In the Media, April 2017, 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.

Photograph by Murdo MacLeod

 

Women have been dominating the prize wins for the past fortnight. Hollie McNish won the Ted Hughes Prize and Kiran Millwood Hargrave won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize with The Girl of Ink and Stars.

While The Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist was announced. Rebecca May Johnson writes ‘Notes on . . . the Baileys Women’s Prize‘ (and reading women more generally) in the Financial Times. There are interviews with several of the longlisted writers on the prize’s site: Madeleine Thien, Naomi Alderman, Linda Grant, Yewande Omotoso, Heather O’Neill, Fiona Melrose, Eimear McBride, Emma Flint.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Claire Armistead, ‘Is Hilary Mantel’s view of historical fiction out of date?‘ in The Guardian
• Amy Bernhard, ‘Writing Behind Walls‘ on Catapult
• Catherine La Sota, ‘Reading Across America: A Scene Grows in Queens‘ on Literary Hub
• Alicia Maria Meier, ‘Marta Rojals’s “The Faithful,” and the American JASP‘ on Words Without Borders
• Megan Hunter, ‘Fiction to see the world through‘ in The TLS
• Vincent Scarpa, ‘The Uncanny Magic of Joy Williams, in a Single Paragraph‘ on Literary Hub
• Laura Waddell, ‘Is it time for a Handmaid’s Tale sequel, to reckon with the Trump era?‘ in The Guardian
• Aaron Bady, ‘Has Imbolo Mbue Written the Great American Novel?‘ on Literary Hub
• Mallory Soto, ‘Laura Kinney, Literary Fiction, and Coming-of-Age‘ on Bookriot
• Emily Temple, ‘A Brief History of Robots‘ on Literary Hub
• Terri Kapsalis, ‘Hysteria, Witches, and the Wandering Uterus: A Brief History‘ on Literary Hub
• Ayana Mathis, ‘On Impractical Urges‘ in Guernica
• Sophie Hughes, ‘Ferrante Fever and Knausgaard nuts‘ in The TLS
• Amelia Ayrelan Iuvino, ‘What Does it Mean to Set Your Novel at Harvard?‘ on Literary Hub
• Margaret Atwood, ‘on What ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Means in the Age of Trump‘ in The New York Times
• Edmund Gordon, ‘In Which Angela Carter Gives No Fucks‘ on Literary Hub
• Sophie Gilbert, ‘The Dark Morality of Fairy-Tale Animal Brides‘ on The Atlantic
• Fiona Taylor, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale: The Lost Pence Prequel‘ in The New Yorker
• Sarah Blackwood, ‘Parenting by the Books: ‘Little Women’‘ on The Hairpin
• Emily Temple, ‘Life Advice from Adrienne Rich‘ on Literary Hub
• Danika Ellis, ‘Let’s Talk About Star-Crossed: Why We Need Bisexual Kids Books, Backlash or Not‘ on Bookriot
• Naomi Alderman, ‘Dystopian dreams: how feminist science fiction predicted the future‘ in The Guardian
• Jami Attenberg, ‘Stop Reading My Fiction as the Story of My Life‘ in The New York Times
• Salena Godden, ‘How I Did It‘ on The Poetry School
• Scarlett Thomas, ‘Why I was wrong about children’s fiction‘ in The Guardian
• Ellen Feldman, ‘A Brief Literary History of Birth Control‘ on Literary Hub
• Laura Kaye, ‘on portraying England from a foreigner’s perspective‘ on the Literary Sofa
• Valerie Derbyshire, ‘Beauty and the Beast was originally a feminist fable disguised as marriage guidance‘ on The Conversation
• Bidisha, ‘The great contradiction‘ in The TLS
• Teri Vlassopoulos, ‘When I Think About Giving Up Writing‘ on Catapult
• Alexandra Alter, ‘New Crop of Young Adult Novels Explores Race and Police Brutality‘ in The New York Times
• Jami Attenberg, ‘Topography of a Novel: All Grown Up‘ on Blunderbuss
• Kathryn Heyman, ‘Fairytales are not just harmless, innocent fun. They need to be interrogated‘ in The Guardian
• Susan Braudy, ‘‘Sisters in Misery’: What It Was Like to Interview Joan Didion at Home in 1977‘ on Jezebel

