Books of the Year 2020

I’ve read more books this year than I’ve ever read in a year before. It’s been a very strange time, but these are the books published this year that have resonated with me.

This Mournable Body – Tsitsi Dangarembga (Faber)

Tambudzai’s life is not going how she expected. In her 30s, living in a hostel, unemployed, in a country that’s hostile, there are multiple structural barriers preventing her progress. An examination of a woman and a country. A masterpiece. Longer review here.

Love After Love – Ingrid Persaud (Faber)

A woman widowed from her abusive husband; her young son, and a gay man hiding his sexuality. Their bond asks the question what really makes a family? Betty, Solo and Mr Chetan have lived in my head since I read this in the first half of the year. Gorgeous. Longer review here.

So We Can Glow – Leesa Cross-Smith (Grand Central)

Cross-Smith’s latest short story collection celebrates women and girls. Their triumphs, their tribulations, their crushes, their loves, the way they support each other to rebuild themselves and their lives. The language and the characters fizz. Longer review here.

The Meaning of Mariah Carey – Mariah Carey with Michaela Angela Davis (Macmillan)

It shouldn’t really be a surprise that Carey’s memoir isn’t your average celebrity memoir. Open, honest and reflective, Carey looks at her traumatic childhood, her marriage to Tommy Mottola and her career. A fascinating insight into who she is and how she became one of the most successful singers in the world.

The Bass Rock – Evie Wyld (Jonathan Cape)

The story of three women, in three different time periods, lived in the shadow of the Bass Rock. They’re linked by what one of Wyld’s minor characters – the brilliant Maggie – describes as a serial killer: toxic masculinity. Maggie’s idea of a map showing places where women have been killed by men has haunted me all year, as has the final page of the novel. Longer review here.

Hamnet – Maggie O’Farrell (Tinder Press)

Named for Shakespeare’s son who died – probably of plague – and the play that was probably written about Shakespeare’s grief: Hamlet. Really though, this is the story of Agnes (Anne), Shakespeare’s wife. Beautiful and vividly told. O’Farrell’s well-deserved acclaim was long overdue. Longer review here.

Breasts and Eggs – Mieko Kawakami (translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd) (Picador)

A novel in two-parts exploring Natsuko’s sister’s desire for breast implants and then Natsuko’s questions around whether or not she wants a child. An examination of the expectations placed on women from a working class Japanese perspective with a bonus send-up of the literary industry. Longer review here.

In the Dream House – Carmen Maria Machado (Serpent’s Tail)

A ground-breaking memoir of an emotionally abusive, same-gender relationship. It questions notions of the canon through a range of devices and genres while delivering a devastating portrait of domestic abuse. Longer review here.

Postcolonial Love Poem – Natalie Diaz (Faber)

An investigation of the body as a site of trauma and of desire. Diaz connects the body to the land, the water (particularly rivers) and the air, showing how violation of the elements by white Americans has led to irreparable damage. This is also a celebration of queer love and language that elevates and transcends. Longer review here.

Bad Love – Maame Blue (Jacaranda Books)

19yo Ekuah has an on / off affair with up-and-coming musician Dee. Later she meets English teacher and spoken word night organiser Jay Stanley. The two men exert different pulls on her life, but Ekuah has to work out how she wants to live. I was rooting for her all the way. Longer review here.

Writers & Lovers – Lily King (Picador)

Casey’s in her 30s. Single, a waitress trying to write a novel, living in her brother’s friend’s shed, she meets two men: Silas is a teacher and a writer, but unreliable; Oscar is slightly older, an established writer, widowed with two young boys. Casey has to decide whether to accept or reject a conventional life. I wrote about her choices for the Pan Macmillan blog.

Nudibranch – Irenosen Okojie (Dialogue Books)

Okojie is the queen of stories that take you to unexpected places. Her latest collection is a wild ride of 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. The incredible ‘Grace Jones’, about an impersonator and her past, deservedly won the 2020 AKO Cane Prize. Slightly longer review here.

Thanks to the publishers (as listed) for This Mournable Body, The Bass Rock, Hamnet, Breasts and Eggs, and Writers & Lovers. All other books are my own purchases.

In the Dream House – Carmen Maria Machado #DiverseDecember #2

In the Dream House is a ground-breaking memoir of an emotionally abusive relationship. Ground-breaking in that it is one of only a handful of examples of an abusive relationship between partners who share the same gender identity and also in terms of the form Machado chooses for it.

Machado takes us into the dream house via three epigraphs, each on a separate page. It is clear from the start that she is building something new, shifting our perspective on ideas and structures that already exist, asking us to look at the gaps and see what’s missing from our understanding of the world.

Sometimes the proof is never committed to the archive – it is not considered important enough to record, or if it is, not important enough to preserve. Sometimes there is a deliberate act of destruction […]. What gets left behind? Gaps where people never see themselves of find information about themselves. Holes that make it impossible to give oneself a context. Crevices people fall into. Impenetrable silence. 

As Machado relates the story of meeting the woman who becomes her abuser and the ways in which this abuse manifests, she plays with literary devices, genres, tropes and references to popular culture, naming each chapter after one of these. For example, the first time Machado is late to meet her girlfriend due to supporting someone in distress, her girlfriend is furious and her reaction disproportionate to the situation. The chapter is titled ‘Dream House as Omen’. 

Possibly the most effective use of this structure comes in the ‘Dream House as Choose Your Own Adventure®’. Those of us who read these books in childhood will recall that you read a passage and then have to choose what the next move will be. Once you’ve chosen you turn to the relevant page and keep going until you either run out of options or are successful in overcoming all the obstacles and completing the quest. Machado turns this into a circular exercise from which there is no escape. Her approach mirrors exactly how it feels to be trapped in a situation where there is no correct answer and you’re left questioning your own judgement and your self-worth. 

In the Dream House succeeds on every level. It is a heart-breaking account of emotional abuse in a shared gender identity relationship and a piece of experimental non-fiction which breaks and remakes canonical ideas and structures. It is an incredible piece of work. 

In the Dream House is published by Serpent’s Tail. The copy I read was my own purchase.

In the Media, February 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.

I’ve been a bit lax at compiling these while I’ve focused on my own work. It means this month’s is huge and I haven’t honed in on any topic in particular as the news moves so fast at that moment it feels like an impossible task. Back to fortnightly after this which hopefully will make it slightly easier to digest.

 

On or about books/writers/language:

• Helen Dunmore, ‘Facing mortality and what we leave behind‘ in The Guardian
• Rosalind Jana, ‘Making Space: A Brief History of Literary Salons, Past and Present‘ on Constellation
• George Saunders, ‘Grace Paley, the Saint of Seeing‘ in The New Yorker
• Peternelle van Arsdale, ‘How I Learned to Stop Worrying About the Market and Just Write‘ on Literary Hub
• Lauren Elkin, ‘Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London‘ on Longreads
• Varaidzo, ‘From school books to publishing, black girls deserve better representation‘ in the New Statesman
• Ruth Gilligan, ‘Write Like a Girl‘ on Read it Forward
• Francesca Simon, ‘Why I’m writing for World Book Day’ in The Guardian
• Lily Dunn and Zoe Gilbert, ‘We’re given only a handful of these kinds of friendships‘ on Something Rhymed
• Karolina Ramqvist, ‘Writer as Public Figure Vs. The Writer Who Actually Writes‘ on Literary Hub
• Catherine Mayer, ‘on Writing Attack of the Fifty Foot Women‘ on Waterstones Blog
• Yoojin Grace Wuertz, ‘Failure and Patience: Lessons from the Garden for Writers‘ on Literary Hub
• Claudia Roth Pierpoint, ‘Elizabeth Bishop’s Art of Losing‘ in The New Yorker
• Thomas Arnow, ‘Who was Harriette Arnow?‘ on the Penguin Blog
• Anjali Enjeti, ‘The Life and Legacy of Bharati Mukherjee‘ on Literary Hub
• Wei Ming Kam, ‘On the Carnegie, Bookshops and Melinda Lo’s Ash‘ on Gal-dem
• Kerry Clare, ‘Rereading Fear of Flying: On Not Being Pregnant in Mid-Air With Isadora Wing‘ in The Toronto Review of Books
• Susan Hill, ‘Can I be a serious writer, keeping such casual hours?’ in The Guardian
• Nell Zink, ‘Writing for Rejection, And reading Doris Lessing‘ on n+1
• Craig Hubert, ‘On the Many Film Adaptations of the “Unfilmable” Wuthering Heights‘ on Literary Hub
• Ilana Masad, ‘Queer children’s books have a long history that’s only now being told‘ in The Guardian
• Heather O’Neill, ‘Leaving It All on the Page‘ on The Walrus
• Cameron Glover, ‘A Soulful Novel and Me: On Zora Neale Hurston‘ on Catapult
• Maggie Harcourt, ‘Pages in Common‘ on Waterstones Blog
• Rebecca Traister, ‘Rereading The Handmaid’s Tale, One Month Into the Trump Era‘ in The Cut
• Julie Buntin, ‘On Making Things Up: Some True Stories About Writing My Novel‘ on Catapult
• Sarah Perry, ‘In praise of readability‘ in The TLS
• Joanna Cannon, ‘The Story Behind The Trouble with Goats and Sheep‘ on WHSmith Blog
• Lionel Shriver, ‘Dystopia in the next room‘ in The TLS
• Rafia Zakaria, ‘Carson McCullers at 100: a century of American suffering‘ in The Guardian
• Jo Hogan, ‘The Carnegie Medal: Time for a Review‘ on her blog
• Salamisha Tillet, ‘Free Is and Free Ain’t‘ on Public Books
• Morgan Jerkins, ‘The Forgotten Work of Jessie Redmond Fauset‘ in The New Yorker
• Emma Garman, ‘Trilby, the Novel That Gave Us ‘Svengali’‘ on Longreads
• Emily Cooke, ‘Pay to Play: A chronicle of wealth and class in the literary world‘ on Book Forum
• Aminatta Forna, ‘We must take back our stories and reverse the gaze‘ in The Guardian
• Sam Jones, ‘Retrieving an untold story: voices of Spanish female artists finally heard‘ in The Guardian
• Ulka Anjaria, ‘The Goddess of Loss‘ on Boston Review
• Dr. Florence Hazrat, ‘From The Taming of the Shrew to 10 Things I Hate About you: Taming Wild Women in European Culture‘ on Women Are Boring
• Laura Pritchett, ‘The Middle Ages‘ on Bloom
• Fiona Cummins, ‘How I went from Ms Showbiz reporting on celebrity parties to writing a chilling crime thriller‘ in the Daily Mirror
• Katy Waldman, ‘Is My Novel Offensive?‘ on Slate
• Tracy Chevalier, ‘There’s a febrile debate in Trump’s rustbelt. I want to be part of it‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah Ladipo Manyika, ‘What Virginia Woolf Forgot To Say‘ on Thrive Global
• Georgia Hunter, ‘We Were The Lucky Ones‘ on Waterstones Blog
• Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, ‘A Dyslexic’s Guide to Infinity‘ on The Rumpus
• Maria Russo, ‘Finding America, Both Red and Blue, in the ‘Little House’ Books‘ in The New York Times
• Miranda Emmerson, ‘Mixed-up thinking‘ on Bookanista
• Marta Bausells, ‘Warsan Shire and Beyoncé: Superheroes for Our Time‘ on Literary Hub
• Lisa Williamson, ‘Writing NON-romantic Love for Teens‘ on Foyles
• Alex Clark, ‘I’m no pussy when it comes to swearing‘ in The Guardian
• Rahawa Haile, ‘How Black Books Lit My Way Along The Appalachian Trail‘ on Buzzfeed
• Kate Mosse, ‘It’s never been more important to champion women’s voices‘ on The Pool
• Eva Dolan, ‘The Hierarchy of Victims in Crime Writing‘ on Foyles
• Roxane Gay, ‘The Full Text of ‘Bad Feminist’ Author Roxane Gay’s WI12 Speech‘ on Publishers Weekly
• Claire Fuller, ‘on the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset‘ on The Literary Sofa
• Scott Eposito, ‘Understanding America Through Marilynne Robinson‘ on Literary Hub
• Edwidge Danticat, ‘Poetry in a Time of Protest‘ in The New Yorker
• Laura Pritchett, ‘The Great West Has More Than One Story to Tell‘ on Literary Hub
• Sarah Churchwell, ‘‘It will be called Americanism’: the US writers who imagined a fascist future‘ in The Guardian
• Lucinda Rosenfeld, ‘What Was Chick Lit? A Brief History from the Inside‘ on Literary Hub
• Ela Bittencourt, ‘Poetry Thieves: Translating Hanna Krall and Ewa Lipska‘ on Words Without Borders

Personal essays/memoir:

• Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, ‘How Postcards from My Mother Helped Me Survive My Childhood‘ on Literary Hub
• Leah Carroll, ‘My Mother’s Murder‘ on The Cut
• Melissa Febos, ‘When Pursuing True Love Means Breaking Up With Your Best Friend‘ on Refinery29
• Catherine LaSota, ‘Changing Body, Changing Perceptions‘ on Catapult
• Anne Kniggendorf, ‘Gracie Allen and John Denver in Boot Camp‘ on Electric Literature
• Christine Hyung-Oak Lee, ‘Saving Chickens, Saving Myself‘ on Catapult
• Arianna Rebolini, ‘Learning to Cook After Relearning to Eat‘ on Catapult
• Gwen Werner, ‘Daddy Issues‘ on The Rumpus
• Clover Stroud, ‘Travelling alone as a woman was a way of owning my trauma‘ on The Pool
• Lynn Enright, ‘I don’t always know who I am – but that’s OK ‘ on The Pool
• Karen Brown, ‘From Imbibing Spirits to Spiritualist Mediums‘ on Literary Hub
• Erin Corber, ‘Vocabulary Lessons in Bucharest‘ on The Rumpus
• Elisa Gabbert ‘My Grandmother’s Little Room and the Unreality of Memory‘ on Pacific Standard
• Kaitlyn Greenidge, ‘Sacred Space: On visiting the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and facing the present‘ on Lenny
• Claire Handscombe, ‘Dance: On Ballet and Impossible Love‘ on Catapult
• Melissa Febos, ‘Reconciliation‘ on Lenny
• Sara Yasin, ‘Muslims Shouldn’t Have To Be “Good” To Be Granted Human Rights‘ on Buzzfeed
• Jowita Bydlowska, ‘Nobody Died‘ on Lenny
• Cass Cross, ‘The Men in My Office‘ on Catapult
• Sophie Warnes, ‘On the unbearableness of existence‘ on Medium
• Megan Margulis, ‘My Daughter’s Suburban Childhood Looks Nothing Like My Urban One‘ on The Cut
• Jessica Grose, ‘The Wait‘ on Lenny
• Marie Phillips, ‘One woman’s attempt to learn the language of love‘ on The Pool
• Allison Grimaldi-Donahue, ‘Translation Beyond Metaphor‘ on Electric Literature
• Sara Noviç, ‘When Good Christian Girls Need Planned Parenthood‘ on The Cut
• Rachel Klein, ‘Losing My Voice and Finding It‘ on Catapult
• Amna Saleem, ‘This Is What I Learned From My Father’s Depression‘ on Buzzfeed
• Lara Williams, ‘Talk to Me Baby‘ on Some Such Stories
• Eleanor Margolis, ‘From unnerving normality to toilet humour: the stages of my mum’s cancer diagnosis‘ in the New Statesman
• Rebecca Varkoe, ‘Let’s Talk About The Immense Privilege (And Struggle) Of Doing What You Love‘ on Junkee
• Patricia Lockwood, ‘A Childhood in the Pro-Life Movement‘ in The New Yorker
• Lorraine Berry, ‘Walking in Memphis‘ on Catapult
• Kathryn Schultz, ‘When Things Go Missing‘ in The New Yorker
• Irina Dumitrescu, ‘Swan, Late‘ on Longreads
• So Sad Today, ‘What if I Never Live My Best Life?‘ on Vice
• Lacy M. Johnson, ‘Trigger‘ in Guernica
• Candice Norwood, ‘When ‘Good Hair’ Hurts‘ in The Atlantic
• Lisa Mecham, ‘Under the Stars: Remaking a Family‘ on Catapult
• Christine Hyung-Oak Lee, ‘What It’s Like to Lose Your Short-Term Memory‘ on Longreads
• Andie Park, ‘Lessons‘ on Medium
• Laine Bruzek, ‘What Happens When Nothing Happens‘ on West Magazine
• Elle Nash, ‘Grief Lozenge‘ on The Fanzine
• Kim Schultz, ‘I fell in love with a refugee – here’s what I learned when the world didn’t love him too‘ on the New Statesman
• Rebecca Schuman, ‘Hello, Lenin? (Berlin, 1997)‘ on Longreads
• Alana Massey, ‘The Rotten, Precious Land‘ on Hazlitt
• Jonatha Kottler, ‘Fat in Every Language‘ in The Cut
• Alexandra Burt, ‘What Remains When Your First Language Fades Away‘ on Literary Hub
• Jen Gann, ‘I Love My Ugly Old Hands‘ on The Cut
• Melissa Febos, ‘Wunderkammer‘ in Vogue
• Bonnie Nadzam, ‘Experts in the Field‘ on Tin House
• Imbolo Mbue, ‘‘With every inch, the challenge multiplies’: me and my afro‘ in The Guardian
• Yemisi Aribisala, ‘People try to squeeze Nigerian food into an all-encompassing African label‘ in The Guardian
• Eileen Myles, ‘Aging Is Feminizing Me and I Hate It‘ in The Cut
• Stacey Dugid, ‘The skirt that gave me back my mojo‘ on The Pool
• Laurie Frankel, ‘When my son became my daughter, the transition was more routine than dramatic‘ in The Sydney Morning Herald
• Jaya Saxena, ‘Explaining My Multiracial Identity (So Others Don’t Do It For Me)‘ on Catapult
• Catherine LaSota, ‘Becoming an Artist and a Parent in NYC‘ on Catapult
• Cat Marnell, ‘How to Murder Your Life‘ on The Cut
• Kayla Rae Whitaker, ‘How I Learned To Date After Drinking‘ on Buzzfeed
• Jia Tolentino, ‘The Most American Thing‘ in The New Yorker
• Kuba Shand Baptiste, ‘It took me 17 years to fall in love with my black hair. Why?‘ on The Pool
• Eva Tenuto, ‘Feeling Unsafe at Every Size‘ on Longreads
• Lori Jakiela, ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Bingo Worker‘ on Electric Literature
• Patricia Bosworth, ‘The Men in My Life‘ on Literary Hub
• Meghan Tear Plummer, ‘Real Life: My Sister, My Brother‘ in Glamour
• Tracy O’Neill, ‘A Scar Is Not a Story‘ on Catapult
• Laila Lalami, ‘Love and Betrayal in America‘ in The New Yorker

Feminism:

