In the Media: October 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.

A woman didn’t win The Man Booker Prize this year but there was still some interesting coverage of the prize and the shortlisted writers:

• Deborah Levy interviewed in the New Statesman
• Marta Bausells, ‘The Rise of the Small Press on the Man Booker Shortlist‘ on Literary Hub
• Ottessa Moshfegh interviewed on the Penguin Blog and in The New Yorker
• ‘How to write a Man Booker novel: six shortlisted authors share their secrets‘ in The Guardian
• Marta Bausells, ‘Inside the World of Judging the Man Booker Prize‘ on Literary Hub

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Zadie Smith, ‘Dance lessons for writers‘ in The Guardian
• Dave McKenna, ‘The Writer Who Was Too Strong To Live‘ on Deadspin
• Jane Bernstein, ‘How I Helped Tell a Soldier’s Story‘ on Literary Hub
• Emily St. John Mandel, ‘The Gone Girl With The Dragon Tattoo On The Train‘ onFiveThirtyEight
• Megan Marshall, ‘Elizabeth and Alice‘ in The New Yorker
• Rachel Vorona Cote, ‘Are You an Anne Shirley or an Emily Starr?‘ on Literary Hub
• Seo Hee Im, ‘Sex, violence and The Vegetarian: the brutality of Han Kang’s Booker winner‘ in The Guardian
• Sara Nović, ‘Who Can Speak for the Deaf Community‘ on Literary Hub
• Rachael Nevins, ‘Fall to Pieces: On Elena Ferrante and My Own Frantumaglia‘ on Hazlitt
• Maddie Rodriguez ‘Anne Brontë, Anger, and the Resonance of Assault in the Tenant of Wildfell Hall‘ on BookRiot
• Shelley DeWees, ‘The Publisher Who Rejected Jane Austen‘ on Literary Hub
• Eleanor Brown, ‘‘I like the way he kisses my hand’: My grandmother’s life in jazz age Paris‘ in The Guardian
• M.L. Stedman, ‘On First Seeing Your Novel on the Big Screen‘ on Literary Hub
• Chloe Caldwell, ‘What I Think of the Fact That You Keep Asking Me What My Family Thinks of My Writing‘ on Catapult
• Sarah Schulman, ‘White Writer‘ in The New Yorker
• Sarah Hughes, ‘Shirley Jackson: the US queen of gothic horror claims her literary crown‘ in The Observer
• Ali Smith, ‘Ali Smith on the prime of pop artist Pauline Boty‘ in The Guardian
• Leah Schnelbach, ‘Imaginative Anthropology: In Celebration of Ursula K. Le Guin‘ on Tor.Com
• Nneka Okona, ‘On Travel Memoirs by Black Women Writers‘ on Literary Hub
• James Lasdun, ‘How Patricia Highsmith’s Mr Ripley Rises from Genre to Myth‘ on Literary Hub
• Wendy Jones, ‘What was really going on with English women?‘ in The Guardian
• MariNaomi, ‘The Making of a Comics Memoir‘ on Catapult
• Margaret Drabble, ‘I am not afraid of death. I worry about living’ in The Guardian
• Meg Elison, ‘If Women Wrote Men the Way Men Write Women‘ on McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

Personal essays/memoir:

• Sarah Thomas, ‘Inheritance and Time Travel‘ on Catapult
• Ciara O’Rourke, ‘The Other Sister‘ in Seattle Met
• Michelle Tea, ‘A Walking Tour Of The Places Where I Hit Rock Bottom‘ on Buzzfeed
• Dianca Potts, ‘Hallowed Hell House‘ on Lenny
• Alyssa Martino, ‘Vacancies‘ on Catapult
• Eli Goldstone, ‘Bad Dreams‘ on Granta
• Jodi Ettenberg, ‘Learning to Cope With Chronic Pain (And Why I’m Establishing a Home Base)‘ on Legal Nomads
• Mila Jaroniec, ‘Imprecise Magic‘ on Lenny
• Stephanie Land, ‘The Love of a Thousand Muskoxen: Grieving a Love Lost to Time and Sickness‘ on Longreads
• Sonia Weiser, ‘Scrabble With My Mum‘ on Catapult
• Nimko Ali, ‘What does it feel like to flee war as young child?‘ on The Pool
• Kelsey McKinney, ‘The Art of the Box Score‘ on Hazlitt
• Melissa Matthewson, ‘On Coupling: An Inventory‘ in Guernica
• Nadja Spiegelman, ‘When Beauty Makes You Vulnerable‘ on The Cut
• Emily Alford, ‘How Makeup Helped Me Reclaim My Face‘ on Buzzfeed
• Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers, ‘Learning to Embrace Guanxi: On Living Communally in China‘ on Literary Hub
• Niina Pollari, ‘Minor Gains‘ on Catapult
• Amani Al-Khatahtbeh, ‘On Being the Media’s Token Muslim Girl‘ on The Cut
• Lily Dunn, ‘The Fog and the Sea‘ on Granta
• Sonya Chung, ‘How I Learned That Beauty Doesn’t Have To Hurt‘ on Buzzfeed
• JD Ho, ‘Vegetables for a Dead President‘ on Catapult
• Rushaa Louise Hamid, ‘How I Found Myself When My Skin Changed Its Identity‘ on Buzzfeed

Feminism:

• Bibi Lynch, ‘Do not brand me a failure. I’m a survivor. All unhappily childless people are’ in The Guardian
• Heather Skyler, ‘The Boy Who Groped Me and the Flute Case That Saved Me‘ on Catapult
• Liz Meriwether, ‘Laughing Until We Cry: Conversations About Getting Flashed, Grabbed, and Groped‘ on The Cut
• Rachel Klein, ‘When the Body Breaks its Silence‘ on Catapult
• Andrea Bennett, ‘Chain Reaction‘ on Masionneuve
• Lynn Enright, ‘Why does it feel awkward to admit you’re on a diet?‘ on The Pool
• Sophie Wilkinson, ‘Addressing the toxic combination of misogyny and homophobia‘ on The Pool
• Laurie Penny, ‘Fear of a Feminist Future‘ on The Baffler
• Daisy Buchanan, ‘When women are surrounded by misogyny, they are going to internalise it‘ on The Pool

Society and Politics:

• Molly Ball, ‘Trump’s Graying Army‘ on The Atlantic
• Emma Bracy, ‘We Are Always Defined From a Distance‘ on Hazlitt
• Gaby Hinsliff, ‘Are we now persecuted for speaking up for the vulnerable?‘ on The Pool
• Ijeoma Oluo, ‘I’m not ready for the Obama era to end‘ in The Guardian
• Eimear McBride, ‘Brexit has disfigured the tolerant Britain I’ve known‘ in The Guardian
• Alex Wagner, ‘Marriage After Trump‘ on The Atlantic
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Gloria Steinem and Rashida Jones, ‘To the First Lady, With Love‘ in The New York Times
• Molly Ball, ‘In Ferguson, the Seeds of Trump’s Defeat‘ in The Atlantic

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

• Gabrielle Bellot, ‘Hayao Miyazaki and the Art of Being a Woman‘ on The Atlantic

The interviews/profiles:

• Naomi Alderman on The Writes of Woman and in The Guardian
• Vanessa Hua in The Los Angeles Review of Books
• Belle Boggs and Monica Youn on Literary Hub
• Toni Morrison on Literary Hub
• Emma Donoghue on Lenny
• Emily Witt on Literary Hub
• Therese Oneill on Salon
• Larissa Pham on Electric Literature
• Jess Kidd on Jo Hogan Writes
• Irenosen Okojie in 3:am Magazine
• Hannah Hart on Hello Giggles
• Claudia Rankine in The Guardian
• Joanna Kavenna on Literary Hub
• Britt Bennett on The Rumpus
• Zadie Smith in The New York 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
• Josie Pickens on Ebony
• Bridget Christie in The Guardian
• Lizzy Kremer on Publishing for Humans
• Juno Dawson in Glamour
• Kashana Cauley on Catapult
• Louise O’Neill in the Irish Examiner
• Jendella Benson on Media Diversified
• Books by Women We’d Love to See in English on Literary Hub

In the Media, March 2016, part one

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

It’s Mothers’ Day in the UK today, so inevitably there’s been lots of writing about mothers – being one, having one, not having one – this week. Contributors including Jackie Kay, Jeanette Winterson and Helen Simpson wrote about ‘… my mother before I knew her‘ inspired by Carol Ann Duffy’s poem ‘Before You Were Mine’ in The Guardian; Liz Dashwood asks, ‘What do I *really* want for Mother’s Day?‘ on The Pool; Rivka Galchen talked about ‘The Only Thing I Envy Men‘ in The New Yorker; Robyn Wilder wrote, ‘Maternity leave: the reality versus the expectations‘, Emily Eades wrote, ‘Becoming a mother without your own mother to rely on‘ and Sinéad Gleeson wrote, ‘Mothers, and the pram-in-the-hall problem‘ all on The Pool (Do follow the link to the Anne Enright clip on that last piece. Spot on and very funny); Susan Briante wrote, ‘Mother Is Marxist‘ on Guernica; Kate Townshend asked, ‘Is it possible for a mother and daughter to be *too* close?‘, Samira Shackle said, ‘Returning to my mother’s homeland helped me to make sense of my place in the world‘, Cathy Rentzenbrink said, ‘There is no such thing as a smug mother, we’re all terrified and struggling‘ and Rosalind Powell wrote, ‘I didn’t give birth, but I became a mother‘ all on The Pool; Sarah Turner wrote, ‘Mother’s Day Without Mum‘ on The Unmumsy Mum

Sadly, Louise Rennison died this week. Philip Ardagh wrote, ‘My Hero: Louise Rennison‘ in The Guardian. Shannon Maughan wrote her obituary for Publishers Weekly.

The woman with the most coverage this fortnight is Sanjida Kay with ‘Where’s the Diversity in Grip-Lit?‘ on The Asian Writer; ‘on Switching Genres‘ on The Literary Sofa, and ‘Fairytales‘ on Women Writers, Women’s Books

Exciting news as forthcoming novels from Jilly Cooper, Zadie Smith and Ali Smith were announced this fortnight.