Personal essays/memoir:

• Kim McLarin, ‘Outrunning Eshu: On Finally Seeking Treatment for Depression‘ on Literary Hub
• Marissa Bate, ‘Adventures aren’t always on the other side of the world‘ on The Pool
• Daisy Buchanan, ‘I’ve been an agony aunt since I could talk‘ in The Guardian
• Laura Turner, ‘How Do You Inherit Anxiety?‘ on Catapult
• Meg Elison, ‘El Hugé‘ on Catapult
• Melissa Febos, ‘Playing Cupid for a Gay Friend on a (Mostly) Straight Cruise‘ in The New York Times
• Ethel Rohan, ‘Bringing It Back Up‘ on The Hairpin
• Sinéad Gleeson, ‘Your Chroma‘ on RTÉ
• Melinda Salisbury, ‘Was my grandmother a witch?‘ in The Guardian
• Amy Jo Burns, ‘Writing, Risk, and Moonshine‘ on Electric Literature
• Dionne Ford, ‘Don’t Call Slaves “Immigrants”‘ on Literary Hub
• Melissa Wyse, ‘Learning to Live Alone Through the Legacy of Mary Tyler Moore‘ in The Rumpus
• Whitney Templeton, ‘The Evolution of a Trigger‘ on The Rumpus
• Elisabeth Fairfield Stokes, ‘Life and Breath: On Pregnancy and the Spirit World‘ on Catapult
• Gillian Jacobs, ‘I Can’t Have Enough Mothers‘ on Lenny
• Dina Nayeri, ‘How Love Ends: Scenes from a Refugee Hotel‘ on Electric Literature
• Maria Browning, ‘Doll in Shadow‘ on Guernica
• Xialou Guo, ‘Leaving the Village: on Traumatic Uprooting‘ on Literary Hub
• Alys Fowler, ‘There is no such thing as coming out: it’s a daily negotiation‘ in The Guardian
• Eve Peyser, ‘Trump, Trolls, and Rediscovering My Jewish Identity‘ on Vice
• Porochista Khakpour, ‘Why this Persian New Year is different‘ on CNN
• Ashley Ford, ‘Seeing My Body with Fresh Eyes‘ on Cup of Jo
• Laurie Frankel, ‘We adopted by choice not necessity‘ in The Guardian
• Ella Wilson, ‘Take Care: Mothers, Daughters, and Inheriting Self-Hatred‘ on Catapult
• Daisy Buchanan, ‘I am 32, successful and I am in therapy. This is why‘ on The Pool

Feminism:

• Helen Charman, ‘Literary Representations of Maternity‘ on Women Are Boring
• Heather Kirn Lanier, ‘Superbabies Don’t Cry‘ on Vela
• Jia Tolentino, ‘The Infantilizing Ways We Talk About Women’s Ambition‘ in The New Yorker
• Leslie Jamison, ‘In the Shadow of a Fairy Tale‘ in The New York Times
• Rebecca Traister, ‘Of Course Donald Trump Doesn’t Think Bill O’Reilly Did Anything Wrong‘ in The Cut
• Salimah Perkins, ‘Choosing Sides‘ on Queen Mob’s Tea House
• Minda Honey, ‘Women of Color in Wide Open Spaces‘ on Longreads
• Jess Zimmerman, ‘Why Is Male Anger So Threatening?‘ in Dame
• Jessica Valenti, ‘Mike Pence doesn’t eat alone with women. That speaks volumes‘ in The Guardian
• Phoebe Maltz Bovy, ‘It’s time to drop the vagina as a protest symbol‘ in The Washington Post
• Morgan Jerkins, ‘How America Fails Black Girls‘ in The New York Times
• Sandra Newman, ‘Why men rape‘ on Aeon
• Mia Violet, ‘Taking Selfies As A Form Of Self Care‘ on Femsplain
• Brittney McNamara, ‘White Women Are Less Likely to Protect Black Women From Sexual Assault, Study Finds‘ in Teen Vogue
• Roe McDermott, ‘There is no perfect victim. And there is no perfect way to respond to sexual assault‘ on The Pool
• Morgan M Page, ‘Trans Women Shouldn’t Have To Constantly Defend Their Own Womanhood‘ on Buzzfeed
• Cathy Young, ‘The Other Women’s Movement‘ on Foreign Policy
• David Smith, ‘Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on transgender row: “I have nothing to apologise for”‘ in The Guardian