• Dayna Tortorici, ‘While the Iron Is Hot‘ in n+1
• Michelle Darmody, ‘From the heart: One woman’s experience of abortion‘ in the Irish Examiner
• Riyan Fergins, ‘Follow the Oil Trail and You’ll Find the Girls‘ on Longreads
• Anita Bhagwandas, ‘The true meaning of beauty is to celebrate our imperfections‘ on The Pool
• Tobi Oredin, ‘As a black woman, I’ve had to unlearn what beauty means to me‘ on The Pool
• Jennilie Brewster, ‘Frozen Ground: On Reporting a Statutory Rape Twenty Years Later‘ on Catapult
• Zoe Samudsi, ‘Remy, Nicki, And The White Feminist Optics Of Black Women’s Beefs‘ on Equality for Her
• Katie Booth, ‘People Mountain, People Sea‘ on Vela
• Deborah Orr, ‘Helen Bailey and the lethal darkness behind this ‘middle-aged woman’ myth‘ in The Guardian
• Carmen Maria Machado, ‘The Trash Heap Has Spoken‘ on Guernica
• E.J. Dickson, ‘Why Did Everyone Act Like I Was Crazy When I Decided to Have a Baby in My 20s?‘ in The Cut
• Jendella Benson, ‘Feminist love will save men too‘ on Media Diversified
• Eve Ensler, ‘Female Fighters Series Re-examines Women’s Rage Around the World‘ on Guernica
• Abbie, ‘It’s Time to Trash Body Positivity‘ on Bullshitist
• Nimmi Gowrinathan, ‘Of Monsters & Women‘ on Guernica
• Yas Necati, ‘As a queer woman I will be marching against Donald Trump this weekend – but for my disabled friends it won’t be that easy‘ in The Independent
• Jessica Valenti, ‘Calling pregnant women ‘hosts’? We’re in an anti-choice Republican dystopia‘ in The Guardian
• Suzanne Moore, ‘Women in public life are now being openly bullied. How has this become normal?‘ in The Guardian
• Jessa Crispin, ‘The Failures of Mainstream Feminism‘ on New Republic
• Sara Ahmed, ‘Smile!‘ on Feminist Killjoys
• Shannon Keating, ‘Can Lesbian Identity Survive The Gender Revolution?‘ on Buzzfeed
• Melissa Denes, ‘‘It’s always high drama. It’s somebody’s life at stake’: inside British rape trials‘ in The Guardian
• Megan Nolan, ‘If British abortion providers turn away Irish women, it will be catastrophic‘ in The Pool
• Glosswitch, ‘What Would Happen if the World’s Women Went on Strike?‘ in the New Statesman
• Andrea Penman-Lomeli, ‘Consuming la Malinche, Destroying the Myth‘ on The New Inquiry
• Jia Tolentino, ‘The Case Against Contemporary Feminism‘ in The New Yorker
• Nadine Ajaka, ‘The Casualties of Women’s War on Body Hair‘ in The Atlantic
• Amanda Hess, ‘How a Fractious Women’s Movement Came to Lead the Left‘ in The New York Times
• Naomi Alderman, ‘Utopian thinking: how to build a truly feminist society‘ in The Guardian
• Rebecca Traister, ‘The Future of the Left Is Female‘ in The Cut
• Sadie Hassler, ‘Three abortions‘ on Standard Issue
• Caroline O’Donoghue, ‘I may never be ready to stop saying “dude”‘ on The Pool

Society and Politics:

• Dana Snitzky, ‘The Ban, The Wall, Bearing Witness‘ on Longreads
• Hannah Black, ‘New World Disorder‘ on Art Forum
• Gaby Hinsliff, ‘The government can’t pledge support for mental illness – and then backtrack‘ on The Pool
• Elizabeth Weil, ‘The Curse of the Bahia Emerald‘ on Wired
• Claire Heuchan, ‘The parallels between Scottish nationalism and racism are clear‘ in The Guardian
• Tasbeeh Herwees, ‘Resistance In The Time Of Protest Selfies‘ on Good
• Teow Lim Goh, ‘On Borders and Citizens‘ on Catapult
• Gaby Hinsliff, ‘Labour can’t keep returning to its roots empty handed‘ in The Guardian
• Mehreen Kasana, ‘The Meaning of Allahu Akbar‘ on Hazlitt
• Rumana Ahmed, ‘I Was a Muslim in Trump’s White House‘ on The Atlantic
• Gabrielle Bellot, ‘M*lo Might Be Done, But His Transphobia Lingers‘ on Literary Hub
• Sarah Larson, ‘The Librarian of Congress and the Greatness of Humility‘ in The New Yorker
• Rachel Cusk, ‘The Age of Rudeness‘ in The New York Times
• Gaby Hinsliff, ‘We are overdosing on empathy‘ in The Guardian
• Arifa Akbar, ‘The value we place on romantic love can feel tyrannical – especially if you’re a single woman‘ on The Pool
• Suzanne Moore, ‘It’s liking, not loving, that’s the true challenge in relationships‘ on The Pool
• Diane Abbott, ‘I fought racism and misogyny to become an MP. The fight is getting harder‘ in The Guardian
• Elizabeth Day, ‘What does true love really look like?‘ on The Pool
• Ruth Whippman, ‘Authentic? Try being polite instead‘ in The Guardian
• Deborah Cohen, ‘Before Straight and Gay‘ on The Atlantic
• Lizzie Presser, ‘Below Deck‘ in The California Sunday Magazine
• Tari Ngangura, ‘How Black History Month Reminds Me How Exhausting It Is To Be Black‘ on Vice
• Caitlin L. Chandler, ‘The Other World‘ on Guernica
• Helen Haft, ‘Telling Memories‘ on Aeon
• Andrea Pitzer, ‘Trump Revives a Shameful Tradition: Targeting a Minority Group with Crime Reports‘ on Longreads
• Ijeoma Oluo, ‘White People: I Don’t Want You To Understand Me Better, I Want You To Understand Yourselves‘ on The Establishment
• Lois Parshley, ‘Here Be Dragons: Finding the Blank Spaces in a Well-Mapped World‘ on VQR
• Hina Shamsi, ‘Flying Home From Abroad, a Border Agent Stopped and Questioned Me … About My Work for the ACLU‘ on ACLU
• Tina Nguyen, ‘Trump Grill Could Be the Worst Restaurant in America‘ in Vanity Fair
• Tamara Winfrey Harris, ‘The Real Work of Being an Ally‘ on The Cut
• Nesrine Malik, ‘Suddenly, Muslims are America’s pariahs‘ in The Guardian
• Margaret Simons, ‘The Karen road to Nhill‘ on SBS
• Fariah Roísín, ‘What Makes a Border Be?‘ on Hazlitt

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

• Anna Leszkiewicz, ‘From Hannah Horvath to Rory Gilmore: the problem with women writers on TV‘ in the New Statesman
• Eva Holland, ‘Bird Man‘ on Longreads
• Lynn Enright, ‘Twentysomething women often win Best Actress. Men in their twenties basically never win Best Actor‘ on The Pool
• Brittney Cooper, ‘Why It’s Important to Recognize That “Moonlight” Was Robbed Of Its Moment‘ in Cosmopolitan
• Jia Tolentino, ‘The Awkward Politics of the Oscars‘ in The New Yorker
• Megan Garber, ‘Why Are They ‘Stars’?‘ on The Atlantic
• Jess Goldschmidt, ‘Against La La Land‘ on Guernica
• Ann Powers, ‘The Problem With The Grammys Is Not A Problem We Can Fix‘ on NPR
• Helen O’Hara, ‘TV is better placed to tell love stories than cinema – and its writers have finally realised that‘ on The Pool
• Frances Ryan, ‘I, Daniel Blake is a realistic depiction of life on benefits. Isn’t it?‘ in The Guardian
• Emma Gray, ‘What White Women Can Learn From Adele’s Grammys Speech‘ on the Huffington Post
• Anindita Ghose, ‘What John Berger would say about Beyoncé‘ on Live Mint
• Hadley Freeman, ‘Oh, how I loved you, Johnny Depp. Now I see the purple-tinted truth‘ in The Guardian
• Laura Craik, ‘Why do we judge Victoria Beckham by her husband?‘ on The Pool
• Micha Frazer-Carroll, ‘Why We Should Celebrate Beyoncé’s Pregnancy in the Era of Trump‘ on Gal-Dem
• Danielle Dash, ‘Beyonce, Black Joy & White Women‘ on her website
• Jennifer Keshin Armstrong, ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’s Feminist Struggle‘ on Longreads
• Dayna Evans, ‘Why Would a Woman Want to Play Football?‘ on The Cut
• Véronique Hyland, ‘Why Won’t We Let Madonna Age the Way She Wants To?‘ on The Cut

The interviews/profiles:

• Susan Hill in The Guardian
• Cara Hoffman on Broadly
• Rowan Hisayo Buchanan on Literary Hub
• Kate Zambreno on The Creative Independent
• Yoojin Grace Wuertz on Electric Literature
• Melissa Febos on Guernica
• Masha Gessen on The Millions
• Zeba Talkhani and Laura Waddell on Minor Literature[s]
• Patty Yumi Cottrell in the Los Angeles Review of Books
• Ayòbámi Adébáyò in The Guardian
• Claudia Rankine in The Financial Times
• Claire Fuller in The Chicago Review of Books
• Ethel Rohan on The Millions and on Bustle
• Yiyun Li in The Guardian, on Five Books
• Jane Wong and Aditi Machado on Literary Hub
• Roxane Gay on Brooklyn
• Emily Ruskovich on Electric Literature
• Roshi Fernando on Short Story Award
• Jess Phillips on The Debrief
• Morgan Parker in The Cut
• Liane Moriarty in The Guardian
• Dreda Say Mitchell on Greenacre Writers
• Sara Baume in The Guardian
• Ola Nubi on Ankara Press
• Shappi Khorsandi in The Guardian
• Heather O’Neill on The Millions
• Rachel Cusk in BOMB
• Nina LaCour on The Booklist Reader
• Emma Donoghue on Literary Hub
• Ayelet Waldman in California
• Alice Broadway on Foyles, in The Guardian
• Amanda Owen in The Guardian
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in The Guardian
• Margaret Atwood in The Guardian
• Ali Smith in The New York Times
• Lara Pawson on Rhys Tranter
• Christine Hyung-Oak Lee on NPR
• Jade Sharma in The Rumpus
• Alana Massey on Hello Giggles, Hazlitt
• Khairani Barokka on Disability Arts
• Adrian Shirk on Catapult
• Katie Kitamura on Literary Hub
• Camille Pagán in the Huffington Post
• Adania Shiboli on Literary Hub
• Naomi Jackson on The Rumpus
• Katie Khan on In the Words of
• Kyo Maclear on Mcleans
• Kim Hyesoon on Guernica
• Jessica Valenti on The Rumpus
• Elif Shafak in The Guardian, on Foyles
• Erica Ferencik on Electric Literature
• Eimear McBride on Electric Literature
• Sandra Cisneros on Literary Hub
• Shanthi Sekaran on Bookanista
• Ottessa Moshfegh on Lenny

The regular columnists:

• Lucy Mangan in Stylist
• Roxane Gay in The Guardian US
• 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

In the Media: October 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.

