In the Media, November 2016, Part Two

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

This fortnight’s been dominated by post-election coverage:

• Rebecca Traister, ‘Blaming Clinton’s Base for Her Loss Is the Ultimate Insult‘ in The Cut
• Mo Moulton, ‘An American in Brexit Britain: Reflections After the Presidential Election‘ on Catapult
• Toni Morrison, ‘Making America White Again‘ in The New Yorker
• Sal Randolph, ‘A Letter to My Male Friends Who May Not Know That They Are Women‘ on The Rumpus
• Gabrielle Bellot, ‘Queer Writers in the Age of Trump‘ on The Atlantic
• Hennessy Williams, ‘As a Sex Worker, I’m Terrified for the Next Four Years‘ on Vice
• Masha Gessen, ‘Why We Must Protest‘ on Literary Hub
• Valeria Luiselli, ‘This Is How the World Ends?‘ on Literary Hub
• Shani Gilchrist, ‘When There Is No Option to Forget: How My Family Shares Our Stories of Survival‘ on Catapult
• Jenny Zhang, ‘Against Extinction‘ on The New Enquiry
• Helen Lewis and Caroline Crampton, ‘How Ivanka, the new first daughter, sold the Trump brand to women‘ in the New Statesman
• Various, ‘What It Means To Be A Writer In The Time Of Trump‘ on The Huffington Post
• Kali Holloway, ‘Stop Asking Me to Empathize with the White Working Class‘ on Alternet
• Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, ‘Hillary Clinton lost because of her gender, and it hurts like hell‘ in the New Statesman
• Muna Mire, ‘Resisting Trump’s Islamophobic Promise for America‘ on The New Enquiry
• Liz Meriwether, ‘After the Election, the White People of Los Angeles Adopted Pets‘ on The Cut
• Megan Garber, ‘Pop Culture Resents ‘The Establishment’ Too‘ in The Atlantic
• Sarah Blackwood, ‘Parenting by the Books: Slavery’s White Women‘ on The Hairpin
• Christina Sharpe, ‘Lose Your Kin‘ on The New Enquiry
• Melissa Febos, ‘Teaching After Trump‘ on Granta
• Rebecca Solnit, ‘How to Survive a Disaster‘ on Literary Hub
• Various, ‘Aftermath‘ in The New Yorker
• Rebecca Solnit, ‘Don’t call Clinton a weak candidate: it took decades of scheming to beat her‘ in The Guardian
• Abi Wilkinson ‘We need to talk about the online radicalisation of young, white men‘ in The Guardian
• Catherine Baker, ‘Queer grief and the secret chord with Kate McKinnon: it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah‘ on Little Queer Ideograms
• Rachel Klein, ‘I, For One, As a White Woman, Welcome Our New Alien Overlords‘ on McSweeney’s
• Caitlin Frazier, ‘The Iconic Hillary Clinton‘ on The Atlantic
• Clare Foran, ‘Women Aren’t Responsible for Hillary Clinton’s Defeat‘ on The Atlantic
• Summer Brennan, ‘Cohen Dies, Trump Wins, and We Will Sing About these Dark Times‘ on Literary Hub

And the woman with the most publicity this fortnight is Zadie Smith. She’s interviewed on Literary Hub, Nylon, Waterstones, Lenny, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Slate and profiled by Sarah Hughes in The Observer.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Rebecca Slater, ‘Verse goes viral: how young feminist writers are reclaiming poetry for the digital age‘ in The Guardian
• Mica Lemiski, ‘Does Genre Really Matter?‘ on Room
• Emily Reynolds, ‘The literary glamour of madness‘ in The TLS
• Amy Kurzweil, ‘How I Made This Comic About How I Make My Comics: An Interactive Essay‘ on Catapult
• Miranda Popkey, ‘Call Me Elena‘ on The New Enquiry
• Sian Cain, ‘Costa book award 2016 shortlists dominated by female writers‘ in The Guardian
• Danielle Groen, ‘How Rupi Kaur Became the Voice of Her Generation‘ on Flare
• Aamna Mohdin, ‘Women are horribly under-represented in the world’s top literary awards‘ on Quartz
• Alanna Bennett, ‘The Harry Potter Fandom Is At A Crossroads‘ on Buzzfeed
• Ruth Padel, ‘Writing needs connection to the outside world: a lot of it seems to get done when you’re simply living’ in The Guardian
• Katherine Faw, ‘Elena Ferrante and Me: An Irrational Essay‘ on Catapult
• Svetlana Alexievich (tr. Anna Gunin and Arch Tait), ‘In Chernobyl‘ in Five Dials
• Melinda Sailsbury, ‘Why I will no longer submit my books for review by the Daily Mail or the Sun‘ in The Guardian
• Elaine Blair, ‘Chris Kraus, Female Antihero‘ in The New Yorker
• Ruth Scurr, ‘Elena Ferrante: Game of clothes‘ in the TLS
• Cornelia Funke, ‘Hurrah for translators: why we need to translate more children’s books‘ on BookTrust
• Nina Renata Aron, ‘Fake Failures: Why Are Successful Young Women Writers Playing Miserable Online?‘ on The Millions
• Zana Fraillon, ‘on writing about refugee children: “Their resilience keeps hope alive”‘ in The Guardian
• Jane Martinson, ‘Only 1.8% of sport articles are written by women – so much for progress‘ in The Guardian
• Jo Scott-Coe, ‘The Communion of Saints‘ on Talking Writing
• Milena Britto, ‘Women Writing in 21st Century Brazil: Experimentation and Narratives of Self‘ on Critical Flame
• Bim Adenwunmi, ‘Why “The Walking Dead” Has Become Fanfiction’s Muse‘ on Buzzfeed