And I’ve added Kaushana Cauley’s new Intersections column for Catapult to the regulars list at the bottom of the links. It’s well worth a read.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Eve Ainsworth, ‘Toxic love: YA’s bad boys need to stay between the covers‘ in The Guardian
• Hanya Yanagihara: ‘Don’t we read fiction exactly to be upset?’ in The Guardian
• Jessie Burton, ‘Success, Creativity and the Anxious Space‘ on her blog
• Claire Fuller, ‘Some things I’ve learned in my year of being published‘ on her blog
• Bree Crowder, ‘Four Young Adult Authors Share Why They Write Funny Books‘ on Bustle
• Karen Swallow Prior, ‘Jane Eyre and the Invention of the Self‘ on The Atlantic
• Deborah Moggagh, ‘Man Booker Prize has an unhealthy effect on the market, says author Deborah Moggagh‘ in The Independent
• Claire Fallon, ‘Our Favourite Children’s Books Are Super Problematic‘ on the Huffington Post
• Alison Flood, ‘Tessa Hadley among nine winners of surprise $150,000 literary awards‘ in The Guardian
• Sian Cain, ‘Toni Morrison wins PEN/Saul Bellow award for contribution to American fiction‘ in The Guardian
• Jo Hall, ‘If We Can Imagine Dragons: On Writing Non-Heterosexual Relationships in Fantasy‘ on Holdfast
• Alison Stine, ‘On Poverty‘ on Kenyon Review
• Joan Schenkar, ‘What Patricia Highsmith did for love: ‘The Price of Salt’ and the secrets behind ‘Carol’‘ in the Los Angeles Times
• Louise Walters, ‘I didn’t want to resort to self-publishing, but it’s an exhilarating change‘ in The Guardian
• Gaby Wood, ‘How Karl Ove Knausgaard and Elena Ferrante won us over‘ in The Telegraph
• Moira Redmond, ‘Leap year fear: a literary history of women proposing marriage‘ in The Guardian
• Katy Derbyshire, ‘Women in Translation: Why Does It Matter?‘ on Free Word
• Eva Jurczyk, ‘No More Books by Men‘ on The Awl
• Elizabeth Strassner, ‘How To Tell If You’re In a Flannery O’Connor Story‘ in The Toast
• Anne Boyd Rioux, ‘How to Make Sure Your Writing Is Forgotten‘ on The Rumpus
• Holly Williams, ‘From The Roaring Queen to Downton Abbey: the afterlives of Virginia Woolf‘ in the New Statesman
• Anna North, ‘What Publishing a Novel Taught Me About Life‘ on Waterstones’ Blog

• Kate Jenkins, ‘Harper Lee and the Myth of a Post-Racial America‘ on Literary Hub
• Sian Cain, ‘Fear of Flying still soars above tabloid outrage‘ in The Guardian
• Brigit Katz, ‘These forgotten female crime writers had no time for femme fatales or dowdy housewives‘ on Women in the World
• Idra Novey, ‘Writing While Translating‘ on Literary Hub
• Elizabeth Minkel, ‘Teen readers aren’t in crisis, they’re just making their own rules‘ in The Guardian
• Jaya Saxena, ‘I Know I Should Like Reading More But There Are Things About The Act Of Reading That Make It Very Difficult‘ in The Toast
• Deirdre Sullivan, ‘The seed of Needlework was anger, and I wanted it to feel raw’ in The Irish Times
• Jesmyn Ward remembers Harper Lee: ‘She saw and responded to the humanity of each and every one of us’ on Entertainment Weekly
• Vipash Bansal, ‘Remembering Octavia Butler: 1947-2006‘ on Media Diversified
• Chris Power, ‘A brief survey of the short story: Elizabeth Taylor‘ in The Guardian
• Brooke Magnanti, ‘Where are the normal women in fiction?‘ on One Book Lane
• Robin Stevens, ‘Boys could enjoy stories about girls, and vice versa – if only we’d let them‘ in The Guardian
• Chelsea G. Summers, ‘A History of Horny‘ on Hazlitt
• Brit Mandello, ‘Dear Joanna Russ: A Letter for an Inimitable Writer‘ on Tor.Com
• Sunny Singh, ‘Why set up a prize for writers of colour?‘ in The Bookseller
• Rory Samantha Green, ‘Born Lucky: my mum Jackie Collins and her wild child alter ego‘ in The Guardian
• Laura Barnett, ‘Finding ideas isn’t usually a problem‘ in The Guardian
• Joanna Cannon, ‘Mental illness is always a problem, so we will always need books about it‘ in The Guardian
• Jonathan Sturgeon, ‘The Paradoxical Legacy of Harper Lee‘ on Flavorwire
• Tricia Tongco, ‘Meet Faith, The Body-Positive Superhero Of Our Dreams‘ on the Huffington Post
• Melissa Harrison, ‘How cars ruined our love of the countryside‘ in The Guardian
• Shelley Harris, ‘The Secret Life of Mothers‘ on the WHSmith Blog
• Morgan Jerkins, ‘Black Women Writers and the Secret Space of Diaries‘ in The New Yorker

 

Personal essays/memoir:

• Esther Wang, ‘Watching And Reading About White People Having Sex Is My Escape‘ on Buzzfeed
• Megan Galbraith, ‘Sin Will Find You Out‘ on Catapult
• Georgina Kleege, ‘On Being Who I Am: My Life as a Tall Blind Woman‘ in The Toast
• Briallen Hopper, ‘Relying on Friendship in a World Made for Couples‘ in The Cut
• Sarah Resnick, ‘H‘ on n+1
• Rosalind Jana, ‘The One Piece Of Clothing That Makes Me Feel Extraordinarily Sexy‘ on Refinery 29
• Alana Massey, ‘Why I’m Buying a House Without a Family to Put in It‘ on The Cut
• Anna Holmes, ‘I Feel Destined to Be Single, and That’s Okay‘ on The Cut
• Kade Walker, ‘Veronica Dies in Jamaica‘ on The Rumpus
• Ellen Urbani, ‘There Is No Such Thing as a True Story‘ on The Rumpus

Feminism:

• Rebecca Traister, ‘The Single American Woman‘ in The Cut
• Aria Dean, ‘Closing the Loop‘ on The New Inquiry
• Eleanor Ross, ‘Why estate agent sexism could be costing you‘ on The Pool
• Gaby Hinsliff, ‘It’s the £30bn cut you’ve never heard of. And women are bearing the brunt‘ in The Guardian
• Ann Friedman, ‘So You’re a Celebrity Who Calls Yourself a Feminist. Now What?‘ in The Cut
• Linda Chavers, ‘To Black Girls Everywhere‘ on The Offing
• Caroline Paul, ‘Why Do We Teach Girls That It’s Cute to Be Scared?‘ in The New York Times

Society and Politics:

• Caitlin Moran, ‘How to start – and win – an argument online‘ in The Guardian
• Hadley Freeman, ‘So the privately educated are the new underclass? Spare me the sob story‘ in The Guardian
• Chimene Suleyman, ‘Trump has succeeded in an America that is already pre-disposed to racial suspicion‘ on Media Diversified
• Sarah Churchwell, ‘Hillary Clinton’s haters and the glass ceiling of American politics‘ in the New Statesman
• Molly Crabapple, ‘What Life Is Like Inside the Besieged, War-Torn Syrian City of Aleppo‘ on Vice
• Julia Lee, ‘When People of Color Are Discouraged From Going Into the Arts‘ in The Atlantic
• Dorothy Cummings McLean, ‘Marriage Is an Accomplishment‘ on Quadrapheme
• Kate Spicer, ‘Does where you go to school affect your ability to succeed?‘ on The Pool
• Jamilah King, ‘How Black Women Like Me Reckon With America’s Political Process‘ on Mic

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

• Rachel Syme, ‘The Return to Predictability‘ on Complex
• Anna Leszkiewicz ‘The Ghostbusters trailer shows the new film is categorically not aimed at men‘ in the New Statesman
• Emma Brockes,  ‘Whether it’s Ali G or Tina Fey, ironic racism just isn’t funny any more‘ in The Guardian
• Venus Williams, ‘Why I’m Going Back to Indiana Wells‘ on The Players’ Tribune
• Joan Smith, ‘Now we know – the BBC’s macho culture protected predatory men for decades‘ in The Guardian
• Allison P. Davis, ‘Why Are White People Trying to Ruin ‘Formation’?‘ on The Cut
• Anohni, ‘Why I Am Not Attending the Academy Awards‘ on Pitchfork
• Gwynne Watkins, ‘Before #OscarsSoWhite: The Forgotten Story of Queer Nation’s 1992 Academy Awards Protest‘ on Yahoo
• Elisabeth Donnelly, ‘Boston Rules‘ on Hazlitt
• Caroline O’Donoghue, ‘Kesha: the musical equivalent of the drunk girl in the short dress‘ on The Pool
• Kiva Reardon, ‘Mainstream Creep: Keeping Feminist Film Criticism Subversive‘ on Hazlitt

The interviews:

• Han Kang in The White Review (translated by Deborah Smith)
• Louise O’Neill in Elle
• Helen Stephenson on The Pool
• Chinelo Okparanta on For Books’ Sake
• Tracy Chevalier in The Bookseller and The Telegraph
• Rachel B. Glaser on For Books’ Sake
• Molly Crabapple on Literary Hub
• Shelley Harris on The Writes of Woman and One Book Lane
• Kathleen Spivak on The Rumpus
• Rebecca Traister on Jezebel and Elle (with Roxane Gay)
• Mona Awad on Electric Literature
• Virginia Reeves on Literary Hub
• Jennifer Clement on Pen America
• Monica Wendel on Vida
• Sara Taylor in The Big Issue
• bell hooks (with Emma Watson) in Paper
• Ottessa Moshfegh in The Observer
• Emma Donoghue on Public Books
• Meg Rosoff on Bookanista
• Sarah Ruhl in The New York Times
• Sarah Bakewell on The Bookseller
• Marian Keyes in the Bath Chronicle
• Laura van den Berg and Emily St. John Mandel on the FSG blog
• Joyce Maynard on Literary Hub
• G. Willow Wilson on Black Nerd Problems
• Sharon Horgan on Creative Review
• Elizabeth Kadetsky on The Rumpus
• Lucy Kalanithi in Stylist
• Jacky Fleming on The Pool
• Petina Gappah on NPR
• Carol Tulloch in The Observer
• Caitlin Moran on The Debrief
• Deborah Smith on The Quietus

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

In the Media: 10th May 2015

In the media is a weekly round-up of features written by, about or containing female writers that have appeared during the previous week and I think are insightful, interesting and/or thought provoking. Linking to them is not necessarily a sign that I agree with everything that’s said but it’s definitely an indication that they’ve made me think. 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.

It’s Mother’s Day in 80 countries around the world today. Not surprisingly, there has been a whole range of articles, from a whole range of view points, about mothers and motherhood this week. The Hairpin ran a series including  ‘Mommy Queerest‘ by Sarah Liss; ‘Thoroughly Modern Murdering Mothers; or, Women Who Kill for Their Children‘ by Meredith Haggerty; ‘A Joke, A Story‘ by Naomi Skwarna; ‘Going for the Burn: Revisiting Jane Fonda’s Workouts‘ by Alison Hamm’ ‘Mothers and Moms‘ by Haley Mlotek, and Randi Bergman, ‘The Weirdest Beauty Tips I Learned From My Mom‘.

Tameka Cage-Conley wrote, ‘Motherhood, Art, And Police Brutality‘ on VSB; Amy Shouse wrote ‘My mom never wanted kids‘ on Salon; Anne Enright wrote, ‘When Mother Leaves the Room‘ in The New York Times; Cheryl Strayed wrote, ‘The ‘Painful Personal Toll Lung Cancer Has Taken on My Life’‘ on The Huffington Post; Monica Hessler, ‘The long drive to end a pregnancy‘ in The Washington Post; Mary HK Choi, ‘The Dicks Of Our Lives‘ on Buzzfeed; Mary Elizabeth Williams, ‘Sorry about Mother’s Day, my childfree girlfriends: Moms aren’t any more special (or unselfish) than you‘ on Salon; Edwidge Danticat, ‘A Prayer Before Dying‘ on Literary Hub; Brogan Driscoll, ‘I Refuse to Celebrate ‘Dad Bod’, Until We Appreciate the ‘Mum Bod’ Too‘ on the Huffington Post

Catherine Bennett wrote in The Guardian, ‘It’s dehumanising to be ‘an oven’ for someone else’s baby‘; Jessica Roake wrote, ‘An Ode to the “Mom’s Night Out”‘ on Slate; Rebecca Mead wrote, ‘A Woman’s Place Is on the Internet‘ in The New Yorker; Sophie Heawood wrote, ‘I’ve read all the advice, but I still don’t know – am I raising a serial killer?‘ in The Guardian; Laila K wrote, ‘Up with the kids‘ in The Pool; Dahlia Lithwick, ‘“Bye-Bye, Normal Mommy”‘ on Slate; Christie Watson, ‘The Joy and Pain of Trans-Racial Adoption‘ on Literary Hub; Meagan O’Connell, ‘It’s My First Mother’s Day As a Mom. Now What?‘ in The Cut; Kate Spencer, ‘How I Finally Let Go Of Grief For My Dead Mom‘ on Buzzfeed; Domenica Ruta, ‘Can Having a Child Help Me Get Over My Abusive Mom?‘ in The Cut.

Danah Boyd, ‘I Miss Not Being Scared‘ on Medium; Melissa Duclos, ‘To the Doctor Who Reported Me to Child Protective Services‘ on The Offing; Christopher Frizzelle, ‘The Day Virginia Woolf Brought Her Mom Back to Life‘ on Literary Hub; Lauren Laverne, ‘“Mum” as a diss‘ in The Pool.

And if you’d rather read a book instead, Literary Hub suggests, ‘Five Intense Books for Mother’s Day‘ and the Huffington Post recommends, ‘Mother’s Day Reads: Eight Great Mother Characters in Literature‘.

Photograph by Idil Sukan

In the UK, there was a general election. 3AM Magazine ran a whole series of reactions including, Lauren Elkin, ‘an open letter to mark-francis vandelli‘; Juliet Jacques, ‘london – 2015‘; Eley Williams, ‘rosette manufacture: a catalogue and spotters’ guide‘, and Rachel Genn, ‘you wouldn’t like me when i’m disappointed‘. Other reactions included: Laurie Penny, ‘Don’t give in: an angry population is hard to govern; a depressed population is easy‘ in the New Statesman; Joan Smith, ‘Almost a third of all MPs are now women – a milestone has been reached‘ in The Guardian; Janice Turner, ‘Why the north is in revolt against Labour‘ in The Times; Beluah Maud Devaney, ‘Unfriending Tories on Facebook Is Not the Answer‘ on the Huffington Post

And there were a few pieces written prior to the result that I still think are worth reading: Sam Baker, ‘When voting doesn’t make you feel good‘ in The Pool; Suzanne Moore, ‘By Friday we’ll be reduced to bystanders at a revoltingly macho political stare-off‘ in The Guardian; Concepta Cassar, ‘Food For Thought: Hazlitt, Malthus and the Tragedy of Food Banks‘ in Litro; Katy Guest, ‘Sandi Toksvig’s Women’s Equality Party is a movement for which time has come‘ in The Independent; Salena Godden, ‘Colour-blind: What colour are you?‘ on her blog, and Isabel Rogers’ poem ‘The truth about political correctness‘ on her blog.

I promised myself I wouldn’t mention it but there have been a few good pieces written about the birth of THAT baby: Sian Norris, ‘She’s not like other girls…‘ on Sian and Crooked Rib; Heather Havrilesky, ‘Royal Baby Girl Fated to Lead International Mob of Fake Princesses?‘ in The Cut, and Viv Groskop, ‘She’s a tiny baby, not a Kardashian‘ in The Pool.

Congratulations to Gill Lewis who won the Little Rebels children’s book award with Scarlet Ibis this week; to Emily St. John Mandel who won the Authur C Clarke award, and to Alice Notley who won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Foundation Prize. A gender balanced shortlist was announced for the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2015 and a female dominated one for the Branford Boase Award 2015. The ALS Longlist and NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Shortlists were also announced.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Katy Derbyshire, some stats about Women in Translation on Women in Translation
• Voula Grand, ‘on The next Gone Girl (The spells stories cast – or don’t)’ on Isabel Costello’s Literary Sofa
• Lois Leveen, ‘All the Years Ahead: On Committing Literary Suicide‘ on The Millions
• Joanna Biggs, ‘My hero: Shulamith Firestone‘ in The Guardian
• Various, ‘‘Get your head out of that book!’ – the children’s stories that inspired leading writers‘ in The Guardian
• Anne Enright, ‘A return to the western shore: on yielding to the Irish tradition‘ in The Guardian]
• Jill Kronstadt, ‘A God in Ruins: Kate Atkinson After Kate Atkinson‘ on Bloom
• Diane Watt, ‘Rethinking the Medieval Canon‘ on The University of Surrey: Women’s Literary Culture and the Medieval Canon
• Jeanette Winterson, ‘Ruth Rendell: memories of a friend who stood by me‘ in The Guardian
• Alison Flood, ‘Archive find shows medieval mystic Margery Kempe’s autobiography ‘doesn’t lie’‘ in The Guardian
• Jordan Kinsley, ‘Rewriting Fairy Tales‘ on Rewriting Mary Sue
• ‘Like Madame Bovary blasted by lightning’: By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept on the 4th Estate Blog
• Jill Lepore, ‘Looking at Female Superheroes with 10-year-old Boys‘ in The New Yorker
• Vanessa Lafaye, ‘The Breath of Creativity‘ on Random Things Through My Letterbox
• Josephine Livingstone, ‘Ban Men from Literary Readings‘ in the Gawker Review of Books
• Aminatta Forna, ‘Where Are the West’s Political Novelists?‘ on Literary Hub
• Emma Claire Sweeney, ‘Elizabeth Bishop and Marianne Moore‘ on Something Rhymed
• Kirsty Logan, ‘Made-up worlds (and a worldie maid)‘ on Bookanista
• Robert McCrum, ‘The 100 best novels: No 85 – The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (1966)‘ in The Guardian
• Lori Lansens, ‘Living with authoritis‘ on Bookanista
• Lizzy Kremer, ‘Living Life Through Metaphor: the Necessity of Fiction‘ on Publishing for Humans
• Sarah Seltzer, ‘Why We Should All Be Spinsters: Writers Take on a New Feminine Mystique‘ on Flavorwire
• Jason McBride, ‘Losing Control of the Language‘ (on Kathy Acker) on Slate
• Marsha Lederman, ‘Breaking up the Canadian theatre boys’ club: New plays fight the gender gap with all-female casts‘ in The Globe and The Mail
• Caroline Criado-Perez, ‘We deserve to know about the women who show us what can be done and how to do it’ in The Observer
• Jo Walton, ‘A Great Castle Made of Sea: Why Hasn’t Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Been More Influential?‘ on Tor
• M. J. Carter, ‘on Edgar Allan Poe‘ on Raven Crime Reads
• Marie Phillips, ‘In defence of Amy March‘ in The Pool
• Katherine May, ‘Happily Never After‘ on Aeon
• Jamie Fisher, ‘High Style and Desperate Love: On the Life and Work of Eileen Chang‘ on The Millions
• Mallory Ortberg, ‘Dirtbag Tess Of The D’Urbervilles‘ in The Toast
• Leah Ferguson, ‘It’s Like Having An Alter Ego, But Harder‘ on Women Writers, Women’s Books
• Alex Clark, ‘25 years of the Encore award: a cure for second-novel syndrome‘ in The Observer
• Kate Taylor, ‘We need to speak up about sexism in the arts‘ in The Globe and The Mail

Personal essays/memoir:

• Lucy Grealy, ‘Autobiography of a Body‘ on Nerve
• Masooma Hussain, ‘Symmetry in Our Misshapenness‘ in The Butter
• Sharisse T. Smith, ‘Hair Trajectory‘ in The Los Angeles Review
• Jenny Zhang, ‘Far Away from Me‘ in Rookie
• Tovah Burnstein, ‘A Woman Like Water‘ in The Butter
• Clarissa Wei, ‘Why I Will Always Love My Ex-Boyfriends‘ on XOJane
• Suzanne Joinson, ‘Dirty Talk and Dostoyevsky on the Night Shift‘ in The New York Times
• Leah Reich, ‘The Tin Woodman‘ on Medium
• Vickie Vertiz, ‘Kissing‘ in The Offing
• Anupa Mistry, ‘That Home Feeling‘ on Hazlitt
• Sali Hughes, ‘Proud to be a prude‘ in The Pool
• Melissa Hughes, ‘Starting Over at 35‘ on Medium
• Jenny Diski, ‘In Gratitude‘ in the London Review of Books (£)
• Jennifer S. Cheng, ‘Hikikomori: Salt Constellations‘ on LIterary Hub
• Mary J. Breen, ‘Childhood: Dollhouses, Solitude, and the Souls in Purgatory‘ in The Toast
• Amelia Gray, ‘Tsujita LA Artisan Noodle‘ on The Morning News
• Sonya Lee, ‘Daisy Duke and the Manosphere‘ on The Rumpus
• Mackenzie Mays, ‘Your Dad is Still Your Dad: On Family and Alcoholism‘ in The Toast
• Thea Goodman, ‘The Elevator Ride‘ on The Rumpus
• Abhilasha Kumar, ‘A Capital Affair‘ in Kindle
• Steph, ‘In celebration of discovering feminism, Caitlin Moran, and chips with curry sauce‘ on Reimagining My Reality
• Leesa Cross-Smith, ‘Kentucky Decadent & Derby Depraved‘ on Real Pants
• Sarah Lepiciger, ‘How do you cure homesickness?‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah Franklin, ‘How could I not guess that my son would love football?‘ in The Guardian

Feminism:

• Ann Friedman, ‘Let’s do this. Let’s talk about periods‘ in The Pool
• Rebecca Carroll, ‘The Police Hit Black Women With Both Racism and Sexism At Once‘ in The Guardian
• Guilaine Kinouani, ‘The language of distress: Black women’s mental health and invisibility‘ on Media Diversified
• Juniper Fitzgerald, ‘The Price of Knowledge: Discrimination Against Sex Workers In Academia‘ on Tits and Sass
• Katy Waldman, ‘Bitch, I’ll Tell You Why This Sentence Construction Is So Effective‘ on Slate
• Meg Zulch, ‘Why Calling Someone A “Tomboy” Is Hugely Problematic And Reifies Unnecessary Gender Roles‘ on Bustle
• Sayan Bhattacharya, ‘A Room of Her Own‘ in Kindle
• Koli Mitra, ‘Fault(y) Lines‘ in Kindle
• Deepa Bhasthi, ‘The Pakoda-Frying Feminist‘ in Kindle
• Tracy Moore, ‘The Best Time I Left a Used Tampon in a Dude’s Shower‘ in Jezebel
• Maxine Builder, ‘How The Lack Of Asian Models In The Fashion Industry Created A Divide Between My Racial Identity And My Body‘ on Bustle
• Megan Nolan, ‘Why is it so hard to get away from the powerful-man-loves-sweet-young-woman dynamic?‘ in The Pool

Society and Politics:

• Eva Wiseman, ‘Where have all the ghosts gone?‘ in The Observer
• Sarah Maslin, ‘The Price of Nice Nails‘ in The New York Times
• Kate Fagan, ‘Split Image‘ on ESPN
• Sarah Miller, ‘Death to the Maxi Dress: A Manifesto‘ on Jezebel
• Jessica Pressler, ‘Bullsh*t. The art of the sell, a half century after Mad Men‘ in New York Magazine
• Kera Bolonik, ‘America’s ugly whitesplaining epidemic: Baltimore, Freddie Gray and the media’s utter cluelessness‘ on Salon
• Aamina Shakur, ‘Who Are the Rightful Owners of Artifacts of Oppression?‘ on Hyperallergic
• Elisa Veini, ‘Doing Nothing Is an Art‘ in Berfrois
• Megan Garber, ‘Aisle Be Seeing You: The Rise of the Totally Transparent Bridal Gown‘ in The Atlantic
• Viv Groskop, ‘You’re never going to retire‘ in The Pool
• Keiko Lane, ‘Intersections, on the Anniversary of the Rodney King Rebellion‘ on The Rumpus
• Jamilah King, ‘#blacklivesmatter: How three friends turned a spontaneous Facebook post into a global phenomenon‘ in The California Sunday Magazine
• Noor Alnaqeeb, ‘My Middle East: ‘We should go out there and represent ourselves’‘ on Media Diversified
• Leslie Berlin, ‘Silicon Valley Then and Now: To Invent the Future, You Must Understand the Past‘ on Medium
• Stacia L. Brown, ‘Looking While Black‘ in The New Republic

The interviews:

