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In the Media: 21st December 2014

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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:

The interviews:

If you want some fiction or poetry to read:

And the lists:

And because it’s Christmas:

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: 16th November 2014

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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:

The interviews:

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

If you want some fiction to read:

Or some non-fiction:

This week’s lists

In the Media: 19th October 2014

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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.

Two things seem to have dominated this week: essays and people not being very nice to each other. Let’s start with the former:

Essays have been a talking point although most of the pieces I link to aren’t new. The resurgence of interest seems to have come from Is This a Golden Age for Women Essayists? which ran in the The New York Times a couple of weeks ago. The difference in opinions between Cheryl Strayed and Benjamin Moser is fascinating. Meghan Daum’s about to publish her second essay collection. There’s a great interview with her on her website (and how much do I want to read Selfish, Shallow and Self-Absorbed?). One of this year’s most talked about essay collections is Leslie Jamison’s The Empathy Exams, the final essay of which ‘Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain‘ is available to read on VRQ Online. Amongst others, the essay discusses Lucy Grearly. If you’re new to her (as I am), there’s an essay on her in New York Magazine by Ann Patchett. I can’t mention essays without mentioning Roxane Gay, here’s a piece in The New Inquiry by Patricia A. Matthew on why Gay’s a new feminist icon.

Not being very nice to each other then. Well, this very odd piece by Katherine Hale ran in The Guardian yesterday, in which she admits to ‘stalking’ a book blogger who gave her a bad review on Goodreads. Bibliodaze posted this response to the article. Kate McDonough on Salon was the latest person to defend Lena Dunham, this time against Kevin D. Williamson of the National Review who questioned whether Dunham is telling the truth about a sexual assault which she writes about in her book. Emily Gould wrote on Buzzfeed about her experience of online trolls and why we should fight them, while Helen Lewis in the New Statesman talked about more experiences high profile women have had of trolls and what can be done to try and stop them. Caitlin Moran in The Times (paywalled) asked ‘Should We All Quit Twitter?‘ and how it’s easy to think it’s not real, thoughts prompted by her viewing the leaked Jennifer Lawrence photographs.

Other overtly feminist piece this week are Chris Kraus’ essay ‘The New Universal‘ – on feminism and publishing in The Sydney Review of Books; ‘Women as Supporting Characters Is a Problem‘, Alison Herman reports from Comic Con for Flavorwire; Johann Thorsson tells us ‘2 Things I Learned Reading Only Books by Women for a Month‘; Jacqueline Rose, ‘We Need a Bold Scandalous Feminism‘ in The Guardian; Lorraine Berry and Martha Nichols, ‘ “Women and Power”: How Much Clout do Female Writers Have‘ in the New York Times, and philly.com asks ‘Where are the women?‘ on the National Book Awards list (which all sounds very familiar).

And Sali Hughes, writer of ‘Pretty Honest’, is the woman with the most press this week, she’s interviewed in Standard Issue and on the Boden blog and there’s an new extract (audio, this time) from the book on the 4th Estate website.

Other noteworthy essays/articles:

And the interviews:

On translation:

If you’d like some fiction to read/listen to:

Or some non-fiction:

This week’s lists:

And my favourite pieces this week: