In the media is a weekly round-up of features written by, about or containing female writers that have appeared during the previous week and I think are insightful, interesting and/or thought provoking. Linking to them is not necessarily a sign that I agree with everything that’s said but it’s definitely an indication that they’ve made me think. Also, just a note to make it clear that I’m using the term ‘media’ to include social media, so links to blog posts as well as traditional media are likely.
This week brought the news that the police involved in the deaths of Mike Brown and Eric Garner would not stand trial. Reaction came from many people. Janee Woods writes, ‘A Different Kind of Justice‘ in Guernica; Roxane Gay, ‘What he St Louis Rams know about Ferguson is a righteous glimpse of the way forward‘ in The Guardian; Mallory Ortberg, ‘Eric Garner’s Killer Won’t Be Indicted‘ on The Toast.
It’s fitting that Claudia Rankine’s Citizen was published recently. Here it’s discussed in The New York Times and on PBS.
It’s that time of year; the round-ups started weeks ago but this week they’ve proved impossible to ignore. First up is Joanna Walsh, creator of #ReadWomen2014 on the Shakespeare and Company blog and Sinéad Gleeson in The Irish Times. While The Millions do fantastic ‘A Year in Reading’ round-ups. Here’s Haley Mlotek, Karen Joy Fowler, Emily Gould, Laura van den Berg, Celeste Ng and Lydia Kiesling. Huffington Post has its ‘Best Books of 2014‘; Electric Literature asks ‘Was 2014 the Year of the Debut?‘; ‘Three million voters reveal the books of 2014‘ on Stylist; ‘The 24 Best Fiction Books of 2014‘ on Buzzfeed along with ‘32 of the Most Beautiful Book Covers of 2014‘; The Independent has ‘The best debuts‘ The New York Times has ‘The 10 Best Books of 2014‘; Bustle has ‘10 Female Authors That Ruled 2014‘, while Slate has ‘The 22 Best Lines of 2014‘, ‘27 Books You Shouldn’t Have Overlooked in 2014‘ and an all-female, yes, you read that correctly, an all-female – by choice not design – ‘Best Books of 2014‘.
Ayelet Waldman took to Twitter to comment on her non-inclusion in The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2014. You can read about it in The Guardian and Erin Keane responds on Salon. While Laura Miller tells us ‘What I learned from reading two decades worth of NYT notable books lists‘ also on Salon.
The best of the rest articles/essays:
- Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, ‘African Books for Western Eyes‘ on The New York Times
- Emily Nurenberger, ‘On Chick Lit‘ on her blog
- Zoe Todd, ‘An Indigenous Feminist’s Take on the Ontological Turn: ”ontology is just another word for colonialism‘ on her blog
- ‘Snapshots from a Life: Egyptian Novelist Radwa Ashour, 1946-2014‘ on Arablit
- Julie Naughton, ‘In Loving Color: Diversity in Romance Publishing, 2014‘ in Publisher’s Weekly
- Marie Hansen, ‘Reconciling My Feminism With My Beauty Mag Obsession‘ on Huffington Post
- Elif Shafak on why she writes in English and Turkish on English Pen
- Sarah Weinman, ‘The Real Lolita‘ in Hazlitt
- Rohan Maitzen, ‘Sex, Style and Sewage Farms: Winifred Holtby and Virginia Woolf‘ in 3:am Magazine
- Tamzin Baker, ‘La Milonguera‘ on Guernica
- Carole DeSanti asks ‘Why Is American book publishing so white?‘ in The Guardian (here is your ‘don’t read the comments’ warning)
- Julie R. Enszer, celebrates ‘Leslie Feinberg, Transgender Warrior‘ on The Butter
- Anne Lamott on forgiveness on Salon
- Sadie Stein ‘Angry Birds‘ in The Paris Review
- Alison Willmore, ‘Reece Witherson Plays the Year’s Most Satisfying Female Character in Wild‘ on Buzzfeed
- Cindy Lamothe, ‘Fireworks in June‘ on Guernica
- Jenn Lyons, ‘I Hate…Strong Female Characters‘ on Rewriting Mary Sue