Photograph by Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Personal essays/memoir:

• Kathleen Alcott’s Ghosts of Thanksgiving on Literary Hub
• Alison Stine, ‘Graffiti Taught Me Grit‘ on Lenny
• Jen Maidenberg, ‘Misfit Doc: In Living Colour‘ on Queen Mob’s
• Marian Ryan, ‘Things I Never Told Her‘ on Granta
• Kelly Luce, ‘Truth, Lies, and Videotape‘ in NY Mag
• Jen Sookfong Lee, ‘I Was Once That Girl‘ on Room
• Morgan Parker, ‘How to Stay Sane While Black‘ in The New York Times
• Ana Maria Guay, ‘Living in the Labyrinth of My Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder‘ on Catapult
• Elisabeth Sherman, ‘Why I Never “Fixed” My Teeth‘ on Catapult
• Evelyn Hampton, ‘Weightlessness‘ on Catapult
• Leah Kaminsky, ‘Finding Love at the End of History‘ on Literary Hub
• Esmé Weijun Wang, ‘After the Psych Ward, Eggs Are Freedom‘ on Extra Crispy
• Linda H. Davis, ‘Open After My Death‘ on Granta
• Eliza Kostelanetz Schrader, ‘The F Word‘ on Guernica

Feminism:

• Lisa Whittington-Hill, ‘Gateway Spice‘ on Hazlitt
• Alex Ronan, ‘What Women Used Before They Could Use the Law‘ in n+1
• Zoë Beaty, ‘Why we should celebrate our difficult friendships‘ on The Pool
• Kiera Feldman, ‘With Child‘ in Harper’s

Photograph by Kevin Day

Society and Politics:

• Celeste Ng, ‘Giving Thanks Is a Political Act‘ on Literary Hub
• Jane Martinson, ‘Why didn’t the Daily Mail put the jailing of Jo Cox’s murderer on its front page?‘ in The Guardian
• Anne Helen Peterson, ‘One Hundred Years Of Men Taking Off Their Shirts‘ on Buzzfeed
• Tara Isabella Burton, ‘Cult of One‘ on Real Life
• Rebecca Altman, ‘The Toxic-Waste Drum Is Everywhere‘ on The Atlantic
• Morgan Babst, ‘Everything Is Not Fine If It’s Not Fine for Everyone‘ on Literary Hub
• Charlotte Higgins ‘The hygge conspiracy‘ in The Guardian
• Ariel Ramchandani, ‘When the Devil Enters‘ on The Atavist Magazine
• Lara Whyte, ‘The Campaign Recruiting Former Extremists to Stop Girls from Joining ISIS‘ on Broadly
• Sara Peterson, ‘I Hate Shopping (and Shops Are the Problem)‘ on Catapult

The interviews/profiles:

• Kate Tempest (and Phoebe Waller-Bridge) in The Guardian
• Brit Bennett on Broadly
• Lydia Davis on Literary Hub and The TLS
• Alice Mattison on The Rumpus
• Emily Witt on Jezebel
• Magda Szubanski in The Guardian
• Julie Koh on Asymptote
• Lara Pawson on 3:am
• Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie on Racked
• Chivvis Moor on Literary Hub
• Elif Shafak in The TLS
• Ottessa Moshfegh on Publishers Weekly
• Ambai in the Indian Express
• Margot Livesey on The Millions
• Robin Coste Lewis on Literary Hub
• Carolyn Parkhurst on The Rumpus
• Elena Ferrante on Hazlitt

The regular columnists:

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

In the Media: November 2016, Part One

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

What else can begin this fortnight’s coverage?