Society and Politics:

• Jeanette Winterson, ‘We need to be more imaginative about modern marriage‘ in The Guardian
• Taffy Brodesser-Akner, ‘The High Price of Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Life‘ in the New York Times
• Monica Mark, ‘Poor, Gifted and Black‘ on Buzzfeed
• Diana Darke, ‘A sarin attack and a swing in US policy‘ in The TLS
• Carla Bruce-Eddings, ‘Am I Going to Have Another Baby?‘ in The Cut
• Emily Holleman, ‘Is Hillary Clinton a Modern-Day Cleopatra?‘ on Literary Hub
• Hannah Goldfeld, ‘The Cool Brooklyn Dentist Who Wants Your Teeth to Look As Nice As Her Instagram Feed‘ in The Cut
• Suzanne Moore, ‘Labour is weak and immoral – as shown by Livingstone’s refusal to apologise‘ in The Guardian
• Alana Semuels, ‘Why It’s So Hard to Get Ahead in the South‘ in The Atlantic
• Zara Rahman, ‘Where Are You Really From‘ on Real Life
• Jeanne de Montbaston, ‘My Daughter’s Birth‘ on Reading Medieval Books
• Linda Besner, ‘Sleep Country‘ on Real Life
• Hilary Mantel, ‘The Tories will never confess to their social wrecking age‘ in The New Statesman
• Alana Massey, ‘Broken Links‘ on Aeon
• Sim Bajwa, ‘Multiculturalism hasn’t failed – but the rhetoric surrounding immigration has become poisonous‘ on The Pool
• Elena Passarello, ‘The Sense of an Endling‘ on Longreads
• Lisa Miller, ‘John Hinckley Left the Mental Hospital Seven Months Ago‘ in New York Magazine

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

• Jonatha Kottler, ‘Shopping at size 24: ‘The sales assistant shakes her head at me’‘ in The Guardian
• Caitlin McDonnell, ‘On Homeland‘s Carrie Mathison, Mental Illness, & the “Ugly Cry”‘ on Weird Sister
• Sophie Atkinson, ‘Feminism and the Pursuit of Relentless Happiness‘ on Electric Literature
• Christine Vines, ‘The Damage of ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’‘ on Electric Literature
• Laura McKeon, ‘Dressing Like Ladies‘ on Hazlitt
• Rachel Klein, ‘Smurfette’s Roots‘ on Hazlitt
• Lauren Schwartzberg, ‘Why Millennial Pink Refuses to Go Away‘ in The Cut
• Amy Wallace, ‘The Hollywood Exec and the Hand Transplant That Changed His Life‘ in Los Angeles Magazine
• Catherine Love, ‘Offside: the shocking moment female footballers were banned for 50 years‘ in The Guardian

The interviews/profiles:

• Durga Chew-Bose on Hazlitt
• Edna O’Brien on Kenyan Review
• Eleni Sikelianos in Numeró Cinq
• Sarah Waters in The Guardian
• Ursula K. Le Guin on Electric Literature
• Claire Fuller on Reading Women
• Julie Buntin on Electric Literature
• Ariel Levy on Electric Literature and The Fifth Sense
• Angie Thomas in The Guardian and The Cut
• Deb Olin Unferth on Electric Literature
• Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo in The Bookseller
• Valeria Luiselli in Brooklyn
• Aura Xilonen on Electric Literature
• Ana Marie Cox on Literary Hub
• Wioletta Greg and Eliza Marciniak on The Man Booker Prize
• Fay Weldon in The Guardian
• Brit Bennett on The Millions
• Marina Benjamin on Slate
• Maggie Nelson in The Cut
• Katie Kitamura in The LA Times
• Megan McDowell on Literary Hub
• Emma Richler on Maisonneuve
• Eve Ainsworth on Bookriot
• Anna Journey on Electric Literature
• Eileen Myles in The Irish Times
• Eula Bliss in The Los Angeles Review of Books
• Khadijah Queen on The Rumpus
• Emily Robbins on Hazlitt
• Helen McClory on Burning House Press
• Lidia Yuknavitch on Pen America
• Patty Yumi Cottrell on Literary Hub
• Nell Stevens in Vogue