• Mary Talbot on Escape Books
• Caroline Criado-Perez in The Pool and in The Observer
• Alice Notely on The Poetry Foundation
• Kate Mosse on One Book Lane
• Minette Walters in The Guardian
• Joanna Walsh on The Fem
• Maggie Nelson on Salon on The Rumpus, on Literary Hub, on Tin House
• Toni Morrison at Politics and Prose on Slate and in United Hemispheres Magazine
• Heidi Julavits in The Paris Review
• Deborah Install (and Ben and Tang) on Sitting on a Cornflake
• Joanna Biggs on the Guardian Books’ Podcast
• Lauren Olivier in The Guardian
• Kate Atkinson on Front Row on BBC Radio 4
• Jillian Tamaki on Publishers Weekly
• Catherine Lacey in The White Review
• Claire Fuller on Word Mothers
• Anne Marie Macari on The Rumpus
• Sarah Dessen on Bustle
• Ananda Devi in The Los Angeles Review of Books
• Amelia Gray on Midnight Breakfast
• Leslie Jamison on Salon
• Sara Novic on BookPage
• Sherry Simon on Drunken Boat
• Mia Alvar on Publishers Weekly
• Collier Nogues on Drunken Boat
• Zoe Pilger on PEN American Centre
• Tasha Kavanagh in The Independent
• Elisa Albert on For Books’ Sake
• Alison Sampson on Broken Frontier
• Lauren Beukes and Joelle Taylor on the For Books’ Sake Podcast
• Lindsay Parnell on Linen Press
• Abi Hynes on The Fem
• Anne Enright on Open Book, BBC Radio 4
• Mona Eltahawy in The Observer
• Mary Norris in The Observer
• Katherine Clements on Rebecca Mascull’s Blog
• Lydia Syson on Rebecca Mascull’s Blog

If you want some fiction to read:

• ‘The Boy Is Dead‘ by Kathryn Mockler in The Butter
• ‘Hyperbolics‘ an excerpt from The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli in BOMB Magazine
• ‘Infinite Cortex‘ by Clare Archibald in Visual Verse
• An extract from From a Distance by Raffaella Barker on Bloomsbury Publishing
• ‘The Creature‘ by Edna O’Brien on Literary Hub
• ‘From the Paint Stains‘ by Rachel Charlene Lewis in Plenitude
• ‘odds & evens‘ by Candy Sue Ellison in 3:AM Magazine
• Extracts from all the shortlisted novels for the Bailey’s Fiction Prize for Women on We Love This Book
• An extract from Sphinx by Anne Garréta in The Believer
• ‘Bad Sex‘ by Jowita Bydlowska on Numero Cinq
• ‘Mother Wit‘ by Nitasha Kaul in Kindle
• ‘My Life Is a Joke‘ by Sheila Heti in The New Yorker
• ‘CONTINUE? Y/N‘ by Kendra Fortmeyer in The Toast
• ‘Amazing‘ by Erin Fitzgerald in Okey-Panky
• An extract from Girl at War by Sara Novic on Literary Hub
• ‘I’ll Die and Be Right There‘ by Anna Mateeva (tr. Ellen Litman) on Guernica

If you want some poetry to read:

• ‘Glass, Ceiling‘ by C.E. Hyun in The Offing
• Three Micros by Caits Meissner in The Offing
• ‘The Mission‘ by Rita Ann Higgins on Poethead
• ‘The Cake‘ by Krystin Gollihue on Blunderbuss
• ‘The Door‘ by Nomi Stone on Guernica
• ‘Selling His Soul‘ by Sophie Hannah in The Guardian
• ‘Dear Dorothy‘ by Suzi F. Garcia in The Offing
• Two Poems by Lauren Gordon on Up the Staircase
• ‘This Was Ugly‘ by Lauren Gordon in Hermeneutic Staircase

If you want some non-fiction to read:

• ‘Scratching Out the City‘ from City Spaces: Filling in Berlin’s Gaps by Annett Groeschner (tr. Katy Derbyshire) in The Offing
• An extract from Between You and Me – Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris in The Observer

Photograph by Cybele Knowles

The lists:

• 19 Great Mysteries for Summer (with 19 Great Plot Twists) on The Oyster Review
• PW Picks: Books of the Week, May 11, 2015 on Publishers Weekly
• 32 Essential Asian-American Writers You Need To Be Reading on Buzzfeed
• 7 Moving, Must-Read Memoirs Coming Out This Year on the Huffington Post
• The Best Graphic Novels I’ve Ever Read on Electric Literature
• 5 Books to Take on Vacation in the Huffington Post
• Here’s the Non-Trashy Summer Books You Need to Be Reading This Year on The Debrief
• 10 (insane) things I learned about the world reading Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” on Salon
• 18 Brilliant Books You Won’t Want To Miss This Summer on the Huffington Post
• The 22 Best F-Bombs From Female Authors in the Huffington Post

In the Media: 15th March 2015

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

It’s been a great week for women writers and prizes. The Wellcome Prize shortlist was announced on Monday, including four books (of six) by women. Congratulations Miriam Towes, Alice Roberts, Sarah Moss and Marion Coutts. On Tuesday, the twenty-strong Bailey’s Prize longlist was announced. Chair of this year’s judges, Shami Chakrabarti discussed the need for the prize in The Guardian and Buzzfeed created a guide to the longlisted books. The OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature has five women (of nine) on the longlist. Congratulations Tanya Shirley, Monique Roffey, Tiphanie Yanique, Elizabeth Nunez and Olive Senior. The PEN/Faulkner award has three women on a shortlist of five. Congratulations Emily St. John Mandel, Jennifer Clement and Jenny Offill. The Stella Prize, the Australian prize for female writers announced its shortlist this week too. Congratulations to Maxine Beneba Clarke, Emily Bitton, Ellen Van Neervan, Sophie Lagune, Jean London and Christine Keneally. Marina Warner won the Holberg Prize 2015. And women won four of the six categories at the National Book Critics Circle Award. Congratulations Marilynne Robinson, Roz Chast, Ellen Willis and Claudia Rankine.

It’s Mother’s Day in the UK today. Jo Hogan writes ‘Surprised by a Jumper: On Being Motherless on Mother’s Day‘ on her blog; Scottish Book Trust list ten books that celebrate pioneering women; Emma Healey wrote, ‘From Offshore to Oranges: a literary tribute to Mother’s Day‘ in the Guardian; Emylia Hall wrote, ‘The Mother of All Years‘ on her blog; Windmill Books published an extract of Charlotte Gordon’s forthcoming book, Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley on their website, and Kate Hamer wrote, ‘Literary matriarchs and their daughters, from Little Women to Carrie‘ in the Independent

Two in-depth Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie interviews have been published this week, one in Vogue and the other on Olisa.tv: part one and part two.

The woman with the most publicity this week is Caitlin Moran. She’s interviewed on Buzzfeed and on the British Comedy Guide with her sister Caroline Moran; Pilot Viruet wrote, ‘Caitlin Moran’s UK Series ‘Raised by Wolves’ Is the Teen Sitcom America Needs‘ on Flavorwire; she’s profiled by Vanessa Thorpe in the Observer and her own Times Magazine column this week was ‘What it really means to be a mum‘ which you can listen to for free here.

And the latest on the Harper Lee story: on Wednesday, The Bookseller reported, ‘State investigators interview Harper Lee‘ and on Friday, Lee’s agent issued a statement, The Bookseller reported, ‘Nurnberg blasts ‘shameful’ Lee claims‘.

The best of the rest articles/essays:

• Rene Denfeld, ‘Writing the Truth About Criminals‘ on Read Her Like an Open Book
• Hannah Furness, ‘Joanna Trollope: “You cannot be great novelist until after 35”‘ in the Telegraph
• Lizzy Kremer, ‘On the Way to Where You are Going: A Writer’s Patience‘ on Publishing for Humans
• Anuradha Roy, ‘No Longer a Joke‘ in The Telegraph, India
• Kate Williams, ‘introduces you to The Storms of War‘ on One Book Lane
• Elinor Abbott, ‘Rooms I Have Lived In‘ on The Bohemyth
• Louise Walters, ‘One year on from publication and the things I’ve learned‘ on her blog
• Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, ‘Cinderella: The Ultimate (Postwar) Makeover Story‘ in The Atlantic
• Alison Flood, ‘New Star Wars novel to feature first lesbian character‘ in The Guardian
• Pandora Blake, ‘Don’t ask if porn “empowers” women – instead, ask if your feminism does‘ in the New Statesman
• Felix Kent, ‘Our Hearts Were Young and Gay: On Weakness, Strength, and Friendship‘ in The Toast
• Lindsey Gates-Markel, ‘He Doesn’t Wanna Be Here‘ on The Rumpus
• Kelly Davio, ‘The Waiting Room: Sick Girl Walking‘ in The Butter
• Sara Bivigou, ‘The Bad Blood: My Life With Sickle Cell Anaemia‘ on Buzzfeed
• Mallory Ortberg, ‘Arthur Rimbaud, Dirtbag Laureate‘ in The Toast
• Sarah Seltzer, ‘Female Friendship Is Life’s Great, Thwarted Romance in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels‘ on Flavorwire
• Claire Fuller, ‘Big Loves: on Barbara Comyns’s Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead‘ on Memorious Mag
• Melissa Febos, ‘The Book of Hours‘ in StoryQuarterly
• Katharine Quarmby, ‘The taboo of sex and disability: How can we shift the negative images that still dominate society’s attitudes?‘ in the Independent
• Susie Day, ‘Short is sweet: why I love short stories‘ in The Guardian
• Lois Leveen, ‘Appropriating (F)Acts in Feminist Fiction II: Juliet’s Nurse‘ on For Books’ Sake
• Elisa Gabbert, ‘The Bravery of “Basic“‘ on Real Pants
• Anna Cabe, ‘Milking the Bull: On Heroines‘ in The Toast
• Rachel Basch, ‘At The Blue Dolphin: On Mothers and Sons‘ on The Millions
• Kate Graham, ‘The Life and Legacy of Anne Frank‘ in Stylist
• Mallory Ortberg, ‘Texts from Blanche DuBois‘ in The Toast
• Kaye Toal, ‘How Finding A Fat YA Heroine Changed My Life‘ on Buzzfeed
• Mallory Ortberg, ‘It’s 2050 And Feminism Has Finally Won‘ in The Toast
• Rebecca Altman, ‘American petro-topia‘ in Aeon
• Frida Berrigan, ‘Uncle Pentagon‘ in Guernica

• Helen Lewis, ‘The Digital Ducking Stool‘ in the New Statesman
• Jill Lepore, ‘Richer and Poorer‘ in The New Yorker
• Lori Day, ‘Aging while female is not your worst nightmare‘ on Feminist Current
• Patricia Scanlan, ‘Should you call time on a toxic friendship?‘ on Gransnet
• Kate Gale, ‘Reading American cities: Los Angeles in books‘ in The Guardian
• Julieanne Smolinski, ‘I Am Not My Internet Personality, and You Probably Aren’t Yours, Either.‘ in The Cut
• Melanie Finn, ‘Writers on Location: Tanzania‘ on Isabel Costello’s Literary Sofa
• Rose George, ‘A Very Naughty Little Girl‘ on Longreads
• Marcie Bianco, ‘This Feminist Children’s Book Is the Best Way Ever to Teach the ABCs‘ on MiC
• Liska Jacobs, ‘Our Best Work: On Man Ray’s Hollywood Album and Me‘ on The Millions
• Melanie Finn, ‘A Stitch in Time‘ on the Weidenfeld and Nicholson blog
• Olivia Marks, ‘When Did Not Wanting to “Lean In” Become So Taboo?‘ in Vice
• Molly Lambert, ‘Porntopia‘ on Grantland
• Francesca Wade, ‘Happily Ever After‘ in the Times Literary Supplement
• Anne Boyer, ‘Data’s Work is Never Done‘ in Guernica
• Sarah Butler, ‘“A wild blip in the country’s consciousness”: writing the 2011 riots‘ on the Picador Blog
• Alison Herman, ‘Why Tina Fey’s Racial Humor Is So Controversial‘ on Flavorwire
• Allecia Vermillion, ‘The Brief, Extraordinary Life of Cody Spafford‘ on Seattle Met
• Jennifer Gonnerman, ‘The Wrong Way‘ on Mother Jones
• Anna Maxted, ‘Older women are in the spotlight, but the battle for equality is not over‘ in the Telegraph
• Polly Samson, ‘My parents only got married because no one else would have me as a bridesmaid‘ in The Telegraph
• Ashley C. Ford, ‘I’m queer no matter who I’m with. I won’t define myself differently for your comfort‘ in The Guardian
• Chris Kraus, ‘on the Ambiguous Virtues of Art School‘ on Artspace
• Elisa Albert, ‘My friend breastfed my baby‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah McCarry, ‘On Kindness‘ in The Rejectionist
• Lynn Sloan, ‘A Page a Day‘ on Bloom
• Alice Driver, ‘My Own Trap‘ on Vela
• Holly Robinson, ‘Writing Commercial Fiction and Loving It‘ on Publishers Weekly
• Chimene Suleyman, ‘We cannot be outraged by UKIP if we are to support their rhetoric everywhere else‘ on Media Diversified
• Claire Fuller, ‘Things About Canada: Claire Fuller Remembers 1982 Montreal‘ on House of Anansi