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

Photograph by Nye’Lyn Tho

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

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

Personal essays/memoir:

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

 

Feminism:

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

Society and Politics:

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

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

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

The interviews/profiles:

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

The regular columnists:

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

In the Media, December 2015

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’s mostly been about end of year lists. Last year I linked to those that were gender balanced but this year I gave up counting after the first two, deciding it was a futile endeavour. Having said that, Sarah Seltzer says , ‘White Men Are the Minority on This Year’s Biggest Book Lists‘ on Flavorwire and there was some excitement around a new ‘Best UK novels’ list commissioned by the BBC. On The Pool, Lynn Enright said ‘Women writers dominate the top spots in list of best British novels‘. Which they do but the list as a whole isn’t balanced and it’s dominated by Nineteenth Century novels.

A fortnight ago I was going to begin this piece by mentioning The Good Immigrant an essay collection being published by Unbounders which means it needed crowdfunding. It includes essays by Chimene Suleyman, Bim Adewumni, Salena Godden, Sabrina Mahfouz, Coco Khan, Sarah Sahim and Reni Eddo Lodge and was fully funded in three days, partly thanks to JK Rowling. You can read about what an excellent person she is and what a great collection it sounds in The Guardian. And you can still contribute to the funding.

Clare Vaye Watkins essay ‘On Pandering’ is still being discussed. She talks about it further (with Marlon James) on NPR. Anne Boyd Rioux responded with ‘A Brief History of Pandering‘ on The Rumpus. Aya de Leon responded initially with ‘“On Pandering” and Subversive Revelations of Female Insecurity‘ and then to Marlon James’ Guardian conversation with ‘On Pandering, White Women as Scapegoats, and the Literary Industry as a Hand-Me-Down‘ on her blog, while Dreda Say Mitchell replied with ‘Black authors don’t write only for white women‘ in the Guardian.

In prize news, Sarah Howe won the resurrected Young Writer of the Year Award for her poetry collection Loop of Jade. She’s profiled in The Sunday Times (£) and interviewed on Bookanista and The Workshy Fop. And the Saltire Society Literary Award was announced with wins for Helen McClory, Patricia Andrew and Tanja Bueltmann.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Harper Lee, ‘My Christmas in New York‘ in The Guardian
• Blake Butler, ‘The Hallucinatory Terror of Unica Zürn‘ on Vice
• Patti Marxsen, ‘A Taste of Immortality: The Post-Earthquake Haitian Novel‘ in The Critical Flame
• Svetlana Alexievich, ‘On the Battle Lost‘ on Nobel Prize
• Alison Flood, ‘How Amazon came to dominate fiction in translation‘ in The Guardian
• Jane Hu, ‘Between Us: A Queer Theorist’s Devoted Husband and Enduring Legacy‘ in The New Yorker
• David Griffith, ‘The Displaced Person: Reading Flannery O’Connor in the age of Islamophobia.‘ on The Paris Review
• Amy Watkin, ‘Women Who Should Be Pretty Pissed Off: Jane Austen Is Probably Mad at Us‘ on McSweeney’s
• Siri Hustvedt, ‘Knausgaard Writes Like a Woman: On Gendered Literature and the Feminization of Feelings‘ on Literary Hub
• Sandeep Parmar, ‘Not a British Subject: Race and Poetry in the UK‘ in The Los Angeles Review of Books
• Anne Enright, ‘Antigone in Galway: on the dishonoured dead‘ in the London Review of Books
• Melissa Benn, ‘Vivian Gornick: one of the most significant writers you have probably never heard of‘ in The New Statesman
• Zanib Mian, ‘‘We need books that just happen to feature a Muslim protagonist’‘ in THe Bookseller
• Theresa Shim, ‘I Read Because We’re All Storytellers — It’s Human Nature, After All.‘ on Medium
• Susie Day, ‘Why we have to create more disabled characters in children’s fiction‘ in The Guardian
• Ginger Strand, ‘How Jane Vonnegut Made Kurt Vonnegut a Writer‘ in The New Yorker
• Stephanie LaCava, ‘Slow Days, Fast Company:Eve Babitz’s singular take on Los Angeles.‘ on The Paris Review
• John Mullan, ‘How Jane Austen’s Emma changed the face of fiction‘ in The Guardian
• Lorraine Berry, ‘How the Literary Class System Is Impoverishing Literature‘ on Literary Hub
• Margaret Atwood, ‘My journey with a young writer‘ on Medium
• Alana Massey, ‘Molly Crabapple Is The Writer Who Made Me A Writer‘ on Buzzfeed
• Morgan Parker, ‘I Don’t Need Diverse Books: On Re-defining ‘We’ and Making Black Art‘ on The Poetry Foundation
• Alison Flood, ‘Earliest known biography of an African woman translated to English for the first time‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah Farooqui, ‘Why Ismat Chugtai’s stories should not be dropped from Rajasthan’s school textbooks‘ in Business Standard
• Shami Chakrabarti, ‘How do we keep up the fight for democratic values? With solidarity and storytelling’ in The Guardian
• Ester Bloom, ‘When Women’s Literary Tastes Are Deemed Less Worthy‘ on The Atlantic
• Sarah Franklin, ‘“Short stories lift you out of your own world for 10 minutes”‘ on The Pool
• Professor Sharon Rustin, ‘The Science of Life and Death in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein‘ in The Public Domain Review
• Anne de Courcy, ‘The prime minister fell in love with his daughter’s best friend‘ in The Guardian