The regular columnists:

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

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: December 2016

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.

Post-election coverage is still top of the tree this fortnight:

• Lauren Duca, ‘Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America‘ in Teen Vogue
• Jennifer Gonnerman, ‘Fighting for the Poor Under Trump‘ in The New Yorker
• Molly Ball, ‘President Trump’s Perpetual Campaign‘ in The Atlantic
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, ‘Now Is the Time to Talk About What We Are Actually Talking About‘ in The New Yorker
• Barbara Robidoux, ‘Walk On‘ on The Rumpus
• Hadley Freeman, ‘“Don’t play identity politics!” The primal scream of the straight white male‘ in The Guardian
• Masha Gessen, ‘Trump: The Choice We Face‘ in The New York Review of Books
• Gabrielle Bellot, ‘Finding Empathy in the Face of Hate‘ on Literary Hub
• Alison Stine, ‘Wolves‘ on The Rumpus

The other big story has been the revelation that Maria Schneider was raped in Last Tango in Paris:

• Sali Hughes, ‘The callous abuse of Maria Schneider, and the impunity of Hollywood men‘ on The Pool
• Suzanne Moore, ‘Last Tango’s abuse reveals the broken promise of the 1970s sexual revolution‘ in The Guardian
• Helen Lewis, ‘Maria Schneider’s story is no surprise – Hollywood has always treated women as commodities‘ in the New Statesman
• Jessica Tovey, ‘Bertolucci’s justification for the Last Tango rape scene is bogus. It’s called ‘acting’ for a reason‘ in The Guardian

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Rave Sashayed, On men writing women on but alas! the creature grows degenerate
• Sarah Perry, ‘One day I found myself reciting the opening of the novel. I knew the crisis had come’ in The Guardian
• Zadie Smith, ‘On Optimism and Despair‘ in The New York Review of Books
• G X Todd, ‘Insecurity, fear, frustration and helplessness‘ in The Bookseller
• Amanda Nadelberg, ‘How Do We Pay the Poets?‘ on Literary Hub
• Jesmyn Ward, ‘This Was The Year America Finally Saw The South‘ on Buzzfeed
• Kelly Faircloth, ‘The Sweet, Savage Sexual Revolution That Set the Romance Novel Free‘ on Jezebel
• Ellena Savage, ‘From Hemingway to Kathy Acker: Making Art from the Outside‘ on Literary Hub
• Amanda Michalopoulou, ‘Divided times: how literature teaches us to understand “the other”‘ in The Guardian
• Lamorna Ash, ‘Never mind the typography‘ in The TLS
• Marcy Dermansky, ‘For Writers who Are Also the Mothers of Small Children‘ on Literary Hub
• Chantal Braganza, ‘A User’s Guide to Zadie Smith‘ on Hazlitt
• Miriam Toews, ‘How Pacifism Can Lead to Violence and Conflict‘ on Literary Hub
• Nicole Jankowski, ‘Ernest Hemingway and Me: Reflections of an Insomniac Writer‘ on Catapult
• Katharine Noel, ‘Where Is All the Sibling Literature for Adults?‘ on Literary Hub
• Michael Denneny, ‘Ntozake Shange: On a Brilliant Balance of Anger and Poetry‘ on Literary Hub
• Rafia Zakaria, ‘A Feminist Thoreau‘ on Literary Hub
• Dan Chiasson, ‘Emily Dickinson’s Singular Scrap Poetry‘ in The New Yorker
• Petina Gappah, ‘I was a lawyer, but I forced myself to write before I went to work’ in The Guardian
• Clare Sestanovich, ‘Storytelling vs. Oversharing in the Age of Snapchat: On the Work of Rachel Cusk, Claire Louise-Bennett, and Eimear McBride‘ on Literary Hub
• Sarah Franklin, ‘Lose yourself in the microworld of the short story‘ on The Pool