The interviews:

• Jane Costello in the Liverpool Echo
• Helen Macdonald on Salon
• Roxane Gay, Germaine Greer, Rayya Elias and Elizabeth Gilbert at the All About Women Festival in The Guardian
• Jaime Loren on Beauty and Lace
• Kim Gordon on Faber Social and on Arts and Ideas
• Iona Grey on Helen Redfern’s blog (plus cake!)
• Susie Day in The Guardian
• Kate Schatz on Buzzfeed
• Toni Morrison in NEA Arts Magazine
• Virginia Boecker on Publishers Weekly KidsCast
• Laura Van Den Berg on The Millions
• Melanie Finn on Orion Books
• Jill Alexander Essbaum in the Wall Street Journal and on Electric Literature
• Sarah Menkedick on Longreads
• Emer O’Toole on Radio Gorgeous
• Rosie Garland on Northern Soul
• Holly Smale on We Love This Book (interviewed by her friend and former housemate Anna James)
• Miranda July in the Irish Times
• Anne Tyler on BBC World Book Club
• Samantha Harvey in The Telegraph
• Clare Fuller on Annethology
• Marie Mutsuki Mockett on Electric Literature
• Sarah Chayes in The Guardian

If you want some fiction/poetry to read:

• ‘All You Have to Do‘ by Sarah Braunstein in The New Yorker which she discusses here
• ‘For Eliza (My Great Grandmother)‘ by Katrina Naomi on Proletarian Poetry
• An extract from The Day We Disappeared by Lucy Robinson
• ‘A Birthmother’s Catechism‘ by Carrie Etter on Seren Books’ blog
• Five Short Stories by Lydia Davis in Five Dials
• ‘House Proud‘ by Amelia Gray in The White Review
• ‘Pomegranate‘ by Karissa Chen on Guernica
• ‘Children’s Stories Made Horrific: The Little Mermaid‘ by Mallory Ortberg in The Toast
• ‘Frost and Fire‘ by Claire Fuller on her blog
• ‘Aunt Mirrie and the Child‘ by Kate Clanchy on BBC Radio 4
• ‘Phantoms Over Paris‘ by Ali Smith in Five Dials
• A new introduction to Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism by Natasha Walter on Virago

The lists:

• Best Books to Read this March in Red
• The Best Feminist Books For Younger Readers on Bookriot
• Nine books you must read to understand women’s issues in India on Scroll.in
• The Little Free Black Woman’s Library Book List – Volume 1 on The Free Black Woman’s Library
• 20 Wonderfully Miserable Memoirs: A Reading List for the School of Hard Knocks on Entertainment Weekly
• 9 Amazing Female Graphic Novelists, Illustrators And Cartoonists You Should Read on the Huffington Post
• Inspiring Joan Didion Quotes in The Toast
• 50 Great Books About 50 Inspiring Women on Flavorwire
• Sarah Bannan’s Coming of Age Novels on Bookanista (includes an extract from her novel Weightless)
• Sarah Alderson’s Top 10 feminist icons in children’s and teen books in The Guardian
• 25 Essential Books About Death and Grief on Flavorwire
• 13 Things By Women You Can Read In One Sitting on Buzzfeed
• Kelly Sundberg’s Eight Flash Nonfiction Writers on Vela
• Five Fascinating Facts About Sylvia Plath on Interesting Literature
• 26 Contemporary Books That Should Be Taught In High School on Buzzfeed
• 74 Essential Books for Your Personal Library: A List Curated By Female Creatives on Open Culture
• 12 Sick Burns From People Who Didn’t Get The Jane Austen Hype on the Huffington Post

The Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction Longlist 2015

It’s here! The Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction Longlist 2015 is as follows:

Rachel Cusk: Outline

Lissa Evans: Crooked Heart

Patricia Ferguson: Aren’t We Sisters?

Xiaolu Guo: I Am China

Samantha Harvey: Dear Thief

Emma Healey: Elizabeth is Missing

Emily St. John Mandel: Station Eleven

Grace McCleen: The Offering

Sandra Newman: The Country of Ice Cream Star

Heather O’Neil: The Girl Who Was Saturday Night

Laline Paull: The Bees

Marie Phillips: The Table of Less Valued Knights

Rachel Seiffert: The Walk Home

Kamila Shamsie: A God in Every Stone

Ali Smith: How to be both

Sara Taylor: The Shore

Anne Tyler: A Spool of Blue Thread

Sarah Waters: The Paying Guests

Jemma Wayne: After Before

PP Wong: The Life of a Banana

I’ve read and reviewed six of those already, if you hover over the titles, I’ve linked to my reviews.

Initial thoughts are I’m absolutely thrilled for Lissa Evans whose book I love and made my end of year list last year. Also very pleased for Sara Taylor whose debut I’ve read but not posted my review of yet (it’s published later this month), which is very good. I’ve got lots of reading to do but many of the books there are books I’ve had in my to be read pile for a while! (I also need to apologise to the person who commented on my wish list and mentioned Heather O’Neill’s book; I didn’t think it was eligible and clearly I was wrong. I’m pleased it comes highly recommended though.)

I’m looking forward to reading the rest and discussing with the rest of the shadow panel. Please do join in and let us know what you think of the list and any of the books you read.

In the Media: 18th January 2015

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

It’s been another grim week for news. There’s been some insightful commentary from a number of female writers on the big stories though:

Charlie Hebdo and terrorism was written about by Caitlin Moran in The Times; while in The Guardian, Natasha Lehrer wrote ‘The Threat to France’s Jews‘; Hadley Freeman covered the same issue alongside the UK’s antisemitism survey, and Suzanne Moore declared ‘Add faithophobia to my crimes: I have no respect for religions that have little respect for me‘. On Reimagining My Reality, Steph wrote ‘Charlie Hebdo, freedom of speech, and male privilege‘ whilst on Media Diversified, Cristine Edusi wrote, ‘Ongoing terrorism in Nigeria is not a novel, the use of children as human bombs is #WeAreAllNigeria‘.

The Stuart Kerner case was commented on by Janice Turner in The Times; Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian, and Antonia Honeywell on her blog.

The lack of diversity in the Oscar nominees was written about by Roxane Gay in The Butter

And if that’s all made you thoroughly miserable/angry, here’s Sophie Heawood on Clooney’s Golden Globes speech and her daughter’s first day at nursery and Hadley Freeman on ‘How Amy Poehler and Tina Fey made the Golden Globes the first feminist awards ceremony‘ both in The Guardian.

Speaking of award winners, Hilary Mantel’s having another moment with the BBC television adaptation of Wolf Hall beginning this week. She’s in The Guardian, writing about the TV version; while John Mullan, also in The Guardian, profiles her ‘strange and brilliant fiction‘, while Kirstie McCrum tells us ‘What TV series like Wolf Hall can teach us about history‘ on Wales Online.

Joan Didion’s stint as a model for Celine has also been big news again this week. Adrienne LaFrance writes about fashion and loss in Didion’s work for The Atlantic; Molly Fischer tells us ‘Why Loving Joan Didion Is a Trap‘ on The Cut; Lynne Segal talks about ‘Invisible Women‘ in the LRB; Haley Mlotek declared ‘Free Joan Didion‘ in The Awl and Rachel Cooke says ‘That’s so smart‘ in The Observer, while Brainpickings revealed ‘Joan Didion’s Favorite Books of All Time, in a Handwritten Reading List‘.

 

The best of the rest articles/essays:

• Jeanette Winterson on the poetry of Carol Ann Duffy in The Guardian
• Elisabeth Donnelly, ‘How Margaret Atwood and Zadie Smith Use Technology: An Excerpt from Process: The Writing Lives of Great Authors‘ on Flavorwire
• Tracey Thorn, ‘Do we really want to watch P J Harvey drinking tea and plugging in studio leads?‘ in The New Statesman
• Susan Lanigan, ‘My Mental Health and Experience with Depression‘ on her blog
• Marilynne Robinson ‘On Edgar Allan Poe‘ in The New York Review of Books
• Emma Healey, ‘My hero: Dorothea Tanning‘ in The Guardian
• Katy Derbyshire, on Greta Kuckhoff and translating Mein Kampf on her blog
• Cheryl Strayed, ‘Why Are We Obsessed with the Great American Novel?‘ in The New York Times
• Sadie Stein, ‘The Interview or Those Moments When You Feel Like You’ve Mastered Adulthood‘ in The Paris Review
• Maggie Doherty, ‘Cool Confessions: On Lydia Davis‘ in n+1
• Luiza Sauma, ‘Paris in the Amazon, 1941‘ in The Butter
• Andrea Woodhouse, ‘When the Waves Overturned Grief‘ in Guernica
• Sarah Seltzer, ‘Anne Brontë: Giving the Forgotten Sister and Badass Feminist Author Her Due‘ on Flavorwire
• Kamila Shamsie sails to Antarctica in The Guardian
• Tiffany Stanley, ‘Jackie’s Goodbye‘ in National Journal
• Soraya Chemaly, ‘It’s a Man’s World, Now What?‘ on Role Reboot
• Joanna Chen, ‘What the Trees Reveal‘ in Guernica
• Tara Murtha, ‘I Didn’t Just Scream‘ in The Butter
• Melissa Harrison, ‘Acquainted with the night‘ on Tales of the City
• Nomi Eve and Stephanie Feldman, ‘Why We Write Jewish Historical Fiction‘ in Moment Magazine
• Robin Boylorn, ‘Now that white people have declared ‘bae’ over, black people can use it in peace‘ in The Guardian
• Lucy Ribchester, ‘Edwardian Fashion and The Hourglass Factory‘ on Books and the City
• Francine Prose, ‘They’re Watching You Read‘ in The New York Review of Books
• Rachel Hamada, ‘We Need New Stories, Part one and part two‘ on This Is Africa
• Alana Massey, ‘Being Winona in a World Made for Gwyneths‘ on Buzzfeed
• Wayétu Moore, ‘The Evolution of Bernice‘ in Guernica
• Sarah Emily Duff, ‘Not for all the tea‘ on Tangerine and Cinnamon
• Thea Traff, ‘Nadia Sablin’s “Aunties”‘ in The New Yorker
• Stacey Parker Le Melle, ‘Comfort Stations‘ on The Butter
• Hannah Pittard, ‘You’re (Not) My Favorite‘ on The Millions