- An all-female issue of The Critical Flame
- Kathryn Schulz, ‘Talking to Cheryl Strayed About What Made Wild Work‘ on Vulture
- Roxane Gay, ‘Our Stories‘ on The Butter
- Preeti Singh, ‘Are India’s young adults ready for LGBT literature?‘ on Mid-day
- Dan Chiasson on Olena Kalytiak Davis in The New Yorker
- Alexandra Kleeman on Fruitarians in The Guardian
- Alison Phipps, ‘The Dark Side of the Impact Agenda’ in THE
- Mary-Lan Tan on being nominated for the Bad Sex in Fiction award (YouTube)
- Jacqueline Wright, ‘What Kind of Girl‘ on Lena Dunham in Standard Issue
- Rebekah Frumkin, ‘The Abyss‘ in Granta
- Marina Benjamin on selfies on Various Small Fires
- An interestingly structured review of Valeria Luiselli’s Faces in the Crowd on Open Letters Monthly
- Ann Leckie, ‘What Makes Me Happy‘ in The Guardian
- Jill Lepore, ‘Wonder Woman: the feminist‘ in The Guardian
- Megham Daum on personal essays on Salon
- Robert MacFarlane on Nan Shepherd on the BBC (iPlayer available until Tuesday 9th)
- ‘The End of Alt Lit‘ on VIDA, includes interviews with Alexandra Naughton, Diane Marie and Lizzy Yizzil
- A Small Sampling of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Prescient Wisdom and Where To Find It on Electric Literature
The interviews:
- Herta Müller in The Paris Review
- Jessie Burton in The Guardian and on the BBC
- A round table discussion, including Jennifer Bartlett and Jillian Weise on ‘Disability and Poetry‘ on Poetry Foundation
- Jane Stubbs in Nudge
- Trisha Ashley on Tara Ford’s blog
- Meghan Daum (at 11.53) on The Gist on Slate and on bookforum
- Lydia Davis interviewing Dan Gunn (her questions are interesting) on Music and Literature
- Jane Smiley on The Guardian books podcast
- Jacqueline Woodson on Publishers Weekly
- Elif Shafak in The Guardian
- Samantha Norman on Shiny New Books
If you want some fiction/poetry to read:
- Three short pieces by Livia Franchini in The Quietus
- ‘Hopper’s Women‘ by Emily Carroll
- ‘My Father’s Poison‘ by Carrie Shippers on AGNI Online
- An extract from Butterflies in November by Audur Ava Ólafsdóttir (translated by Brian Fitzgibbon) on Guernica
- ‘Nostalgia‘ by Carol Ann Duffy in The TLS
- ‘Come Make Love With Us‘ by Cari Luna in Midnight Breakfast
- ‘Lost Love Lounge‘ by Cassie Pruyn on AGNI Online
- ‘A Mexican Fairytale‘ by Leonora Carrington on Weird Fiction Review
- An extract from The Affairs of Others by Amy Grace Lloyd on One Book Lane
- ‘The Lie Tree‘ by Jules Archer on The Toast
- ‘Grandfather’s Loop‘ by Marianne Morris on The Literateur
- ‘Grass‘ by Christina Sanders in Litro
The lists:
- The Best Dystopian Novels Everyone Should Read on Huffington Post
- 5 Great Books to Read in December on Buzzfeed
- 30 Women Novelists You Should Know #17: Laura McBride (read the whole series for far, it’s great) on Lynn Kanter’s blog
- 25 Genre Novels that Should Be Classics on Flavorwire (although that’s the strangest definition of genre novel I’ve ever seen, how about ‘books’ instead?)
- 35 Susan Sontag Quotes on Art, Writing and Life on Flavorwire
- 10 Great Books to Read Based on Your Favorite New Movies on Huffington Post
- Pictures from the TV adaptation of The Casual Vacancy in The Guardian
And the things I’ve most enjoyed reading this week:
- Tim Adams interviews Jenny Diski in The Observer
- Stephanie Feldman, ‘Great Local Moms in History‘ on The Toast (written after a profile of her focused on her being a mother)
- Rebecca Solnit, ‘Las Vegas and the Global Casino We Call Wall Street‘ on Guernica
- Adelle Waldman, ‘An Answer to the Novel’s Detractors‘ in The New Yorker
- Mallory Ortberg, ‘The Fictional Spinster Classification Index‘ on The Toast
- Sarah Perry interviewed on You Wrote the Book!