The fortnight began with the outing of Elena Ferrante. I’m not going to link to the original article, but there’s been a huge reaction to it:

• Rachel Donadio, ‘Revelation Surrounding Novelist Elena Ferrante Exposes Cultural Differences‘ in The New York Times
• Priscilla Frank ‘Elena Ferrante, Francesca Woodman, And Women Who Yearn To Disappear In Plain Sight‘ on The Huffington Post
• David L. Ulin, ‘Leave Elena Ferrante Alone‘ on Literary Hub
• Christian Lorentzen, ‘If You Want to Know Who Elena Ferrante ‘Really’ Is, You’re Asking the Wrong Questions‘ on Vulture
• Jeanette Winterson, ‘The malice and sexism behind the ‘unmasking’ of Elena Ferrante‘ in The Guardian
• Tom Hawking, ‘The Unmasking of Elena Ferrante: Journalistically Defensible, Perhaps, But Morally Questionable‘ on Flavorwire
• Marie Myung Ok-Lee, ‘Occupy Author Photo: On Elena Ferrante, Privacy, and Women Writers‘ on The Millions
• Rebecca Falkoff, ‘“To translate is to betray”: the Elena Ferrante phenomenon in Italy and the US‘ in The Guardian
• Noreen Malone, ‘Elena Ferrante’s “Unmasking” Wasn’t the End of the World‘ on Slate
• Megan Garber, ‘Elena Ferrante and the Cost of Being an Author‘ on The Atlantic
• Alexandra Schwartz, ‘The “Unmasking” of Elena Ferrante‘ in The New Yorker
• Christine Friar, ‘Female Trouble: There’s no safe way to be a woman in public‘ on The Awl
• Lisa Campbell, ‘Ferrante’s unmasking “likely to increase sales” say booksellers‘ in The Bookseller
• Erica Wagner, ‘The unmasking of Elena Ferrante: why a writer’s biography is irrelevant‘ in The New Statesman
• Rachel Donadio and Jennifer Schuessleroct, ‘ Who Is Elena Ferrante? Supporters Say NOYB‘ in The New York Times
• Charlotte Shane, ‘The Sexist Big Reveal‘ in New Republic
• Rachel Stirling, ‘The Ferrante Farago‘ on Queen Mobs
• Lincoln Michel, ‘We May Know Who Ferrante Is, But Have We Learned Anything?‘ on Electric Literature
• Adam Kirsh, ‘Elena Ferrante and the Power of Appropriation‘ in The New York Times
• Frances Wilson, ‘Elena Ferrante: the story of a new name‘ in The TLS
• Ann Friedman, ‘Kim Kardashian West, Elena Ferrante, and the Right to Privacy‘ in The Cut
• Arifa Akbar, ‘Exposing Elena Ferrante whiffs of misogyny and is without purpose‘ on The Pool
• The Guardian view on unmasking Elena Ferrante: an impoverishing act
• Suzanne Moore, ‘Who cares who Elena Ferrante really is? She owes us nothing‘ in The Guardian
• Stig Abell, ‘Why the TLS would not have named Elena Ferrante‘ in The TLS
• Elena Avanzas Álvarez ‘What Our Insistence on Ferrante’s Identity Actually Means About Women, Consent, and Art‘ on Books and Reviews
• Lana Schwartz, ‘Drafts of Emails Elena Ferrante Never Sent to Claudio Gatti‘ in The Hairpin

Photograph by Kate Neil

The other big story of the fortnight has been the release of the film version of The Girl on the Train.

• Interviews with Paula Hawkins in The Wall Street Journal and Woman and Home
• Anne Helen Petersen, ‘“The Girl On The Train” And Women’s Dark Fantasies‘ on Buzzfeed
• John Mullan, ‘How we got to The Girl on the Train – the rise of the psychological thriller‘ in The Guardian
• Erin Kelly, ‘How the psychological thriller came to tackle coercive control‘ on The Pool

And the writer with the most coverage is Brit Bennett who’s interviewed on The Cut, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Jezebel, The New York Times and Literary Hub.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Carmen Maria Machado, ‘How to Suppress Women’s Criticism‘ on Electric Literature
• Diana Darke, ‘In Syria‘ in The TLS
• Liz Thomson, ‘Bob Dylan’s Nobel: “Yippee! I’m a poet and I know it/Hope I don’t blow it“‘ in The Bookseller
• Julia Kingsford, ‘“The Nobel Academy is breaking its trust with us” by awarding Dylan‘ in The Bookseller
• Anna Funder, ‘Sound of Silence‘ in The TLS
• Stella Duffy, ‘A London Lies Beneath Walk‘ on Virago
• Ying Ju-Lai, ‘Dispatches from a Writer’s Retreat on a Playground for the Super Rich‘ on Literary Hub
• Xiaolu Guo, ‘One language is not enough – I write in both Chinese and English’ in The Guardian
• Julie Phillips, ‘The Fantastic Ursula K. Le Guin‘ in The New Yorker
• Bridget Read, ‘Lean In, Swipe Right: On Tinder and the Politics of Singledom‘ on Literary Hub
• Miranda Popkey, ‘All the Time I’ve Wasted Watching the Better Versions of Me‘ in The Cut
• Kathleen Harris, ‘What We Write About When We’re Not Writing‘ on Vela
• Melissa Lee-Houghton, ‘Articulating your experience is remarkably life-affirming‘ in The Guardian
• Edmund Gordon, ‘Angela Carter in Japan‘ in The TLS
• Yiyun Li, ‘All that Offers a Happy Ending Is a Fairy Tale‘ in Granta
• Lina Mounzer, ‘War in Translation: Giving Voice to the Women of Syria‘ on Literary Hub
• Lidija Dimkovska, ‘How the Yugoslav Wars Shaped a Generation of Writers‘ on Literary Hub
• KJ Orr, ‘BBC National Short Story winner – a plea to publishers to take risks‘ in The Guardian
• Elisa Albert, ‘The Snarling Girl‘ on Hazlitt
• Eric Thurm, ‘Is Joyce Carol Oates Trolling Us?‘ on Literary Hub
• Nell Zink, ‘How to Become a Novelist in Ten Easy Steps‘ on Literary Hub
• ‘Gloria Naylor, award-winning novelist, dies aged 66‘ in The Guardian
• Allegra Hyde, ‘Literary Alchemy: the Wedding of Subject and Style‘ on Electric Literature

Personal essays/memoir:

• Tracy O’Neill, ‘After the Playground‘ on Catapult
• Cari Luna, ‘Under Threat of the Really Big One‘ on Catapult
• Curtis Sittenfeld, ‘My Friend Sam‘ in The New Yorker
• Laura Turner, ‘I Was Pregnant, And Then I Wasn’t‘ on Buzzfeed
• Chloe Caldwell, ‘On Female Friendship and the Sisters We Choose for Ourselves‘ on Longreads
• Christine Ro, ‘How I Talk to My Mother‘ on Catapult
• Nancy Jooyoun Kim, ‘Love (or Live Cargo)‘ on Okey-Panky
• Sali Hughes, ‘My life in makeup: the beauty products I’ll never, ever throw away‘ in The Guardian
• Kristen Arnett, ‘The Lord’s Supper‘ on Catapult
• Lizzie Feidelson ‘The Clean‘ in n+1
• Affinity Konar, ‘My Sister’s Abusive Marriage Was Never About Me‘ on Buzzfeed
• Sarah Gerard, ‘Eat Life, Not Matter‘ in Hazlitt
• Clare Archibald, ‘Paper Dolls Join Together with Dots of Whispered Steel‘ on Dangerous Women
• Gillian Flynn, ‘Be Kind to People Dressed as Food‘ in The New Yorker
• Erica Wagner, ‘The silver scent of fear: Learning to live with epilepsy‘ in The New Statesman

Feminism:

• Dayna Evans, ‘Do Women Still Need a Space of Their Own?‘ in The Cut
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, ‘Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions‘ on Facebook
• Rebecca Solnit, ‘City of Women‘ in The New Yorker
• Rep. Tammy Duckworth, ‘Caretaking Equals Strength, Not Weakness‘ on Lenny
• Joanna Klein, ‘Metaphorically Speaking, Men Are Expected to be Struck by Genius, Women to Nurture It‘ in The New York Times
• Rachel Charlene Lewis, ‘Queering Gender, Queering Genre‘ on Electric Literature
• Kristen Hanley Cardozo, ‘The Terrible Power Of White Women Fears In Donald Trump’s Campaign‘ in The Establishment
• Tobi Oredin, ‘As a black British woman I still need Black History Month‘ on The Pool
• Shannon Shreibak, ‘We need to talk about the fetishization of the tattooed alt-girl‘ on Hello Giggles

Society and Politics:

• Jill Soloway, ‘on Donald Trump, Locker Rooms and Toxic Masculinity‘ in Time
• Esther Wang, ‘Asian American voters are crucial to victory. Will they actually turn out to vote?‘ on Fusion
• Rebecca Traister, ‘Trump’s One Public Service Was Exposing the Misogyny of the GOP‘ on The Cut
• Edwidge Danticat, ‘Hurricane Matthew’s Devastating Toll in Haiti‘ in The New Yorker
• Lindy West, ‘Donald and Billy on the Bus‘ in The New York Times
• Kathryn Miles, ‘Spoiler Alert‘ in Pacific Standard
• Sarah Smash, ‘Dangerous idiots: how the liberal media elite failed working-class Americans‘ in The Guardian
• Anna Merlan, ‘The Team of Men Behind Rachel Brewson, the Fake Woman Whose Trump-Fueled Breakup Went Viral‘ on Jezebel
• Alana Massey, ‘When New York Stopped: Confronting the Lingering Aftermath of Hurricane Sandy‘ in Brooklyn Magazine
•  Your Fat Friend, ‘The 400-pound hacker & fat shaming without fat people‘ on Think Progress
• Kristin Dombek, ‘Emptiness‘ (on narcissists) on n+1

The interviews/profiles:

• Margaret Atwood on Hazlitt, in The Guardian
• Tessa Hadley and Helen Garner on Electric Literature
• Jami Attenberg and Maria Semple on Literary Hub
• Anuradha Roy on Electric Literature
• Madeleine Thien in The Guardian and in Granta
• Claudia Rankine on The Cut
• Kit de Waal on Too Full to Write
• Maria Padian on Book Riot
• Marcy Dermansky on Buzzfeed
• Seraphina Madsen on The Writes of Woman and Storgy
• Holly Throsby on The Guardian
• Hettie Jones on Lenny
• Tracy Chevalier and Paulette Jiles on Literary Hub
• Marisa Silver on Electric Literature
• Leigh Stein in The Huffington Post
• Zoe Wittall on Maisonneuve
• Robin Stevens on The Bookseller
• Chloe Cadwell on Electric Literature
• Sinéad Gleeson in The Irish Times
• Natalie Baszile on Literary Hub
• Nell Zink on The Millions and Vulture
• Eimear McBride in The Irish Times
• Pamela Erens on Bloom
• Mary Gaitskill in the Los Angeles Review of Books
• Maggie Nelson on Fiction Advocate
• Ali Smith in The Observer

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

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: October 2015, 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.

Photograph by Nadya Lev

This fortnight has been dominated by trans issues and feminism. This is largely due (in the UK at least) to the no-platforming of Germaine Greer due to her unpalatable comments about trans women. Sarah Seltzer looks at ‘The Disturbing Trend of Second-Wave Feminist Transphobia‘ on Flavorwire. This coincided with YA author, James Dawson, coming out as a transgender woman in this great piece by Patrick Strudwick on Buzzfeed. I look forward to featuring James and his books on the blog under his yet to be revealed new name and pronoun. Elsewhere, Francesca Mari writes, ‘They Found Love, Then They Found Gender‘ on Matter, Corinne Manning writes about ‘In Defence of the New Censorship‘, discussing the use of singular they on Literary Hub while Laurie Penny explores, ‘How To Be A Genderqueer Feminist‘ on Buzzfeed.

Photograph by Chad Batka

The woman with the most publicity this fortnight is Carrie Brownstein. She’s interviewed in Rolling Stone, Slate, Noisey, The New York Times and The Guardian.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Francesca Rendle-Short, ‘Focus on Lesbian/Queer Australian Women Writers‘ on Australian Women Writers
• Emily Gould, ‘Our Spoons Came from Woolworths‘ on The Paris Review
• Can Xue, ‘A special kind of performance: on the course of a Chinese writer‘ in The Guardian
• Kate Mosse, ‘Women’s Prize for Fiction: 20 years on – why we need it more than ever‘ in The Telegraph
• Anne Thériault, ‘What I Wish Everyone Knew About Sylvia Plath‘ on The Belle Jar
• Antonia Honeywell, ‘YA or not YA? On writing and reading labels‘ on Live Otherwise
• Leesa Cross-Smith, ‘US Open & Revisions‘ on Real Pants
• Sarah Hughes, ‘Out with vampires, in with haunted houses: the ghost story is back‘ in The Guardian
• Daisy Buchanan, ‘The enduring appeal of Bridget Jones‘ on The Pool
• Virginia Pasley, ‘The Dueling Universes of Bridget Jones‘ on Medium
• Kate Zambreno and Adrian Nathan West ‘The Pleasure of Following Coincidences: on Marianne Fritz‘ in The Believer
• Claire Harman, ‘“I pine away”… Charlotte Brontë’s romantic obsession‘ in The Guardian
• Leslie Jamison, ‘The Possibilities of the Personal‘ on Nieman Storyboard
• Lily Tuck, ‘True Confessions of an Auto-Fictionist‘ on Literary Hub
• David Mitchell, ‘On Earthsea: A Rival to Tolkien and George RR Martin‘ in The Guardian
• Adam Fitzgerald, ”That’s not poetry; it’s sociology!’ – in defence of Claudia Rankine’s Citizen‘ in The Guardian
• Jennifer Croft, ‘Understanding Difference: On Translating Olga Tokarczuk‘ on Pen American Centre
• Naomi J. Williams, ‘on late starts and lost calls‘ in The Irish Times
• Elizabeth Minkel, ‘What Is Fanfiction, Anyway?‘ in the New Statesman
• John Plotz, ‘Le Guin’s Anarchist Aesthetics‘ on Public Books
• Susan Bernofsky, ‘Who’s Getting Translated? Mostly Men‘ on Translationista
• Helen MacKinven, ‘on Setting Her Novel in a Small Town‘ on Isabel Costello’s Literary Sofa
• Kate Mosse, ‘The wild bunch: on why we love out-of-control women‘ in The Guardian
• Margaret Eby, ‘The Brutal Murder of Mary Grace: Peacock
  Love and Death on Flannery’s Farm‘ on Literary Hub
• Jane Smiley, ‘At the end of this trilogy I wept‘ on Literary Hub
• Tanya Landman, ‘Is To Kill a Mockingbird a racist book?‘ in The Guardian
• Susanna Rustin, ‘Joan Brady: “Alger Hiss Was Framed by Nixon”‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah Laskow, ‘We Have a Copy of Patricia Highsmith’s Unpublished Essay on Green Wood Cemetery‘ on Atlas Obscura
• Isabel Rogers, ‘How do you get into Fight Club if you pronounce it ‘figghut’?‘ on her blog
• Scott Esposito, ‘Pillars: #4. River of Shadows by Rebecca Solnit‘ on Conversational Reading
• Olivia Laing, ‘Separating art from life always needs the most delicate touch‘ in The Guardian

Personal essays/memoir:

• Emma Jane Unsworth, ‘Suffering the strangeness of sleep paralysis‘ on The Pool
• Elena Ayala-Hurtado, ‘“Adrift between two dialects”: Teaching English in Madrid‘ in The Toast
• Kristen Martin, ‘Investigation, from the Latin investigationem‘ in Guernica
• Daisy Hernández, ‘Colares‘ on The Rumpus
• Svetlana Alexievich (translated by Arch Tait), ‘Boys in Zinc‘ in Granta
• Ella Sackville Adjei, ‘The Terrible Tale Of My Racist One-Night Stand‘ on Buzzfeed
• Susana Morerira Marques (translated by Julia Sanches) from ‘Now and at the Hour of Our Death’ in The Offing
• Jane Smiley, ‘Horse Country‘ in The New York Times
• Molly Langmuir, ‘A Road Trip With My Friend Led to a Nude Photo Shoot‘ on The Cut
• Sarah Menkedick, ‘Caught in the Middle‘ in Guernica
• Masha Gessen, ‘The Memory Keeper‘ on Svetlana Alexievich in The New Yorker
• Joanne Harris, ‘A Writer’s Manifesto‘ on Writers’ Centre Norwich
• Corinne Manning, ‘Myself in Translation: On the Genius of Alison Bechdel‘ on Literary Hub
• Sofi Stambo, ‘Lists‘ on AGNI
• Michele Filgate, ‘Dressing Myself for the First Time‘ on Refinery 29
• Ka Bradley, ‘A Letter of Enquiry Regarding a Possible Purchase‘ in The Offing
• Scherezade Siobhan, ‘Llamada‘ on Real Pants

Feminism:

• Sophia Benoit, ‘A list of things I wish women’s magazines would publish‘ in The Guardian
• Sabeena Akhtar, ‘Education, not Liberation!‘ on The Poco Book Reader
• Stephanie Merritt, ‘The damage done by demonising single mothers‘ on The Pool
• Frances Ryan, ‘A disabled woman’s struggle is any woman’s struggle‘ in The Guardian
• Akwugo Emejulu, ‘From #BlackLivesMatter to Anti-Austerity: Women of Colour and the Politics of Solidarity‘ on Verso Books Blog
• Emer O’Toole, ‘Suggestions for stock photos in abortion articles‘ in The Irish Times
• Jina Moore, ‘Women Refugees Fleeing Through Europe Are Told Rape Is Not A Real Issue‘ on Buzzfeed
• Sarah Dohrmann, ‘Lost Girls: Women, sex, and the Arab Spring‘ in Harper’s
• Brittney Cooper, ‘The gun crisis we aren’t talking about: Black women are under attack — and America doesn’t care‘ on Salon
• Rebecca Traistor, ‘The Game Is Rigged‘ in The Cut
• Rosalind Jana, ‘Taking Up Space‘ on Girl Lost in the City
• Stephanie Merritt, ‘Women’s pain: do we need to scream to be heard?‘ on The Pool

Society and Politics:

• Rachel Nuwer, ‘The Tragic Tale of Mt. Everest’s Most Famous Dead Body‘ on the BBC
• Kate Taylor, ‘At a Success Academy Charter School, Singling Out Pupils Who Have ‘Got to Go’ in The New York Times
• Brittney Cooper, ‘She was guilty of being a black girl: The mundane terror of police violence in American schools‘ on Salon
• Anna Holmes, ‘Has ‘Diversity’ Lost Its Meaning?‘ in The New York Times
• Ellen Berrey, ‘Diversity is for white people: The big lie behind a well-intended word‘ on Salon
• Saima, ‘What’s In a Name?‘ on Medium
• Ijeoma Oluo, ‘My atheism does not make me superior to believers. It’s a leap of faith too‘ in The Guardian
• Claire Martin, ‘The Deputy Who Disappeared‘ in Los Angeles Magazine
• Gaby Hinsliff, ‘The Women’s Equality party has a problem – no one hates it‘ in The Guardian
• Julie Beck, ‘How Friendships Change in Adulthood‘ in The Atlantic
• Apoorva Mandavilli, ‘The Invisible Women With Autism‘ in The Atlantic
• Maya Oppenheim, ‘Not just sourdough: the feminist artisan bakery run by women who are ex-offenders‘ in the New Statesman
• Sarah Graham, ‘Only two sexes? The barefaced lie that makes intersex people like me invisible‘ in The Independent

Film, Television, Music, Art and Fashion:

• Megan Garber, ‘Suffragette and the Perils of Inspiration Porn‘ in The Atlantic
• Leah Finnegan, ‘The Fragile Ears of Men‘ on Joanna Newsom in The Awl
• Hannah Jane Parkinson, ‘The name’s Bond, Jane Bond: what would lesbian 007 look like?‘ in The Guardian
• Jada F. Smith, ‘With ‘Being Mary Jane,’ Mara Brock Akil Specializes in Portraits of Black Women‘ in The New York Times
• Rachel Shabi, ‘Homeland *is* racist. And it has a problem with women‘ on The Pool

The interviews:

• Cristina Henríquez in Guernica
• Melinda Salisbury on helloiammariam
• Gloria Steinem in The New York Times
• Selma Dabbagh in Guernica
• Sloane Crosley in The New York Times and The Bookseller
• Azar Nafisi on The Millions
• Suzanne Scanlon on Electric Literature
• Garance Doré in The Cut
• Terry Stiastny on Rebecca Mascull’s blog
• Meera Syal in The Guardian
• Lauren Holmes on Electric Literature
• Jane Smiley on Northern Soul
• Erica Jong in The Observer
• Stacy Schiff in The New York Times
• Helen Simpson in The Guardian
• Edna O’Brien in The Telegraph and The Bookseller
• Carmen Maria Machado on Electric Literature
• Helen MacKinven on Poppy Peacock Pens
• Eileen Myles in the LA Times
• Laura Watkinson on translating Tonke Dragt in The Guardian
• Alex Mar on The Millions and Nerdist
• Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke on Women Writers Women’s Books
• Kelly Sue De Connick on The Pool
• Valeria Luiselli in The White Review
• Marilynne Robinson on The Daily Beast
• Emma Jane Unsworth in The Cut
• Margaret Atwood on Literary Hub, Salon and The Millions
• Sarah Weinman on The Paris Review
• Mary Ruefle on Divedapper
• Yeonmi Park in The Irish 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

In the Media: 29th March 2015

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.

News this week from ABC that a Tasmanian writer, Marjorie Davey, has published her first novel at the age of 95. She might be the oldest but she’s not the only woman to be published later in life; Abby Ellin’s article, ‘Finding Success, Well Past the Age of Wunderkind‘ in the New York Times includes Lucille Gang Shulklapper, first published at 60, and Cathy writes about Leland Bardwell: The forgotten woman of Irish literature, first published at 48, on 746Books.

At the opposite end of the age spectrum (give or take) the big news this week was that Zayn Malik left pop band One Direction. Before the news broke, Leesa Cross-Smith wrote ‘One Direction & Other Boy Bands‘ on Real Pants (which had me watching more 1D videos than I’d ever seen before (which was none)) while advertisements for Granta popped up). Anna Leszkiewicz wrote ‘I’m an adult woman with a real boyfriend – and I’m absolutely heartbroken about Zayn Malik quitting One Direction‘ in The Independent, Mackenzie Kruvant wrote, ‘How One Direction Helped Me Find My Girls‘ on Buzzfeed, and Huma Munshi wrote, ‘The Courage of Zayn Malik and Why Strong Men Cry‘ on Media Diversified.

Media Diversified also published an open letter ‘To the organisers of the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction‘ regarding Cathy Newman and Grace Dent being members of the judging panel.

Granta, in celebration of their new website, opened up some of their archive, including these letters from Iris Murdoch to Raymond Queneau; ‘Night‘ by Alice Munroe; Sayaka Murata’s ‘A Clean Marriage‘ (tr. Ginny Tapley Takemori), and ‘Hardy Animal‘ by M.J. Hyland

It was the anniversary of Virginia Woolf’s death this week. Daniel Swift wrote ‘Virginia Woolf in the Bomb-scarred City‘ in Five Dials and Louise Brearley read Virginia Woolf’s final letter to her husband in The Telegraph.

And in commemoration of the third anniversary of Adrienne Rich’s death, The Critical Flame have devoted a whole issue to her and her work. The table of contents is here.

Angelina Jolie Pitt turned to writing this week with her ‘Diary of a Surgery‘ in The New York Times. Fay Schopen responded with ‘Angelina Jolie says the decision to deal with her cancer was simple. Mine is not‘ in The Guardian, while Caroline Corcoran wrote about her own experience, ‘I never felt like I’m less of a woman because I don’t have breasts or ovaries‘ in The Independent.

But the woman with the most publicity this week seems to be JK Rowling. ‘JK Rowling says she received ‘loads’ of rejections before Harry Potter success‘ wrote Alison Flood in The Guardian; Stylist ran ‘JK Rowling’s Brilliant Response to Fan Who ‘Can’t See’ Dumbledore as Gay, Plus 9 Times She Owned Twitter‘; Matilda Battersby wrote, ‘JK Rowling defends Dumbledore on Twitter: Seven Things You Might Not Know About the Hogwarts’ Headmaster‘ in The Independent; Chris Mandle wrote, ‘Why we need more fictional gay role models like Albus Dumbledore‘ in The Telegraph and Stylist ran a piece titled, ‘JK Rowling Describes Hitting ‘Rock Bottom’ In a New Book About The Benefits Of Failure‘

In Harper Lee news, the cover of Go Set a Watchman was revealed this week. The Guardian are inviting people to design their own.

Finally, if you want a good reading list of books by women, the Edge Hill Short Story Prize announced its longlist this week, including Anneliese Mackintosh, Stella Duffy, Kirsty Logan, May-Lan Tan, Hilary Mantel and A.L. Kennedy.

The best of the rest articles/essays:

• Katie Barnes, ‘This Is Not My Cinderella‘ on Feministing
• Maggie Tokuda-Hall, ‘My Abortion Was A Hard Choice—But The Right One‘ on Ravishly
• Heather Cromarty, ‘Personal Jesus Built My Hotrod‘ on Queen Mob’s Tea House
• Robert McCrum, ‘The 100 best novels: No 79 – The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (1960)‘ in The Guardian
• Lizzy Kremer, ‘Thinking at Night: Writing into the Silence‘ on Publishing for Humans
• Leslie Reese, ‘Little Leslie’s Report‘ (on Edwidge Danticat’ on Folklore & Literacy
• Brigid Delaney, ‘Leave Gwyneth Paltrow alone! Her website gives me joy‘ in The Guardian
• Jane Bradley, ‘Shapps fell into brand confusion trap‘ (Confusingly, mostly about female writers and pseudonyms) in The Scotsman
• Leo Jay Shire, ‘As a Mixed-Race Woman, in the Game of Racial Top Trumps My Blackness Always Wins‘ on Media Diversified
• Mallika Rao, ‘No Punctuation Is Funnier‘ on The Huffington Post
• Jaya Saxena, ‘The Way to the Heart is Not Through the Liver‘ on Archipelago
• Rivka Galchen, ‘Do Money Woes Spur Creativity or Stifle It?‘ in The New York Times
• Stacey Patton, ‘Loving White People Won’t Fix Racism‘ in Dame
• Roxane Gay, ‘Men You Meet While Traveling By Airplane‘ in The Butter
• Elisa Gabbert, ‘Much Hinges: The joys of using the “wrong comma”‘ on The Smart Set
• Ester Bloom, ‘Dreams of Being a Feminist Housewife‘ on The Billfold
• Maya Dusenbery, ‘Is Medicine’s Gender Bias Killing Young Women?‘ on Feministing
• Casey Plett, ‘Rise of the Gender Novel‘ on The Walrus
• Martha Bayne, ‘Words Fail‘ in The Rumpus
• Kendra Atleework, ‘Why Must One House Burn While Another Is Spared?‘ in Guernica
• Mallory Ortberg, ‘Children’s Stories Made Horrific: The Frog Prince‘ in The Toast
• Nathan Smith, ‘Feminist Artifacts: The Archive of Germaine Greer‘ in the Los Angeles Review of Books
• Meera Syal, ‘Growing up between cultures is tough – until you realise it’s a creative blessing‘ in The Guardian
• Diana Williams, ‘I chose to be a mother at 50: Why would a single, middle-aged woman endure years of fertility treatment to have twins?‘ in The Independent
• Elen Caldecott, ‘My Inspiration: Gillian Cross‘ in The Guardian
• Anjum Hassan, ‘Sisters‘ in Granta
• Kelly Davio, ‘The Waiting Room: What My Self-Respect Looks Like‘ in The Butter
• Rachel Vorona Cote, ‘A For Books’ Sake Guide to Literary Self-Care‘ on For Books’ Sake

• Toni Morrison, ‘No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear‘ in The Nation
• Rachel Cusk, ‘Raising Teenagers: The Mother of All Problems‘ in The New York Times
• Eillie Anzilotti, ‘A Life in My Mother’s Clothes‘ in The Toast
• Sarah Seltzer, ‘Beyond Mansplaining: A New Lexicon of Misogynist Trolling Behaviors‘ on Flavorwire
• Joanne Harris, ‘Why I’m Saying “Fuck you” to Clean Reader‘ on her blog
• Lionel Shriver, ‘Why filthy literature should not be cleaned up‘ in The Guardian
• ‘Louise Doughty and Jacqui Lofthouse: Tortoises Rather Than Hares‘ on Something Rhymed
• Jacquie Lawrence, ‘Where have all the lesbians gone in TV and film?‘ in The Guardian
• Natasha Desborough, ‘Why I couldn’t use the phrase ‘camel toes’ in the title of my first novel‘ in The Guardian
• Beulah Maud Devaney, ‘Helpful Spring Cleaning Advice From Gothic Novelist Shirley Jackson‘ on Ravishly
• Brittney Cooper, ‘Black girls’ sexual burden: Why Mo’ne Davis was really called a “slut”‘ on Salon
• Catie L’Heureux, ‘Why I Live in an All-Women Boardinghouse in New York City‘ in The Cut
• Elizabeth Minkel, ‘From the Internet to the Ivy League: Fanfiction in the Classroom‘ on The Millions
• Jenny Diski, ‘Like a Lullaby‘ in The London Review of Books (£)
• Elisa Gabbert, ‘Beauty Is Youth, Youth Beauty‘ on Real Pants
• Emma Frankland, ‘I’m a transgender woman – why shouldn’t I play Hamlet?‘ in The Guardian
• Lucy Hancock, ‘This Is What It’s Actually Like to Go to Private School in the London Suburbs‘ in Vice
• Sarra Manning, ‘In Ross Poldark, we have reached romantic hero nirvana‘ in The Guardian
• Isabel Rogers, ‘Shopping List‘ on her blog
• Rebecca Winson, ‘I don’t give a toss about the number of women in boardrooms‘ on A Bit of Class
• Hannah Giorgis, ‘Many women of color don’t go to the police after sexual assault for a reason‘ in The Guardian
• Frances Ryan, ‘The benefit sanctions regime should be scrapped‘ in The Guardian
• Dorian Lynskey, ‘Kapow! Attack of the feminist superheroes‘ in The Guardian
• Melody Schreiber, ‘Facing the Beast: On Anxiety and Sisterhood‘ in The Toast
• Carmen Maria Machado, ‘O Adjunct! My Adjunct!‘ in The New Yorker
• Mallory Ortberg, ‘Scenes From The Bell Jar And Other Sylvia Plath Works, As Remembered By Someone Who Never Finished Reading Sylvia Plath‘ in The Toast
• Sarah Perry, ‘Lent Talk: Behold the Man‘ on BBC Radio 4 (+ transcript)
• Rachel Smalter Hall, ‘Why I Need a Break From Books About Dead Girls‘ on Book Riot

 

• Andrea Cornwall, ‘Why gender equality by numbers will never measure up‘ in The Guardian
• Amy Juicebox, ‘The Consequences of Attacking Our Little Black Girls‘ on Blavity
• xTx, ‘Today I am a Lonely, Sexless Book Looking for Love and Understanding‘ in The Butter
• Anna Weiner, ‘The Most Wonderful Staircase‘ in The Offing
• Clare Pollard, ‘All the Amazing Women We’ve Never Heard Of‘ on her blog
• John C. Goodman, ‘……Regina Who? And Other Obscure Women Writers……..‘ on Queen Mob’s Teahouse
• Megan Carpentier, ‘All These Angry Women?‘ in Esquire
• Rene Denfeld, ‘Why we execute people is the big question, not how‘ in The Guardian
• Joshua Rothman, ‘Knausgaard or Ferrante?‘ in The New Yorker
• Nancy Tomich, ‘Elusive Aurora‘ in The Toast
• Anna Fitzpatrick, ‘A Post About Books, Sort Of‘ on The Hairpin
• Suzanne Koven, ‘Cheaters: A Life In Eyewear‘ in The Rumpus
• Stephanie Boland, ‘Shock news: contra to the headlines, people with depression have jobs‘ in the New Statesman
• Maureen O’Connor, ‘How I Became a Hoarder of Discontinued Makeup‘ in The Cut
• Kate Colby, ‘The Itch‘ on The Rumpus
• Jo Chandler, ‘Manus in the Balance‘ in The Monthly
• Michele McPhee, ‘The Monster Next Door‘ in Boston Magazine
• Lisa Hix, ‘The Tragic Life of the Courtesan in Japan’s Floating World‘ on Collectors Weekly
• Suzanne Dean, ‘The Shore: A Cover Story‘ on the Penguin Blog
• Hilary Mantel, ‘How to Play “Wolf Hall”‘ in The New York Review of Books
• Tracey Thorn, ‘Your songs are like your children – you have to wave them off into the world‘ in the New Statesman
• Tabitha Blankenbiller, ‘Fiesta Barbie‘ on Hobart
• Sophie Heawood, ‘Stuck on an ice-bound ferry? What a great opportunity for apocalyptic sex‘ in The Guardian
• Parul Sehgal, ‘How ‘Flawless’ Became a Feminist Declaration‘ in The New York Times
• Marina O’Loughlin, ‘‘Something nasty is stirring’: inside Nigel Farage’s battle for South Thanet‘ in The Guardian
• Sasha Marie Storman, ‘The Role of Women in Horror Films‘ on The Inflectionist
• Catherine Chanter, ‘I found my birth mother through the newspaper small ads‘ in The Guardian
• Swetambara Chaudhary, ‘This Photo Was Removed By Instagram. The Owner Writes A Powerful Open Letter In Response‘ on Scoop Whoop
• Anne Thériault, ‘We Need To Stop Devaluing Femininity‘ on Ravishly

The interviews:

• Alison Stone in 3:AM Magazine
• Kim Gordon on Salon
• Bhatupe Mhango-Chipanta on Brittle Paper
• Jane Hirshfield on The Huffington Post
• Michelle Tea on Weird Sister
• Ruth Goodman on The Daily Beast
• Judy Finnigan in Woman
• Nuala Ní Chonchúir on 746Books
• Joanna Briscoe on Rebecca Mascull’s blog
• Alison Bechdel on The Millions
• Abigail Thomas in the Los Angeles Review of Books
• Megham Daum on Flavorwire
• Val McDermid and Kate Tough on Scottish Book Trust
• Evie Wyld on the Penguin Blog
• Sarah Manguso in The Rumpus
• Rachael Herron on Compulsory Podcast
• Judith Butler in The Los Angeles Review of Books
• Ayelet Gundar-Goshen on Bookanista
• Porochista Khakpour on Electric Literature
• Renata Adler in Vice
• Helen Grant on Scottish Book Trust and Author Allsorts
• Sally Green in The Guardian
• Alice Urbino on Broken Frontier
• Johanna Basford on We Love This Book
• Ann Fisher-Wirth on Bloom
• Isabel Wolff on Random House
• Jennifer Jean on DP Life
• Can Xue in BOMB Magazine
• Eva Dolan on Goodreads
• Helen Marshall in Nightmare Magazine
• Sarah Hall in The Guardian
• Naomi Klein in The Independent
• Amelia Gray on Vice

If you want some fiction/poetry to read:

• An extract from Weightless by Sarah Bannan on Bloomsbury Books
• An extract from Binary Star by Sarah Gerard in The Quietus
• An extract from Disclaimer by Renée Knight
• ‘Lunch Poem‘ by Ashleigh Young on Eyelashroaming
• ‘Coach tour on the A99 to Wick‘ by Claire Askew on Scottish Book Trust
• An extract from The Night Falling by Katherine Webb on Orion Books
• ‘I Hope You Sing About Me‘ by Vanessa Willoughby in The Toast
• ‘When Joan Jumped Into the Sea‘ by Elle Nash in The Offing
• ‘Oboe solo for two players‘ by Claire Fuller on her blog
• ‘Richard‘ by Carol Ann Duffy in The Guardian
• ‘A Poem‘ by Morgan Parker in The Awl
• ‘Beau Soleil‘ by Claire Lombardo in the Atticus Review
• ‘Opposites Detract‘ by Cath Bore on The Fem
• ‘tsunami as misguided kwannon‘ by Lee Ann Roripaugh on The The
• An excerpt from Shadows Over Paradise by Isabel Wolff on Random House
• ‘Keep It In the Ground‘ by Carol Ann Duffy in The Guardian
• ‘How to walk past a tree in winter‘ by Shinjini Bhattacharjee on Three Drops from a Cauldron
• ‘The Knot‘ by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin in The Irish Times
• Two Poems by Catherine Pond in Blunderbuss

The lists:

• Top 5 YA Debuts of 2015 on Max and Mummy
• If You Loved ‘Bad Feminist,’ Try Reading These 11 Books, Too on Bustle
• 29 Awesome Books With Strong Female Protagonists on Buzzfeed
• Five books by transgender authors that everyone should read on The Walrus
• 14 Novels About Muslim Life That Shouldn’t Be Missed on Buzzfeed
• Sarah Menkedick’s Four Books on Early Motherhood on Vela
• Quotes from Five African Woman Writers to Help You Jumpstart Your Writing Dreams on Brittle Paper
• 5 Flannery O’Connor Quotes to Live By on Flavorwire
• Feminist Books for Children on For Books’ Sake
• Sophie Kinsella’s Literary Heroines on the Penguin Blog
• Books of the Week on Publishers Weekly

In the Media: 2nd 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.