• Karen Yossman, ‘Margaret Keane and Big Eyes: Why are we always so ready to believe women’s success is a lie?‘ on The New Statesman
• Elisa Gabbert, ‘On Styling Tricks‘ on Real Pants
• Rachel Kushner, ‘Diary: Bad Captains‘ in the LRB
• Emma Carroll, ‘My Family and Other Emigrants‘ on Girls Heart Books
• Lesley McDowell, ‘When the Midlist Is Where You Want to Be‘ on her blog
• Rebecca Whitney, ‘Domestic Noir Is Bigger Than Ever‘ in The Independent
• Maddie Crum, ‘Rejected Cover Designs for Edith Pearlman’s Honeydew‘ on Huffington Post
• Mark Perry, ‘Who’s Afraid of Alice Childress, Part 1‘ on Playmakers Repertory Company: From Page to Stage
• Vivian French, ‘My Inspiration‘ in The Guardian
• Ellie Gordon-Moershel, ‘How to Make a Recreational Women’s Ice Hockey Team‘ on The Butter
• Sarah Ditum, ‘Razors Pain You: What Dorothy Parker teaches us about our addiction to female suffering‘ in The New Statesman
• Leesa Cross-Smith, ‘Baseballese & Adorableness‘ on Real Pants
• Ashley C. Ford, ‘This Woman Wrote a Book with Almost No Male Characters and Women Love It‘ on Buzzfeed
• Stephen Burt, ‘Author, Feminist, Pioneer: The Unlikely Queen of Sci-Fi‘ on NPR
• Mandy Len Catron, ‘To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This‘ in The New York Times
• Patricia Nicol, ‘The bad girls’ club‘ in The Sunday Times
• ‘New Faces of Fiction, 2015‘ in The Guardian
• Fiona McBennett, ‘Meet Irish Women Behind Publishing Powerhouses‘ in the Irish Independent
• Lizzy Kremer, ‘How do you like me now?‘ on Publishing for Humans
• Gayle Forman, ‘on why we need to talk about depression‘ in The Guardian
• Jason Weiss, ‘Silvina Ocampo‘ in Granta
• Elizabeth Drew, ‘Selma vs. History‘ in The New York Review of Books
• Anna Maria Hong, ‘On I, Let‘ on Drunken Boat
• Karen Yossman, ‘From Marilyn Monroe to Audrey Hepburn: why dead women make the ideal brand ambassadors‘ in the New Statesman
• Shelley Harris, ‘Bam! Pow! Scream!‘ in The Independent
• Chelsea Cain, ‘What Inspired Me to Write Thrillers‘ on Blinkbox
• Mo Daviau, ‘The Cardigan‘ on The Butter
• Elizabeth Svoboda, ‘The Power of Story‘ in Aeon
• Elizabeth Day, ‘I Was Sold into Sexual Slavery‘ in The Observer
• Emma Warren, ‘A Year in Oxleas Wood: December‘ on Caught by the River
• Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, ‘A River Runs Through It‘ in The Believer

The interviews:

• Edith Pearlman in The New York Times
• Gill Hoffs on WordMothers
• Susan Howe on Poetry Foundation
• Lucy Wood in The Independent
• Eileen Miles in Vol.1 Brooklyn
• Sophia Toibin on Tales from the Reading Room
• Martine Bailey on Rebecca Mascull’s blog
• Lisa Williamson on Queer YA
• Paula Hawkins in Time, on Books and Reviews and on The Book Trail
• Judith Claire Mitchell on 4th Estate
• Roxane Gay on Salon
• Sharon Hogan (and Rob Delaney) in The Guardian
• Rebecca Bradley on Kelly Florentia’s blog
• Rene Denfeld on Sweatpants and Coffee
• Rachel Cusk in Vogue
• Shalini Boland in The Guardian
• Moira Young on Scottish Book Trust
• Alice Sebold on the Picador blog
• Keren David on We Love This Book
• Emily St. John Mandel on The Takeaway
• Tiphanie Yanique on Electric Literature
• Judith Butler in The New York Times
• Eva Dolan on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row
• Morgan McCarthy on The Right Stripes
• Pamela Paul on The Daily Beast
• Miranda July on NPR
• Emma Healey on Huffington Post

If you want some fiction/poetry to read:

• ‘The Storm‘ by Kate Chopin on Biblioklept
• ‘Dude Watchin’ with the Brontës‘ on Hark, a vagrant
• ‘The Hydraulic Theory of Families‘ by Elisa Casseri (tr. Mati Colarossi) on Parallel Texts
• ‘Seeder‘ by Rahawa Haile in The Butter
• ‘Waiting for Dark‘ by Mia Funk on Litro
• ‘Cities I’ve Never Lived In‘ by Sara Majka in Guernica
• ‘My Little Feminequist Pony‘ by Anne Thériault on Ravishly
• ‘South Korean Ferry Accident‘ by EJ Koh on Thought Catalog
• ‘Day 38‘ an extract from Wild by Cheryl Strayed on Bookanista
• ‘Fairy Poems‘ by Laura Madeline Wiseman on Empty Mirror
• Two poems by Minal Hajratwala in Granta
• ‘Indigo Gets Married‘ by Jami Attenberg in Guernica
• ‘Notes from the Island‘ by Akumbu Uche on Brittle Paper
• ‘For Sale‘ by Claire Fuller on her blog
• Two poems by Doireann Ní Ghríofa on And Other Poems
• Extracts from Black Rainbow by Rachel Kelly (partially read by Dominic West)
• ‘Goldilocks‘ by Angela Readman on Ink Sweat and Tears
• ‘The Quantum Theory of Suffering or Why I Look at the Moon‘ by Natalie Diaz on Guernica
• ‘Hopper’s Women‘ by Emily Carroll in Guernica
• Extract from The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett on One Book Lane
• Two poems by Heather Altfeld on Electric Literature
• ‘Colored Hats‘ by Gertrude Stein in The Guardian
• ‘Anna and Sigm‘ by Sharon Kivland in 3:am

The lists:

• 7 of Margaret Atwood’ Apocalypses, Ranked from Pretty Survivable to Totally Terrifying on Bustle
• Arab Women Writers Recommend Their Favorite Arab Women Writers on Arabic Literature (in English)
• 24 Things No One Tells You About Book Publishing, Curtis Sittenfeld on Buzzfeed
• First Fiction Spring 2015: Anticipated Debuts on Publishers Weekly
• The Best Marriage Plots in Novels on Huffington Post
• From Zadie Smith to Helen Oyeyemi and Emily Brontë, bestselling female authors who nailed their biggest hit novels under the age of 30 in Stylist
• Best Books to Read in 2015 in Harper’s Bazaar
• 2015 Fiction Preview, Part 1: 30 Books to Keep You Warm This Winter on Read Her Like an Open Book
• Ankara Press Debuts 6 African Romance Novels That Are Better Than Mills & Book on Brittle Paper
• 10 Books to Read This January in Red
• 6 Hot Romances Coming in January on Huffington Post
• Your 7-Day African Literary Make-Over on Brittle Paper

And the best things I’ve read this week:

• Mariya Karimjee, ‘Damage‘ (on FGM) on The Big Roundtable
• Daniel Dalton rewrites Harry Potter from Hermione’s point of view, ‘Hermione Granger and the Goddamn Patriarchy‘ (I know it was written by a man but I’m justifying it by 1. source text written by a woman; 2. feminism.)
• Beluah Maud Devaney, ‘How to Interview a Woman Writer‘ in The Toast

In the Media: 21st December 2014

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

Lots of end of year round-ups this week, as you might expect. Two great things happened on Twitter: on Saturday morning, the @#ReadWomen2014 account became @#Read_Women and will continue. I say reading books by women is for life, not just for 2014 (I might make that the blog’s subtitle). Proustitute is convening a goodreads group for 2015 and Travelling in the Homeland has begun a list of Indian women writers available in English translation to help you continue and broaden your reading of books by female writers. Secondly, in response to a male dominated piece on hits and misses in the year in publishing in The Guardian, Ursula Doyle, Associate Publisher at Virago started #hitsandmisses which women in publishing then used to respond with their own take on the year. It’s well worth a read to pick up any gems you might have overlooked.

Elsewhere, Electric Literature told us Why 2014 Was the Year of The Essay; The Guardian had The Best Thrillers of 2014; Buzzfeed had The 28 Best Books By Women in 2014; Rabble in Canada had The Best Book Reviews of 2014; The Huffington Post had The Highlights: Best of Fiction 2015 and The Ones to Watch: Best Debut Fiction Coming in 2015 both from Hannah Beckerman; Flavorwire had The Best Non-Fiction Books 2014; Longreads had the Best of 2014: Essay Writing, and The Coast had Top 15 Books of 2014. And more mini-round-ups were published on The Millions. Ones by Rachel Fershleiser, Yiyun Li, Rebecca Makkai, Gina Frangello, Michelle Filgate, Emma Straub, Jean Hanff Korelitz and Tess Malone are particularly interesting in terms of female writers.

The best of the rest articles/essays:

• Ayana Mathis, ‘What Will Happen to All of that Beauty?‘ in Guernica
• Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, ‘Why I Left My Children‘ on Salon
• Hannah Giorgis, ‘From Ferguson to New York, women are leading protests because all #BlackLivesMatter‘ in The Guardian
• Humera Afridi, ‘The Call of the Dervish‘ in Guernica
• Scott Pack on Zoella and Ghostwriting on his blog
• Zoe Pilger, ‘Freud and Eros‘ in The Independent
• Helen Moffett, ‘Banting, women and rage‘ on Books Live
• Vanessa Vitiello Urquart, ‘Lesbian Dilemma: All My Heros Are Men Who Hated Women‘ on Slate
• Bruce E. Levine, ‘One nation under Galt: How Ayn Rand’s toxic philosophy permanently transformed America‘, on Salon
• Alizah Salario, ‘Loosen the Reigns‘ in The Butter
• Lisa Gruenberg, ‘A Beautiful Day‘ in Ploughshares
• Juliet Jacques, ‘One afternoon in Bishkek‘ on The Dissident Blog
• Sasha Kerr, ‘Losing a Baby – things I’ve learned about miscarriage‘ on The Happy Baby Project
• Christiane Craig, ‘In the funnel of infinity: Life Portraits by Hilda Hilst‘ in The Quarterly Conversation
• Elizabeth Wade, ‘Disarmed‘ in The Butter
• Mindy Hung, ‘Bitter Greens‘ in The Butter
• Catherine Butler, ‘Enchanting Places: Readers and Pilgrimage in the Novels of Diana Wynne Jones‘ on Academia.edu
• Marybeth Seitz-Brown, ‘Uptalk is OK‘ on Slate
• Sadie Stein, ‘Half Magic‘ in The Paris Review
• Brittney Cooper, ‘Listen when I talk to you!‘ on Salon
• Bridget Reed, ‘How She Knows‘ on Penelope Fitzgerald in The Paris Review
• Alex Voakes, ‘The One Feminist Text You Should Have Read, Condensed‘ on The Vagenda (It’s the one my blog’s named after.)
• Emma Straub, ‘How to Write About Real People‘ in Rookie Magazine
• Anita Diamant ‘On the Lows (and Highs) of Book Touring‘ on WSJ
• Libby Robin, ‘No Island Is an Island‘ in Aeon
• Kelly Jensen, ‘Women in Fiction Need More Than the Bechdel Test‘ on Bookriot
• Kylie Cardel, ‘How the Diary Became a Public Way of Getting Personal‘ on Huffington Post
• Anjali Joshi, ‘Are You Going to Give Him a White Name?‘ in The New York Times
• Kit Buchan, ‘Families in literature: The Chance and Hazard Twins in Wise Children by Angela Carter‘ in The Guardian
• Rebecca Solnit, ‘Coyote‘ in The New Yorker
• Amy Weldon, ‘The Spinning Self‘ on Bloom
• Alice Sola Kim and Megan McCarron, ‘Double Dare: Point Horror‘ on Electric Literature
• Lucy Mangan, ‘Inexplicable Spouse Rage Is so Normal‘ in Stylist
• Emily St. John Mandel, ‘Don’t Write for Awards‘ in The Atlantic
• Anne Enright, ‘Alexander Fuller’s African Childhood‘ in The Guardian
• Vivian Gornick, ‘Good Feminist‘ in The Boston Review
• Caitlin Moran, ‘Why I’m Giving Up High Heels‘ in The Times (paywall)
• Emer O’Toole, ‘A brain-dead Irish woman’s body is being used as an incubator. Be angry‘ in The Guardian
• Alison Taylor, ‘My Christmas isn’t defined by the fact that I don’t have a husband or boyfriend‘ in The Independent
• Kristiana Kahakauwila, ‘The Writer’s Family Tree: A Tribute to Joyce Carol Oates‘ on Read Her Like an Open Book
• Samantha Lyon, ‘The Evolution of Erotic Fiction‘ on The Infectionist
• Mallory Ortberg, ‘Ayn Rand Reviews Children’s Movies‘ in The New Yorker
• Marian Keyes, ‘Mind your head‘ in The Sunday Times (paywall)
• Jon Snow, ‘Maya Angelou remembered‘ in The Observer
• Richard Coles, ‘PD James remembered‘ in The Observer
• Nicci Gerrard, ‘Sue Townsend remembered‘ in The Observer

