electric Literature
• Molly Crabapple in Guernica
• Margaret Atwood in The Caravan
• Rusty Morrison in the Los Angeles Review of Books
• Eva Dolan on Trip Fiction
• Han Kang (and translator Deborah Smith) in The Guardian
• Meg Rosoff in The Independent
• Toni Morrison in The Guardian
• Kit de Waal in The Guardian
• Marissa Meyer in The Guardian
• Claire Vaye Watkins in The Guardian
• Kathy Reichs 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

In the Media: 19th October 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.

Two things seem to have dominated this week: essays and people not being very nice to each other. Let’s start with the former:

Essays have been a talking point although most of the pieces I link to aren’t new. The resurgence of interest seems to have come from Is This a Golden Age for Women Essayists? which ran in the The New York Times a couple of weeks ago. The difference in opinions between Cheryl Strayed and Benjamin Moser is fascinating. Meghan Daum’s about to publish her second essay collection. There’s a great interview with her on her website (and how much do I want to read Selfish, Shallow and Self-Absorbed?). One of this year’s most talked about essay collections is Leslie Jamison’s The Empathy Exams, the final essay of which ‘Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain‘ is available to read on VRQ Online. Amongst others, the essay discusses Lucy Grearly. If you’re new to her (as I am), there’s an essay on her in New York Magazine by Ann Patchett. I can’t mention essays without mentioning Roxane Gay, here’s a piece in The New Inquiry by Patricia A. Matthew on why Gay’s a new feminist icon.

Not being very nice to each other then. Well, this very odd piece by Katherine Hale ran in The Guardian yesterday, in which she admits to ‘stalking’ a book blogger who gave her a bad review on Goodreads. Bibliodaze posted this response to the article. Kate McDonough on Salon was the latest person to defend Lena Dunham, this time against Kevin D. Williamson of the National Review who questioned whether Dunham is telling the truth about a sexual assault which she writes about in her book. Emily Gould wrote on Buzzfeed about her experience of online trolls and why we should fight them, while Helen Lewis in the New Statesman talked about more experiences high profile women have had of trolls and what can be done to try and stop them. Caitlin Moran in The Times (paywalled) asked ‘Should We All Quit Twitter?‘ and how it’s easy to think it’s not real, thoughts prompted by her viewing the leaked Jennifer Lawrence photographs.

Other overtly feminist piece this week are Chris Kraus’ essay ‘The New Universal‘ – on feminism and publishing in The Sydney Review of Books; ‘Women as Supporting Characters Is a Problem‘, Alison Herman reports from Comic Con for Flavorwire; Johann Thorsson tells us ‘2 Things I Learned Reading Only Books by Women for a Month‘; Jacqueline Rose, ‘We Need a Bold Scandalous Feminism‘ in The Guardian; Lorraine Berry and Martha Nichols, ‘ “Women and Power”: How Much Clout do Female Writers Have‘ in the New York Times, and philly.com asks ‘Where are the women?‘ on the National Book Awards list (which all sounds very familiar).

And Sali Hughes, writer of ‘Pretty Honest’, is the woman with the most press this week, she’s interviewed in Standard Issue and on the Boden blog and there’s an new extract (audio, this time) from the book on the 4th Estate website.

Other noteworthy essays/articles:

• Roxane Gay on being hospitalised following an accident, written in the hospital
• Colin Dickey on Time in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando in Lapham’s Quarterly
• Neil Gaiman on ‘My Hero: Mary Shelley‘
• Bim Adewunmi’s Crush of the Week is on Claudia Winkleman’s Fringe
• Sarah Churchill on ‘The Joys of Judging the Man Booker Prize‘ (I should probably point out, lest anyone’s new to the blog, that I was one of the people to openly criticise the lack of gender parity on the longlist.)
• Elizabeth Minkel in the New Statesman on ‘Why It Doesn’t Matter what Benedict Cumberbatch thinks of Sherlock Fan Fiction‘
• Elizabeth Minkel again in the New Statesman on whether adults should read Young Adult novels
• Corrine Duyvis ‘on the decline of “issue” books‘ in The Guardian and this response to it from Caroline Clark on Queer YA.
• Members of the 4th Estate team on their favourite female characters from 4th Estate publications – Aunty Ifeoma from Purple Hibiscus; Flora 717 from The Bees
• ‘We Should All Be Feminists’, behind the cover of Adichie’s latest publication on the 4th Estate blog
• Kate Mosse on trying taxidermy in The Guardian
• Laura van den Berg ‘Natasha: On a Storyteller Raised by a Wolf‘ in The Millions
• Laura June in praise of the Amazon Reviews Anne Rice writes (yes, you read that correctly) on Vulture
• Alice Furse on ‘How to Make 48 Scotch Eggs‘ or what to do when your life changes dramatically
• Rowan Williams on Marilynne Robinson’s moral world in the New Statesman
• James Wood in the New Yorker on Rediscovering Elizabeth Harrower (late to this)
• Alison Kinney on Frankenstein as a metaphor for revision in Avidly (late to this too)
• A variety of writers on Alice Munroe in the New Yorker
• Rupert Pirie-Hunter on Agnes Owens in Overland
• Louisa Treger on Dorothy Richardson: The Forgotten Virginia Woolf on Women Writers, Women’s Books
• Kate Christensen on her favourite bar in Electric Literature
• Natalie Ferris on Christine Brooke-Rose in Frieze (published in 2012 but I’ve only just discovered her)
• Helen Pidd on Emma Jane Unsworth at Manchester Literature Festival in The Guardian
• Darcey Steinke on Barry Hannah and I on The Millions
• Elif Batuman ‘Marriage Is an Abduction‘ on Gone Girl in the New Yorker
• Antonia Honeywell, ‘Four Months till Publication‘ and tragedy strikes
• Kristiana Willsey ‘Hunger Is the Beginning of Every Folk Tale‘ on The Toast
• Catherine Lacey ‘The Question of Fate‘ in Granta
• Jessie Burton on the difficult of writing a second novel after such huge success with the first on her blog
• Emma Warren continues her series ‘A Year in Oxleas Woods‘ on Caught By the River

And the interviews:

• Margaret Atwood on why Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea is a masterpiece on ion
• Diane Cook on Electric Literature and in conversation with Sam Lipsyte in Granta
• Shelley Harris, Abigail Tarttelin and Essie Fox on One Book Lane
• Rebecca Mascull on jaffareadstoo
• Women In Clothes aka Heti, Shapton and Julavits on The Rumpus
• Qaisra Shahraz on Woman Writers, Women’s Books
• S.E. Hinton in the New Yorker
• Emily St. John Mandel on the Adventures with Words podcast
• Meike Ziervogel on Female First

On translation:

• ‘Concept and Form‘ – Poet and translator Sophie Collins interviewed in Review 31
• And in case you’re not fed up of it yet, Zeljka Marosevic, MD of Melville House UK, wrote about Elena Ferrante and whether writers should reveal their real identities following this article by Lizzy Davies in The Guardian.

If you’d like some fiction to read/listen to:

• Tender, quarterly journal made by women
• An all-female edition of Right Hand Pointing – Short Poetry, Short Fiction and Short Art
• ‘Exquisite Corpse‘, fifteen writers including Zadie Smith and Jenny Offill co-write a story for the New York Times
• Kirstin Valdez Quade ‘Ordinary Sins‘ in The New Yorker (Quade talks about the writing of the story here)
• Kirsty Logan ‘The Elephant Dance‘ in Ambit
• Tanya Ray ‘Zoriada‘ in Granta
• Paul Theroux reading Elizabeth Taylor’s ‘The Letter Writers‘ on The New Yorker podcast
• Anne Carson ‘Krapp Hour‘ in Granta
• Jackie Kay’s ‘Dear Library‘ poems on Scottish Book Trust
• Katherine Stansfield, ‘There’s No Such Thing as Pandas‘ and three other poems on the Seren Books blog
• Kate Tempest reads her poem ‘The woman the boy became‘ on the Picador Blog
• Sylvia Plath reading ‘Daddy’

Or some non-fiction:

• An extract from India Knight’s In Your Prime: Older, Wiser, Happier in The Times (paywalled)
• Extract from The Iceberg by Marion Coutts, shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize (Warning: this made me sob)

This week’s lists:

• Louise Treger’s Top Five Feminist Characters in We Love This Book
• Val McDermid’s Top Five Crime Novels Everyone Should Read Before They Die in the Big Issue
• Lynn Kanter’s 30 Women Novelists You Should Know is up to number 13: Caroline Leavitt
• The 10 Best Short Story Collections according to Elizabeth Day in The Guardian
• Six Life Lessons from Amy Poehler in Good Housekeeping
• Judith Kinghorn’s Ten Favourite Novels by Women Writers
• Five books Jojo Moyes recommends on her blog
• Lena Dunham’s bookshelf for Strand Bookshop
• 28 Feminist Writers Recommend Books Every Man Should Read on Flavorwire
• The 50 Best Culturally Diverse Children’s Books in The Guardian

And my favourite pieces this week:

• Ursula K. Le Guin on Being a Man on Brain Pickings
• Monica Heisey’s ‘A Cool Book Review By a Hip Writer Who Has Definitely Had Sex‘ on The Hairpin
• Moira Redmond on ‘How Nylons Changed Literature‘, in The Guardian
• Mallory Ortberg, ‘Fictional Characters whose Lives Would Have Been Vastly Improved By An Abortion‘ on The Toast
• Alison Bechdel’s one panel graphic review of The Paying Guests
• Antonia Honeywell’s spoof interview of Richard Flanagan as if he was a female writer