 

Personal essays/memoir:

• Courtney Tenz, ‘Integration Class: On Immigrating to Germany‘ on Catapult
• Lisbeth Zornig Andersen, ‘When Denmark Criminalised Kindness‘ in Granta
• Megan Cummins, ‘Plunge‘ on Guernica
• Jacklyn Janeksela, ‘lane-gweedj‘ on [Pank]
• Antonia Honeywell’s Advent Calendar on her blog
• Yemisi Aribsala ‘Kanda for Christmas‘ on The Writes of Woman
• Linda Wells, ‘Spas Aren’t Only About Beauty, Vanity, or Fun. They’re Also About Grief.‘ on The Cut
• Maureen McCauley Evans, ‘A New Light: How My Daughter’s Pregnancy Made Me Rethink Adoption‘ on Catapult
• Amy Beth Wright, ‘A Separate Dream: Faith, Family, and Knowing When to Let Go‘ on Catapult
• Helena Fitzgerald, ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane: On Life in Airports and Coming Home‘ on Catapult
• Jennifer Kabat, ‘The Fairytale‘ on Granta
• Sarah Weinman, ‘The Year in Addition and Subtraction‘ in Hazlitt
• Kim Fu, ‘The Year in Hyphenates‘ in Hazlitt
• Meg Elison, ‘On Decades of Diaries: Intimate, Profane, Honest‘ on Literary Hub
• Christine Sneed, ‘“It’s very easy to marry, but not so easy to unmarry a person”‘ on The Pool
• Various, ‘Conversations with grandma: ‘When are you going to get married?’‘ in The Guardian
• Anonymous, ‘The Discovery‘ on Finally Knowing Me

Feminism:

• Sirin Kale, ‘The Irish Government Is Seizing an Increasing Number of Abortion Pills‘ on Broadly
• Alanna Evans, ‘One Delightfully Clever & Slightly Shakespearean Way to Fight Trolls‘ on Flare
• Soraya Chemaly, ‘How white supremacist hatred drives acts of violence against powerful women‘ on Salon
• Wanu Udobang, ‘Remembering to Scream‘ on Brittle Paper
• Pearl Osibu, ‘The Unwomanly Feminist‘ on Brittle Paper
• Paris Lees, ‘Fears around gender-neutral toilets are all in the mind‘ in The Guardian
• Various, ‘Four female writers assess the feminist credentials of classic Disney princess films‘ in Stylist
• Ashley Weatherford, ‘The Irrational History of Hating Stretch Marks‘ in The Cut
• Margaret Talbot, ‘The Attorney Fighting Revenge Porn‘ in The New Yorker
• Laura Craik, ‘“It’s OK to allow women to look sexy without baring a breast”‘ on The Pool

Society and Politics:

• Rosalind Adams, ‘Intake: Locked On The Psych Ward‘ on Buzzfeed
• Samira Shackle, ‘40 years ago, the “strikers in saris” were smashing the stereotype of submissive Asian women‘ on The Pool
• Samira Shackle, ‘Muslim women are facing discrimination – and broad reports about “integration” won’t help that‘ on The Pool
• Caroline O’Donoghue, ‘Is it OK to have a single-use friendship?‘ on The Pool
• Tele Ogunyemi, ‘We are not “belligerent,” “dark” or “bitter”‘ on Media Diversified
• Marina Hyde, ‘So many lowlights from the life of Zac Goldsmith – so hard to choose‘ in The Guardian
• Erika Hayasaki, ‘Traces of Times Lost‘ in The Atlantic

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

• Leslie Bennetts, ‘Judge Me, Rank Me, Insult Me, Reject Me: The Contradictions, Cruelty and Genius of Joan Rivers‘ on Lenny

The interviews/profiles:

• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in The Cut and The New York Times
• Ali Smith on the Penguin Blog
• Brit Bennett on Electric Literature
• Eileen Myles, Ruth Ozeki, Porochista Khakpour, Anna March and Alexandra Kleeman on Writing the Body on Literary Hub
• Imbolo Mbue on The Rumpus
• Jessie Greengrass on The Writes of Woman
• Val McDermid on Literary Hub
• Eimear McBride in The TLS
• Jia Tolentino on Catapult
• Danielle Dutton on The Millions
• Mary Gaitskill on The Pool
• Zadie Smith in the New Statesman
• Mary Wisniewski on Electric Literature
• Henrietta Rose-Innes on Electric Literature
• Elizabeth Gilbert in The Cut
• Yemisi Aribisala on The Tiger Tales, Chukus and Kitchen Butterfly
• Hao Jingfang in The New York Times
• Erin Wunker on Room
• Heather Phillipson in The Guardian
• Sarah Perry on Waterstones’ blog

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, 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: January 2016

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.

January’s been living up to it’s reputation as the most miserable month in the calendar. There’s been the misogynistic and racist response to Sarah Howe’s Young Writer of the Year Award and TS Eliot Award wins. Poet, Katy Evans-Bush responded with ‘TS Eliot prize row: is winner too young, beautiful – and Chinese?‘ in The Guardian.

The deaths of David Bowie and Alan Rickman at least inspired some great writing: Stacey May Fowles, ‘Reconciling David Bowie‘ on Hazlitt and Sali Hughes, ‘I’ve had it up to here with the grief police‘ on The Pool. Gwendolyn Smith, ‘Forget Snape – in concentrating on him, we leave out one of the greatest roles Alan Rickman ever performed‘ in The Independent and Daisy Buchanan, ‘Alan Rickman’s Colonel Brandon taught me an important lesson about love‘ on The Pool

In happier news, there were a number of other prize wins for female writers: Kate Atkinson won the Costa Novel Prize; Anuradha Roy won the 2016 DSC prize for south Asian literature; A.S. Byatt won the Erasmus Prize, and the writers shortlisted for the Costa Short Story Award were revealed, including Annalisa Crawford, Peggy Riley and Erin Soros.

Glamour welcomed a transgender columnist: Juno Dawson will chart her journey in the magazine. I’ll add Juno’s column to the regular columnists list once it has a permanent URL.

The Observer revealed their New Faces of Fiction for 2016 and Joanna Cannon wrote this great piece – The Monster Under the Bed – about her inclusion.