The interviews:

• Viv Albertine in Salon
• Elizabeth Wurtzel in Salon
• Emily Gould in The Observer
• Angela Davis in The Guardian
• Sarah Seltzer in The Guardian
• Natasha Wimmer in Granta
• Bae Su-Ah on Three Wise Monkeys
• Danielle Dutton, editor at the Dorothy project on Entropy
• Evelyne Holingue on Kimberly Sullivan’s blog
• Emma Healey in The Globe and The Mail
• Rachel Joyce in The Observer
• Marian Keyes in The Sunday Times (paywall)

If you want some fiction or poetry to read:

• ‘The Gift of the (Da)magi(ng)‘ by Alissa Nutting in Barrelhouse
• ‘Bodies‘ by Miriam Gamble in The Guardian
• Selected Poems by Chi Lingyun in Chinese Literature Today
• ‘God suspected my heart was a geode but he had to make sure‘ by Layla Benitez-James in Guernica
• ‘Terror‘ by Kimiko Hahn in Granta
• ‘Messenger‘ by Robin Beth Schaer in Guernica
• ‘Prayer for Horizon‘ by Gwyneth Lewis in the TLS
• ‘Poems from the Central North States‘ by several women in Persimmon Tree
• ‘Beaten Paths‘ by Paula Reed Nancarrow
• ‘Before Morning‘ by Laura Jean Moore in Pank Magazine
• ‘Lebenslügen‘ by Malerie Willens on Electric Literature
• ‘Permanent Winter‘ by Carrie Etter in Bluestem
• ‘Step 9‘ by Nicole Callihan in Blunderbuss
• ‘The Dreamer‘ by Essie Fox on One Book Lane
• An extract from The Goddess and the Thief by Essie Fox on Soundcloud
• ‘I Can See Right Through You‘ by Kelly Link in McSweeney’s
• ‘The Man in the Moon‘ by Nicola Yoon in The Butter
• ‘The Halifax Slasher‘ by Jac Jemc in The Butter
• An excerpt from Ilona: My Life with the Bard by Jana Juráñová (translated by Julia and Peter Sherwood)
• ‘The Boxing Day Ball‘ by Rachel Joyce in The Observer
• Shabby Doll House’s latest edition ‘The Re-Up‘ is all-female and their biggest edition ever
• And if you’re being nosy on Twitter and reading a conversation between Nicola Barker and Granta editor Max John Porter, you come across sites like Blood Orange Feast, on which Camilla Grudova posts stories.

And the lists:

• Jane Austen in quotes: 30 tips for a successful life in The Guardian
• 50 Books to Cure Heartbreak on Flavorwire
• 21 of the Wisest Things Jane Austen Ever Said on Buzzfeed
• Emma, Cover to Cover in The Paris Review
• Modern Film Adaptations of Jane Austen, Ranked on Huffington Post
• 6 Reasons to Fall in Love with Maggie Stiefvater’s ‘Raven Cycle’ on Buzzfeed

And because it’s Christmas:

• Some of the Best Lit Tweets of Some of the Year on Electric Literature
• A Definitive Ranking of Jane Austen’s Male Hotties on Buzzfeed

In the Media will be taking a two-week break over Christmas and new year. Thank you to everyone who’s read, shared and commented over the last three months.

In the Media: 23rd November 2014

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

It’s been Ursula K. Le Guin’s week. Awarded the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the National Book Awards, she gave a widely praised speech about the need for freedom. You can watch it here, or read the transcript here. She’s interviewed on Salon, in The Guardian by Hari Kunzru and there’s a piece on where she gets her ideas from on Brain Pickings

Arundhati Roy and Megham Daum are the women with the second most coverage this week. Roy’s in Prospect, talking about ‘India’s Shame‘ and the caste system and interviewed in The Observer, where there are plenty of unnecessary comments about her looks. While Daum is interviewed on FSG’s website, in The Guardian and on The Cut.

The best of the rest articles/essays:

• Lavinia Greenlaw on her hero, Chaucer in The Guardian
• Lionel Shriver, Deborah Moggach and Lisa Jewell on their parents’ marriages in The Telegraph
• How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse According to Margaret Atwood on Buzzfeed
• Mary O’Donnell, ‘How I Write Poetry‘ on her blog
• Clare O’Dea, ‘Husbands in Books, from Bad to Worse‘ on her blog
• Susanna Hislop and Hannah Waldron, ‘Look to the Stars…‘ on the Waterstones blog
• Christine Murray, ‘There will always be singing; an appreciation of Doris Lessing‘ on her blog
• Jennifer O’Connell, ‘The World has serious mammy issues‘ in The Irish Times
• Susan Lanigan, ‘On Restrained, Elegant Prose‘ on her blog
• Lucy Allen, ‘The Myth of the “Empowered Woman” in History‘ on her blog
• Linda Tirado, On poverty in the US and the UK in The Guardian
• Alan Hollinghurst, ‘The Victory of Penelope Fitzgerald‘ in The New York Review of Books
• James Wood, ‘The Trials of Penelope Fitzgerald‘ in The New Yorker
• Meytal ‘If Roxane Gay is a Bad Feminist what am I?‘ on her blog
• ‘Re-membering Audre Lorde and Celebrating Toni Cade Bambara‘ on The Feminist Wire
• Bryony Gordon, ‘Why Adele was right to ignore Bob Geldof and Band Aid‘ in The Telegraph
• Amy Mason, ‘Female alcoholics need help, not vilification‘ in The Guardian
• Anne Donovan, ‘Beautiful Scots Words You May Not Know‘ on Scottish Book Trust
• Valerie Mendes on Oxfordshire on One Book Lane
• Matthew Rosza, ‘The meme-ification of Ayn Rand‘ on Salon
• Anna Stothard, ‘Objects of Berlin‘ on her blog
• Valeria Luiselli’s introduction to ‘Ayotzinapa’ on Asymptote
• Sarah Larson, ‘Amy Poehler’s Confidence Lessons‘ in The New Yorker
• Mary Costello, ‘Where I Write‘ on Scottish Book Trust
• Cynthia Haven, ‘Poet Melissa Green: Virgil would still be proud‘ on The Book Haven
• Cassandra Neace, ‘Discovering the Women of SciFi: Nnedi Okorafor‘ on Book Riot
• Cecily Kane, ‘I Want to be the Time-Traveler, Not His Wife‘ on her blog
• Emily Gould, ‘Leave Jonathan Franzen Alone‘ in Vice
• Suzanne Moore on The Hunger Games and the familiarity of the dystopian scenes in The Guardian
• Lydia Millet, ‘Gather Your Acolytes About You‘ on The Millions
• Anna Nordberg, ‘Dressing Like My Mother‘ in The New York Times
• Elisabeth Cohen, ‘Sex and the Single Librarian‘ on The Millions
• Miriam Toews, ‘The Day I Stopped Believing in God‘ on Buzzfeed
• Anne Margaret Daniel, ‘The Art of Zelda Fitzgerald‘ on Huffington Post
• Megan Amran, ‘How John Stewart and Stephen Colbert shaped my Comedy‘ on Salon
• Claire Fallon, ‘The Shocking, Twisted Stories Behind Your Favorite Nursery Rhymes‘ on Huffington Post
• Roxane Gay, ‘Bill Cosby and the rape accusers‘ in The Guardian
• Sonya Chung, ‘Reflections on Julia Child‘ on Bloom
• Jennifer S. Deayton, ‘Ladies Night in Hong Kong‘ in the Stockholm Review of Literature
• Jonathan Gibbs, Friday Book Design Blog on May-Lan Tan’s Things to Make and Break in The Independent
• Melissa Febos, ‘Against Our Own Best Time: Competition Among Writers in the Margins‘ on VIDA
• ‘Notes to Self‘, Authors look back at their work on The Guardian
• Antonia Honeywell, ‘The View from Over the Hill‘ on the Faber Academy site
• Lionel Shriver on Lammily in The Guardian
• Frances Leviston reflects on Elizabeth Bishop in the Edinburgh Review

The interviews:

• Celeste Ng in The Guardian
• Amanda Coe in The Guardian
• Margaret Drabble in The Believer
• Emma Jane Unsworth in Flux
• Michelle Magorian in We Love This Book
• Jo Mazelis on Novel Kicks
• Megan Amran on the AV Club
• Elly Danica on The Butter
• Helle Helle on English Pen
• Claudia Rankine on Guernica
• Margaret Atwood, Twitter Q&A on Harper Voyager
• Andrea Levy in The Independent
• Emily St. John Mandel on the National Book Foundation
• Rachel Joyce in the Irish Times
• Cheryl Strayed and Gillian Flynn in The New York Times
• Alina Gregorian in BOMB Magazine
• Marilynne Robinson on Open Book (BBC Radio 4) and on the National Book Foundation
• Sarah Davis-Goff, co-founder of Tramp Press on Totally Dublin
• Non Pratt on Bookends and Pages Blog
• Louise Glück on Poets and Writers
• Toni Morrison on The Colbert Report

If you want some fiction/poetry to read:

• ‘Kitty and Pussy‘ by Anne Neumann on Liars’ League
• ‘Alight at the Next‘ by Eley Williams in 3:AM Magazine
• An excerpt from Significance by Jo Mazelis on Writers’ Hub
• ‘The Imaginary Road‘ by Jackie Kay on Manchester Literature Festival (click on the box on the right of the screen to download)
• An extract from The Night Falling by Katherine Webb
• ‘Where We Must Be‘ by Laura Van den Berg on Electric Literature
• Three Poems by E.C. Belli on Blunderbuss
• ‘Exes‘ by Joanna Walsh on Queen Mob’s Tea House

The lists:

• Eliza Mariah’s Sci-Fi Round-Up on her blog
• The 50 Best Independent Fiction and Poetry Books 2014 on Flavorwire
• The Best Young Adult Books of 2014 in The Telegraph
• Christmas Gift Books People Will Love to Find Under the Tree in Marie Claire
• 17 of the Most-Highlighted Quotes from the Best Fiction by Women of the Past Two Years on Bustle
• Books of the Week in Publishers Weekly
• Latinas for Latino Lit: ‘Remarkable’ Children’s Books of 2014 on NBC
• 10 More Books Set in Edinburgh on Scottish Book Trust
• Winter Reading List on Stylist
• 10 Women Writers of LGBT YA on For Books’ Sake
• 75 Reasons Why Margaret Atwood Is Awesome on Book Riot
• Top 5 Women Writers of the Beat Generation on For Books’ Sake (Waterstones adjust your display tables accordingly.)
• The Top 10 Crime Debuts of 2014 on Crime Fiction Lover
• The 25 Books Every Woman Should Read by Lisa Simpson in Stylist
• If you like this book by a man, you’ll love this book by a woman on Buzzfeed
• 50 Writers You Need to See Read Live on Flavorwire
• 11 Memoirs Every Woman Should Read in Her 20s on Bustle

And the best things I’ve read this week:

• Ali Hope, ‘Slamming the bedroom door‘ on The Tenant of Wildfell Hall on her blog
• Isabel Rogers, ‘Truth and Fiction‘ on her blog
• Claire Fuller, ‘Crab Wood‘ on Tin House
• ‘From Literary Protégée to Competition Rival‘, Ann Patchett and Madeline Miller’s friendship on Something Rhymed
• Emma Jane Unsworth, ‘Readers love a good anti-hero so why do they shun anti-heroines‘ in The Guardian
• Shauna Miller, ‘Why We Still Need Leslie Feinberg‘ on The Atlantic
• Valeria Luiselli, ‘Building a New World‘ on Worlds Without Borders
• Nicola Griffith, ‘Branding: It Burns‘ on The Weeklings

In the Media: 16th November 2014

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

Photo by Wayne Thomas

This week, there’s been lots of discussion on my Twitter timeline about an article by Joanna Walsh, writer and creator of #ReadWomen2014 on ‘Why must the “best new writers” always be under 40?‘ prompted by Buzzfeed’s ‘20 Under 40 Debut Writers You Need to Be Reading‘. Traditionally, these lists have disadvantaged women who, for a number of reasons, often publish their first novel later than many men. So, although it’s arbitrary/silly, this week’s top slot is going to pieces by or about those who published their first book at 40 or over.