The week kicked off (almost literally) with Julia Stephenson writing a piece in the Telegraph with the headline ‘Can a Woman Be Happy Without Having Kids?’ to which Bryony Gordon responded also in the Telegraph. They weren’t the only woman writing about children this week; The New Yorker ran an extract ‘No Babies, Please‘ from Megan Amran’s book; Kate Long wrote about ‘The Five Stages of Motherhood‘ for Mslexia, and Shappi Khorsandi wrote on ‘Raising Girls‘ on Huffington Post.

This was followed on Tuesday by Hollaback’s film of a woman being catcalled for ten hours in New York which raised issues about race as well as the way some men behave towards women in the street. Emily Gould wrote about it for Salon and Hanna Rosin for Slate.

On lighter issues, it seems I was pre-emptive putting Amy Poehler top of the list last week as this week she’s EVERYWHERE. (Which is a good thing as far as I’m concerned.) If you don’t know who she is, I’ll direct you towards her 10 Funniest Clips on the Telegraph first, then you can feast on the rest: Amy Poehler reading from the Prologue of Yes, Please on Pan Macmillan’s Soundcloud; an extract on taping SNL while pregnant on Vulture; talking about writing being ‘hellish’ on Huffington Post; interviewing George R.R. Martin on Vulture; 11 Amy Poehler Stories You’ve Never Heard Before, But Will Totally Relate to Your Life in The Huffington Post; 30 Hilarious Truth Bombs Amy Poehler Dropped During Her Reddit AMA on Buzzfeed; doing #AskAmy at Twitter HQ;

The other high profile funny feminist woman who’s had plenty written about her this week is Lena Dunham, who was in the UK promoting her book. Alex Clark interviewed her in the Observer; Emma Gannon interviewed her for The Debrief and wrote about meeting Lena and her event at the Southbank Centre with Caitlin Moran on Friday night on her blog. She’s on video on The New Yorker talking about Girls and Sex at The New Yorker Festival and there are facts about her on Oprah. While Rebecca Carroll wrote about Lena Dunham’s Race Problem on Gawker and Sonia Saraiya responded in Salon.

The best of the rest articles/essays:

• Darcey Steinke ‘Growing Apart on Facebook‘ on Salon
• Darcey Steinke ‘Frankenstein’s Mother‘ in Granta
• Rivka Galchen on her diet as a medical student in The New Yorker
• Jesmyn Ward The Financial Times’ Life and Arts’ Diary
• A profile of Roz Chast on Salon
• Jeanette Winterson, ‘How pretty do you have to be to work on a building site‘ in The Guardian
• Mary Costello on the inspiration behind her debut novel Academy Street on the Waterstones blog
• Why Ayn Rand is still relevant and dangerous in the New Statesman
• Lynn Shepherd on ‘The Shock and Horror Picture Show‘ on Gothic Imagination, The University of Stirling
• Radhika Sanghani on the revolution happening at Mills & Boon in the Telegraph, which is deconstructed on the Melville House blog by Zeljka Marosevic
• Samantha Ellis ‘How to be a heroine…in pop‘ on her blog
• Lily King on her writing process on Read Her Like an Open Book
• Elisa Albert ‘Where Do I Write?‘ on Guernica
• Roopa Farooki on how Beowulf inspired The Good Children in We Love This Book
• Literary blogger Anthony on discovering Jenny Diski’s work on Time’s Flow Stemmed
• Alice Furse on how it feels to be a published author
• Alison Flood on Sofia Tolstoy’s stories being published for the first time in The Guardian
• Jennifer Mendelsohn ‘Seasons of Love‘ on Baltimore Style
• ‘The Return of Elizabeth Harrower’s In Certain Circles‘ on The Monthly
• Maggie Gee and Salena Godden on their friendship on Something Rhymed
• Jane Austen’s Most Famous Trolls, Critics and Doubters on Flavorwire
• Jenny Uglow on the impact of the Napolionic Wars on literature in The Guardian
• Maisey Yates on the importance of diversity in romance novels on The Pink Heart Society
• Discussion on Patricia A. McKillip’s Ombria in Shadow on Strange Horizons
• Julia Elliott on ‘The New Southern Gothic‘ on Huffington Post
• ‘Have You Ever Had a Relationship End Because of a Book?‘ Zoë Heller and Anna Holmes in Bookends in The New York Times
• ‘Ghosts of my Youth‘ by Jenny Wortham in The Hairpin
• Katherine Heiny Our Inspirational Women: Scarlett O’Hara for the 4th Estate blog
• Judith Claire Mitchell Our Inspirational Women: Madame Manec on the 4th Estate blog
• Jenny McAuley on women writers and their relationship with spirituality and divination on For Books’ Sake
• Helen Macdonald on her encounter with a wild hawk on The Samuel Johnson Prize website
• Jane Harris on her ‘Trading Tales’ Residency in Grenada on the British Council website
• Claire Fuller on the auction for her forthcoming novel Our Endless Numbered Days on her blog
• Roxane Gay ‘I Know What Is True‘ on her blog
• Brenna Ehrlich on the cover of Sarah McCarry’s About a Girl on MTV

The interviews:

• Toni Morrison and Angela Davis on The University of California: Santa Cruz website
• Rose Tremain on her new short story collection in The Independent
• Katha Pollitt discussing her book Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights on Slate and interviewed on Vice
• Sarah Waters in Daily Xtra
• Margaret Atwood interviewed by Erica Wagner in the New Statesman
• Laline Paull on the 4th Estate blog
• Amy Mason, Winner of the Dundee Book Prize on Ideas Tap and on Jane Davis’ blog
• Deborah Levy in the Independent
• Eimear McBride in Time Out, New York
• Darcey Steinke on Electric Literature
• Kate Tempest interviewed by Jon Snow on Channel 4 News
• Sali Hughes on the Topshop blog
• Judy Chicurel on Bloom
• Martina Cole and Janet Street Porter discuss Curtis Sittenfeld’s The American Wife on Radio 4’s A Good Read
• Mallory Ortberg on Flavorwire, in The Washington Post and on The Cut discussing ‘The Great Jerks of Literature‘
• Marion Coutts on Radio 4
• Ottessa Moshfegh in BOMB magazine
• Lauren Beukes interviewed by Jeff Vandermeer in Vulture and Helen Moffett on editing her on Books Live
• Sheila Heti on Gothamist
• Harriet Evans on Female First
• Jane Smiley in the Observer
• Emily St. John Mandel on Omnivoracious
• Claudia Rankine in Bomb Magazine
• Azar Nafisi in the Observer
• Daisy Hernández on Huffington Post

In translation:

• In case you were having withdrawals at the lack of articles about Elena Ferrante last week, there’s one in The Guardian this week
• An article on Sparrow: a new anthology of works by Indian woman on Mid-day
• A profile of Constance Garnett on Asymptote

If you’d like some fiction to read:

• A.J. Ashworth’s ‘Species‘ for Visual Verse
• J.K. Rowling’s new Harry Potter story ‘The Story of Dolores Jane Umbridge‘ on Today
• ‘November Diary‘ by Rebekah Remington on AGNI
• Shelly Oria ‘Documentation‘ on Hazlitt and ‘Phonetic Masterpieces of Absurdity‘ on Electric Literature, both from her forthcoming collection New York 1, Tel Aviv 0
• Patricia Highsmith, ‘The Snail-Watcher‘ on Virago Books
• ‘Countess Markievicz‘ by Fionnuala Doran in The Guardian
• ‘After Life‘ by Beth Dawson in The Guardian
• ‘I Hope Not to See‘ by Rana Mortaja (translated by Elisabeth Jaquette) on The Comma Press blog
• An extract from Dear A by Inga Machel (translated by Donal McLaughlin) in 3:am
• ‘Sin Eater‘ and other poems by Jessica Traynor on Poethead
• ‘The Kiss‘ by Kim Curran on Pornokitsch
• ‘The Husband Stitch‘ by Carmen Maria Machado in Granta
• An excerpt from If I Knew You Were Going to Be This Beautiful, I Never Would Have Let You Go by Judy Chicurel on Bloom
• The first three chapters of the forthcoming Disclaimer by Renee Knight
• An excerpt from Sarah McCarry’s About a Girl on her blog

Photo by T. Kira Madden

And the lists:

• Best Books of 2014 on Publishers Weekly
• Upcoming Non-Fiction by Women on River City Reading
• 11 Witches from Fiction who Embody What Feminism Really Means in The Huffington Post
• The 20 Most Terrifying Non-Horror Books on The New Republic
• 5 Scary Stories by Women Writers on Bookriot
• 8 Female Writers that You Should Know in Pink Sky magazine
• My Top 5 Literary Twenty-Somethings by Alice Saggers on the 4th Estate Blog
• 16 Books That Will Do the Flirting For You on Buzzfeed
• 5 Great Books to Read in November on Buzzfeed
• 17 Jane Austen Characters if they were on Tinder on Buzzfeed
• Top 10 Scary Stories on For Books’ Sake
• 7 Fairy Tales Adults Will Love on Huffington Post
• 11 Funny Books by Women that Prove We’re Freakin’ Hilarious on Bustle
• Our Favourite Feminist Reads in Ms Magazine
• Lauren Owen’s Top 10 Vampire Books for The Guardian
• Erica Mena ‘What I’m Reading Now‘ on Drunken Boat
• 9 Novels so Scary You’ll Be Tricked and Treated on Kirkus Reviews
• Books for the Christmas List on The Women’s Room
• 10 Reasons to Stop Worrying About Being in Your 30s by India Knight in Grazia
• 5 Scary Films paired with 5 Scary Books, all by women, on Electric Literature
• 27 Patently Untrue Facts About Famous Writers on Bookriot
• One Book Lane’s Halloween Reads
• Writers’ Favourite Scariest Books of All Time on Oprah
• 5 Page Turners that Will Surprise You More than Once on Oprah
• Booktober: 30 Books Everyone Will Be Talking About This Fall on Oprah
• Top Five Heroines of Children’s Fiction in We Love This Book