And the woman with the most publicity of late is Amy Liptrot with ‘I swam in the cold ocean and dyed my hair a furious blue… I was moving upwards slowly‘ in The Guardian; interviews in The Independent and The Pool.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Morgan Jerkins, ‘Writing While Black: On Cliche, Stereotype and the Struggle to Describe Blackness‘ on Literary Hub
• E.V. de Cleyre, ‘On “the Terrible Efficiency of Gaslighting”‘ on Brevity
• Sarah Weinmann, ‘True-crime stories: a centuries-old craze from Ben Franklin to Making a Murderer‘ in The Guardian
• Zetta Elliott, ‘Nobody’s Cheerleader‘ on her blog
• Lauren Groff, ‘on Writing with Lightness‘ on The Atlantic
• Sian Cain, ‘Why a non-white Nancy Drew could be amazing‘ in The Guardian
• Lenika Cruz, ‘The Promising Case of a Non-White Nancy Drew‘ on The Atlantic
• Catherine Lacey ‘on the Inspiration Behind Nobody is Ever Missing‘ on the WHSMITH blog
• Brigid Delaney, ‘A Little Life: why everyone should read this modern-day classic‘ in The Guardian
• Zoe Heller and Francine Prose, ‘Is the Writer’s Only Responsibility to His Art?‘ in The New York Times
• Gideon Lewis-Kraus, ‘The Trials of Alice Goffman‘ in The New York Times Magazine
• Claire Fuller, ‘The Huge, Unwieldy Beast versus Flash Fiction‘ on Women Writers, Women’s Books
• Adelle Waldman, ‘The Ideal Marriage, According to Novels‘ in The New Yorker
• Ali Smith ‘on Trumpet by Jackie Kay‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah Crompton, ‘Sexism on the stage – meet the women tearing up the script‘ in The Guardian
• Maria Turtschaninoff, ‘Why is feminist fantasy important?‘ in The Bookseller
• Catherine Hokin, ‘The Challenges of Writing Historical Fiction‘ on Helen MacKinven’s blog
• Deborah Smith, ‘On Translating Human Acts by Han Kang‘ on Asymptote
• Alison Glock Cooper and T Cooper, ‘Transgender: identity is never one single thing so tick the box that says ‘other’‘ in The Guardian
• Ann Mah, ‘Elena Ferrante’s Naples, Then and Now‘ in The New York Times
• Chloe Angyal, ‘I Decided Not To Read Books By White Authors For A Year. Conservatives Lost Their Damn Minds‘ on The Huffington Post
• Carmiel Banasky, ‘Topography of a Novel: The Suicide of Claire Bishop‘ on Blunderbuss
• Laura Miller, ‘Ladies of Leisure: The resurgence of the housewife novel‘ on Slate
• Martha Tennent and Maruxa Relaño, ‘How a Mother-Daughter Translation Team Makes it Work‘ on Literary Hub
• Peter Bebegal, ‘Cracking the Codes of Leena Krohn‘ in The New Yorker
• Sarah Lyall, ‘The Author Elizabeth Strout on ‘Lucy Barton’ and How Her Characters Come Into Being‘ in The New York Times
• Isabel Rogers, ‘on What a Poet can teach a Novelist‘ on Isabel Costello’s Literary Sofa
• Vidhu Aggarwal, ‘“I’m nothing, if not”: An Anecdote of a Jar‘ on VIDA
• Dawn Finch, ‘Why are we still talking about diversity and inclusion?‘ on An Awfully Big Blog Adventure
• Samantha Hunt’s Literary Mixtape: how to be a deranged cult leader in The Guardian
• Emma Claire Sweeney, ‘on the power of poetry and fiction‘ on Legend Press
• Joanna Biggs, ‘Work is where we make friends, exert power, fall in love‘ in The Guardian
• Non Pratt, ‘No taboo should be off limits when writing for teenagers‘ in The Guardian
• Brittany K. Allen, ‘I Wrote the Accent: A Black Writer Considers “Urban Romance”‘ in The Toast
• Laura Miller, ‘Why Fates and Furies was this year’s most talked-about novel‘ in The Guardian
• Cynthia Ozick, ‘The Novel’s Evil Tongue‘ in The New York Times

Personal essays/memoir:

• Alana Massey, ‘Marriage and Two Kids: A Most Scandalous Fantasy‘ in The Cut
• Lydia Kiesling, ‘Death and Heirs: A View from the San Francisco Housing Market‘ on The Millions
• Saigowri Kuruvada, ‘How I Learned To Accept My Self-Harm Scars‘ on Buzzfeed
• Isabel Murray, ‘I’m a Disgusting Sleeper‘ on The Awl
• Rowan Whiteside, ‘Uninvited‘ in Standard Issue
• Jane Campbell, ‘The Long Run‘ on Hazlitt
• Yurina Ko, ‘Little Big Eater Girl‘ on The New Inquiry
• Fleur Smithwick, ‘A response from my mother to the weird kid blog‘ on her blog
• Jen Gann, ‘Why Am I So Sad About Having a Boy?‘ in The Cut
• Monica Sok, ‘On Fear, Fearlessness, and Intergenerational Trauma‘ on VIDA
• Jenny Diski, ‘The Island of lost words‘ on her blog
• Lyz Lenz, ‘Growing Up With White Paranoia: Persecution vs. Privilege‘ on Pacific Standard
• Ellabel Risbridger, ‘#BREAKFREE From Likes: ‘I’ve Grown Up On The Internet’‘ in Marie Claire
• Cris Mazza, ‘A Finished Brain‘ on The Rumpus
• Julianne Smolinski, ‘The Funny Thing About Abusive Relationships‘ on The Cut
• Jean Hannah Edelstein, ‘I’m a Previvor‘ on Catapult
• Nicole Chung, ‘What Goes Through Your Mind: On Nice Parties and Casual Racism‘ in The Toast
• Lauren McKeon, ‘As Women Scorned‘ on Hazlitt
• Kim Brooks, ‘I’m Having a Friendship Affair‘ in The Cut
• Claire Jimenez, ‘Spanish Lessons: On Language Loss and Recovery‘ in The Toast