We have Linda Grant (first novel published at 44) on why she’s hooked on the Serial podcast in The Guardian; Joan Chase (47) in her own words and Amy Weldon on her both on Bloom, a site dedicated to writers whose first major work was published at 40 or over; Ruth Graham tells the true story of Laura Ingalls Wilder (65) on Slate; Alexander Chee looks at Penelope Fitzgerald (59) via Hermione Lee’s biography of her on Slate; there are interviews with Lissa Evans (42) on the One More Page blog, Helen DeWitt (43) in BOMB magazine, Meg Rosoff (48) on Rebecca Mascull’s blog, Katherine Boo (48) on the theatre production of Behind the Beautiful Forevers in the Independent and Donna Douglas (40) on Female First; while Bobbie Ann Mason (42) has a new short story ‘Ready‘ on TNB Fiction and the first chapter of Summertime by Vanessa Lafaye (51) is up to read on One Book Lane; finally, you can find out why middle-aged women are dominated self-publishing according to The Guardian.

At the other end of the spectrum, writer Nikesh Shukla supports young writers in Bristol. They publish online magazine Rife. Here’s Sammy Jones’ ‘The Five Stages of Street Harassment‘ and Jess Connett on ‘Hidden WWI: Teenagers at War‘.

There’s also been more gender discussion. Time magazine added the word ‘feminism’ to a list their readers could vote on to ‘ban’. Roxane Gay responded in The Washington Post; Hannah McGill discussed gender depiction in Sci-Fi in The List; Jess Meacham critiqued Suzanne Moore’s column on selfie’s being anti-feminist and her use of Sylvia Plath’s poetry in ‘The Eyeing of my Scars‘ on her blog, while Non Pratt looked at gender representation in Young Adult books in We Love This Book.

And the woman with the most publicity this week is Amanda Palmer, whose book The Art of Asking was published on Tuesday. She’s in The Guardian following a live web chat; interviewed by Maria Popova of Brainpickings on YouTube; has written an article for The Independent and been interviewed in Billboard.

The best of the rest articles/essays:

• Gillian Bowditch on Muriel Spark’s sealed archive of papers in The Sunday Times (paywall)
• Shirley Clarke and Elaine Dundy profile in The New Yorker
• Sarah Churchwell, ‘Why the Humanities Matter‘ in the Times Higher Education supplement
• Emily Gould on literary liars and forgiveness in Salon
• Rose Tremain on ‘The short story and its difficulties‘ on the Waterstones blog
• Tobin Dalrymple on Carol Dunlop and Julio Cortázar’s love affair in Maisonneuve
• Nicholas Rombes on Joan Didion’s Play it as it Lays on Electric Literature
• Laura Miller in defence of true crime on Salon
• Dan Gunn on Marguerite Duras at 100 in the Times Literary Supplement
• Nadine Bachan ‘Ol’ Talk‘ on reawakening her Trinidad accent in Maisonneuve
• Zoe Heller, ‘The Hard Work of Marriage‘ on Gone Girl in The New York Review of Books
• Aja Romana on celebrated Sci-Fi novelist Benjanun Sriduangkaew being exposed as a notorious internet troll on the Daily Dot
• Jess Row, ‘The Genius of the Woman Warrier at 30‘ on Slate
• Laura Thompson on the rise and rise of women detectives in The Telegraph
• Margaret C. Sullivan on Pride and Prejudice book covers over time in The Huffington Post
• Nathan Heller, ‘Why Joan Didion Matters More Than Ever‘ in Vogue
• Catherine Bruton on violence in teen fiction in The Guardian
• Tom Gatti on judging the Goldsmith’s Prize (won by Ali Smith) in the New Statesman
• Katie Law, ‘Why the words “gone” and “girl” are the latest trend in publishing‘ in the Evening Standard
• Alison Flood on Ali Smith winning the Goldsmiths Prize in The Guardian
• Ali Smith’s lecture on Virginia Woolf for the National Portrait Gallery
• Sarah Jane Abbott, ‘How I Capture the Castle Captured Me’ on Huffington Post
• Tasha Golden on the lone genus myth in Ploughshares
• Sarah Kerr, ‘Wonder Woman: The Weird, True Story‘ in The New York Review of Books
• Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore on Male escorts and female sexuality in Aeon
• Rose Bretécher on sexism in publishing on For Books’ Sake
• Anne Lamott on how a day with a sick friend bought her back to her senses on Salon
• Stella Duffy, ‘reconstruction revelation‘ on how she feels about her breast reconstruction following cancer surgery on her blog
• Maureen O’Conner, ‘Ayn Rand, Gril-Power Icon‘ in The Cut
• Mary Mann, ‘Weiter‘ in Guernica
• Edan Lepucki, ‘Notes on Likeability in Fiction‘ on The Millions
• Miranda Kiek on Elizabeth Von Arnim in The Independent
• Madeline Watts on A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing and the necessity of a ‘girl canon’ for The Believer
• Roxane Gay on Lena Dunham on her blog
• Miriam Darlington’s ‘Nature Notebook‘ in the Times (paywalled)
• Erin Keane ‘Jane Austen Slept with all the Book Bloggers‘ on Salon
• ‘Was Jane Austen a Feminist Writer?‘ on Scottish Book Trust
• Liz Kessler on why her novel about a girl coming out has been in a drawer for 15 years in The Guardian
• Helen Lewis ‘who are women dressing for, anyway‘ in the New Statesman
• Brain Pickings on Anne Lamott and the true gift of friendship
• Helen McClory on monsters for the Queen’s Ferry Press blog
• Elisabeth Geier on male bodies and women trying to navigate them on The Catapult
• Essie Fox on the allure of the gothic on One Book Lane
• Judith Levine, ‘Lena Dunham Wasn’t a Paedophile, and Neither Were You‘ in the Boston Review
• Hisham Matar, ‘The Unsaid: The Silence of Virginia Woolf‘ in The New Yorker
• Max Cairnduff, ‘Girls get murdered all the fucking time‘ on Lauren Beukes’ The Shining Girls on his blog
• Amy Uyematsu, ‘Old Asian American Poets Never Die‘ on Huffington Post
• Hannah Richell ‘And then…‘ on her blog
• Sabah Haider ‘Reflections on Northern Spirit‘ on Minor Literature[s]
• Beluah Devaney ‘Where Have All the Red-Headed Heroines Gone?‘ on For Books’ Sake
• Kathleen Anderson, ‘Why Cornel West Loves Jane Austen‘ on Huffington Post
• Helen MacKiven on her preference for female writers on her blog
• Blue Telusma, ‘Kim Kardashian doesn’t realise she’s the butt of an old racial joke‘ on The Grio

The interviews:

• Meera Syal on staring in Behind the Beautiful Forevers at the National Theatre, London
• Megan Amran in The Guardian
• Fiona McCrae, Graywolf Press Director, interviews Barbara Epler, President of New Directions on the Graywolf Press blog
• Brecken Hancock in Maisonneuve
• Emma Hannigan in Stylist
• Hilary Mantel reported in The Independent
• Helen Macdonald on The Guardian Books’ podcast
• Emily St. John Mandel on The Millions
• Jenny Offill interviews Lydia Millet on Salon
• Suzannah Dunn on Word Wenches
• Lindsay Hunter in The Believer
• Lore Segal on the Meville House website
• Margaret Atwood on the Huffington Post, responding ‘to some common tweets about Canadians‘ on Buzzfeed and in The West Australian
• Darcey Steinke on Bustle
• Jennifer Holland, Workman Publishing’s #ReadWomen2014’s author of the month on their blog
• Jo Mazelis on For Books’ Sake
• Jenny Erpenbeck on NRP Books
• Cheryl Strayed in Vanity Fair
• Tania Hershman on her flash fiction ‘Think of Icebergs‘ in Litro
• Andrea Levy in the Independent
• 5 Minutes with Marian Keyes on Eason Edition

This week’s ‘Who is Elena Ferrante?’ piece is by Jane Shilling in the New Statesman

If you want some fiction to read:

• ‘The Golden Room (Lucy’s Lips)‘ by Elizabeth Crawford in BOMB magazine
• Dorothea Lasky, ‘Never Did Amount to Anything‘ in Granta
• Olivia Laing, ‘The Other Hotel‘ on Manchester Literature Festival’s blog (click the title to download)
• Jackie Kay’s ‘Afternoon Tea‘ on Manchester Literature Festival’s blog (click the title to download)
• An extract from Jenny Erpenbeck’s The Ends of Days (tr. Susan Bernofsky) on NRP Books
• Marie-Helene Bertino on The Catapult ‘It’s about exes who fall from the sky.’

Or some non-fiction:

• ‘Thea‘ on I Will Pay £1.00 For Your Story blog
• Joanna Bourke’s introduction to Wounding the World on Virago’s website

This week’s lists

• 8 Moving First World War Books in Good Housekeeping
• Best Books to Read this November in Red magazine
• Arched Eyebrow’s 7 Favourite Books published this year on her blog
• Lydia Millet’s 5 Writing Tips in Publishers Weekly
• NetGalley’s UK Books of the Year
• Books that have taught me about ignorance on Of Books
• The top 10 books about reading in The Guardian
• 50 Novels Featuring Famous Authors as Characters on Flavorwire
• Best Reads for Christmas 2014 on Gransnet
• If You Liked Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham, You will Love… on Huffington Post
• 6 Witty Quotes from Margaret Atwood on Buzzfeed
• When Polly Vernon met Lena Dunham: 6 Things We Learned on Grazia
• Favourite Books of 2014 on Read Her Like an Open Book
• The Bookbag’s Top Ten Women’s Fiction Books 2014
• Quotations from Dan by Joanna Ruocco on the baumer
• 10 New Thought-Provoking Non-Fiction Books in Time Out New York
• 9 Books That Got Me Through My Awkward Teen Years on Bustle
• 5 Festive Novellas from Novelicious
• Some fantastic books about friendship in Rookie
• The 40 Books Every Woman Should Read on Hello Giggles

In the Media: 2nd November 2014

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

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

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

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

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

The best of the rest articles/essays:

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

The interviews:

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

In translation:

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

If you’d like some fiction to read:

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

Photo by T. Kira Madden

And the lists:

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