Personal essays/memoir:

• Terri White, ‘Fairytale of New York?‘ on The Pool
• Leslie Kendall Dye, ‘Contrast Study‘ on Vela
• Anne Thériault, ‘Being a Girl: A Brief History of Personal Violence‘ on The Belle Jar
• Andrea Yu, ‘Going Back Home: Life as a Reverse Immigrant‘ in The Wilson Quarterly
• Sulagna Misra, ‘Learning Body Positivity From a 700-Year-Old Hindu Statue‘ on Racked
• Karissa Chen, ‘The Audacity to Dream: On Asian Women, Feminism, and My Grandmother‘ on Vida
• Jess Zimmerman, ‘The Year in Luck‘ on Hazlitt
• Alexandra Kimball, ‘Unpregnant: The silent, secret grief of miscarriage‘ in The Globe and The Mail
• Katie Klabusich, ‘When The Poor Get Taken Advantage Of By Friends And Family‘ on The Establishment
• Alana Massey, ‘An Ode to the Hometown Friends Who Got Away‘ on The Cut
• Samantha, ‘Do Black Girls Even Get to Be Depressed?‘ on Bitches Gotta Eat
• Katy Waldman, ‘There Once Was a Girl: Against the false narratives of anorexia.‘ on Slate
• Jennifer Tseng, ‘How to Leave an Island: on Life, Libraries, and Commuting by Canoe‘ on Literary Hub
• Kelly Thompson, ‘The Story of My Fear Over Time‘ on The Rumpus
• Rachel Wilkinson, ‘Valuation Methods‘ on The Rumpus
• Caroline Crampton, ‘Travelling alone as a woman is incredibly empowering‘ on The Pool
• Ashley Ford, ‘How I Got Depressed, Forgave Myself, and Grew Up in the Process‘ in Elle
• Marisa Bate, ‘A letter to my friend: you are experiencing emotional abuse‘ in The Pool
• Laura Lampton Scott, ‘The Person Next to You on a Plane‘ on Electric Literature
• Collette Arrand, ‘Chrysalis: Transitioning and My Trans Identity‘ in The Toast
• Porochista Khakpour, ‘My Life in the New Age‘ in VQR
• Jhumpa Lahiri, ‘Teach Yourself Italian‘ in The New Yorker
• Molly Crabapple, ‘My Life in a Parisian Bookstore‘ on Literary Hub
• Alisson Wood, ‘‘Get Home Safe,’ My Rapist Said‘ in The New York Times

Feminism:

• Hermione Hoby, ‘The problem with being ‘badass’‘ in The Guardian
• Anonymous, ‘No, Mrs Mugabe, I am not responsible for my rape.‘ on Media Diversified
• Arabelle Sicardi, ‘Beauty Is Broken‘ on Medium
• Cass Geller, ‘I Am Woman, Hear Me Curse: Confessions Of A Potty Mouth‘ on Femsplain
• Jessica Woodbury, ‘“In Good Conscience”: Mormon Feminists on the Brink‘ in The Toast
• Gaby Hinsliff, ‘Why we should talk about menopause in the workplace‘ on The Pool
• Professor Heidi Safia Mirza, ‘Shame and Sexual Harassment‘ on Sexual Harassment in Higher Education
• Ratika Kapur, ‘Delhi’s same-sex carriages: The ladies’ compartment is a public space where women can assert their independence‘ in The Independent
• Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, ‘Do some men *still* find working women a problem?‘ on The Pool
• Ina Goel, ‘Menstrual Chronicles from Delhi‘ on The Fem

Society and Politics:

• Maya Goodfellow, ‘America may be ‘Trumped’, but Britain has its demons too‘ on Media Diversified
• Sandra Newman, ‘Possessed by a mask‘ on Aeon
• Olga Khazan, ‘The Hardest Job‘ on The Atlantic
• Deanna Othman, ‘Where was Donald Trump radicalized?: The hate-spewing candidate proves any ideology can lead to radicalization‘ on Salon
• April White, ‘The Divorce Colony‘ in The Atavist Magazine
• Priya Rane, ‘“The Silent Majority of Muslims”: Islamophobia and Counter Extremism in the UK‘ on Media Diversified
• Sarah Schweitzer, ‘The life and times of Strider Wolf‘ in The Boston Globe
• Eula Biss, ‘White Debt: Reckoning with what is owed — and what can never be repaid — for racial privilege.‘ in The New York Times
• Rachel Shabi, ‘Were you carried away by Hilary Benn’s ‘electrifying’ speech? This is political theatre, not democracy‘ in The Independent
• Jennifer Mascia, ‘What It Feels Like to Cover Gun Violence in America‘ in Vogue
• Kiona Smith-Strickland, ‘Princesses, Slaves, and Explosives: The Scandalous Origin of Vaccines‘ on Gizmodo
• Maya Goodfellow, ‘If only Diane Abbott had a job! Then we wouldn’t all have to describe her as “Corbyn’s former lover”‘ in The Independent
• Paris Lees, ‘“Being transgender is not a trend” Paris Lees on why being trans shouldn’t be headline news‘ in Stylist

Film, Television, Music, Art and Fashion:

• Ariel Levy, ‘Dolls and Feelings: Jill Soloway’s Post-Patriarchal Television‘ in The New Yorker
• Marisa Crawford, ‘Bloodlines: No Wave Performance Task Force’s PERIOD PIECE Traces the Lineage of Menstrual Art‘ on Weird Sister
• Shaadi Devereaux, ‘Netflix, Uncovering Cycles of Abuse and Chill: Jessica Jones and Domestic Violence‘ on Model View Culture
• Megan Koester, ‘Why It Sucks to Be a Woman in Comedy‘ on Vice
• Katherine Schwab, ‘Highbrow Ink‘ in The Atlantic
• Adriana Tobin, ‘Why Women’s Pockets Are Useless: A History‘ on Marketplace
• Gabrielle Jackson, ‘Please Sia, don’t show us your face‘ in The Guardian

The interviews:

• Jennifer Baker on The Rumpus
• Molly Crabapple on NPR, in The Guardian
• Diane Lefer on Awst Press
• Lauren Groff on Vulture
• Elaine Sciolino on Literary Hub
• Elena Ferrante in the Financial Times
• bel hooks in The New York Times
• Jane Ciabattari on The Rumpus
• Kate Gavino on Electric Literature
• Nell Zink in Tank Magazine
• Debra Monroe on The Rumpus
• Miranda July in The Believer
• Ratika Kapur in The Hindu
• Bette Adriaanse in Structo Magazine
• Sloane Crosley on Bookanista
• Louisa Hall on The Rumpus
• Dawn Lundy Martin on Literary Hub
• Isabel Allende in The Guardian
• Diana Athill in The Independent
• Naja Marie Aidt in BOMB Magazine
• Catherynne M. Valente on Electric Literature
• Alex Mar on Electric Literature

The regular columnists:

• Laurie Penny in The New Statesman
• Lucy Mangan in Stylist
• Roxane Gay in The Guardian US
• Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in The Independent
• Caitlin Moran in The Times
• Lauren Laverne in The Pool
• Ella Risbridger in The Pool
• Sali Hughes in The Pool
• Bim Adewunmi in The Guardian
• Sophie Heawood in The Guardian
• Eva Wiseman in The Observer
• Tracey Thorn in The New Statesman
• Chimene Suleyman and Maya Goodfellow on Media Diversified
• Josie Pickens on Ebony
• Bridget Christie in The Guardian
• Lizzy Kremer on Publishing for Humans