Feminism:

• Amy Swales, ‘A Story of a Fuck Off Fund‘ on Medium
• Cade Lebron, ‘Liar, Liar: On Writing About Rape Online‘ on Electric Literature
• Jane Marie, ‘On Going Off My Depression Medication During Pregnancy‘ in Cosmopolitan
• Rosamund Urwin, ‘Why do crimes against women always have the same, sad ending?‘ on The Pool
• Kathy Dobie, ‘To Catch a Rapist‘ in The New York Times
• Ann Friedman, ‘The 2015 renaissance of the agony aunt‘ on The Pool
• Nadia Atia, ‘Your fascination with Muslim women’s bodies has a long misogynistic history‘ on Media Diversified

Society and Politics:

• Chimene Suleyman, ‘‘Integration’ or ‘Assimilation’ is a Two-sided Negotiation‘ on Media Diversified
• Afroze Zaidi-Jivraj, ‘What It’s Like Being Muslim In 2016‘ on Media Diversified
• Leena Habiballa, ‘Too Black to be Arab, too Arab to be Black‘ on Media Diversified
• Alicia Eler and Eve Peyser, ‘Tinderization of Feeling‘ on The New Inquiry
• Harriet Alida Lye, ‘The Myth of the Myth of the City of Love‘ on Hazlitt
• Emer O’Toole, ‘How to be a moderately successful person‘ in The Guardian
• Kavita Bhanot, ‘Decolonise, not Diversify‘ on Media Diversified
• Stacia L. Brown, ‘The ugly history of comparing black athletes and animals‘ in The Washington Post

Film, Television, Music, Art and Fashion:

• Lynn Enright, ‘The brilliant feminism of Transparent and Jill Soloway‘ on The Pool
• Jude Rogers, ‘Why we’re wired to love pop music‘ on The Pool
• Hannah McGill, ‘Nora Ephron: queen of hearts‘ on the BFI website
• Michelle Smith, ‘Suffragette reminds us why it’s a lie that feminists need men’s approval‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah Maria Griffin, ‘Girls Explain Star Wars to You‘ on Scannain
• Robin James, ‘Hello From the Same Side‘ in The New Inquiry

The interviews:

• Joyce Carol Oates on Electric Literature and in The Guardian
• Lisa Williamson in The Guardian and on Scottish Book Trust
• Amy Gustine on Electric Literature
• Helen Ellis in The New York Times
• Mira Ptacin on Flavorwire
• Chelsea Hodson in Hobart
• Tara Guha on Chouett
• Elizabeth Evans on Guernica
• Diane Williams in The Los Angeles Review of Books
• Ann Goldstein (Elena Ferrante’s translator) on Guernica
• Chaitali Sen on The Rumpus
• Valerie Martin in The Guardian
• Eileen Myles in The New York Times
• Liz Lochhead in The Guardian
• Margaret Atwood on Electric Literature
• Emma Donoghue on The Pool
• Sandra Cisneros on The Rumpus
• Lidia Yuknavitch and Anakana Schofield on Electric Literature
• Marlene Van Niekerk in The White Review
• Helen McClory on The Skinny
• Caitlin Moran in Stylist
• Roxane Gay on Sky Blue Window
• Tessa Hadley in the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times
• Ayisha Malik in The New Statesman
• Samantha Hunt on The Millions
• Claire Fuller on Sarah Jasmon’s blog
• Claudia Rankine in The Guardian
• Amy Poehler 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

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