In the media is a fortnightly round-up of features written by, about or containing female writers that have appeared during the previous fortnight and I think are insightful, interesting and/or thought provoking. Linking to them is not necessarily a sign that I agree with everything that’s said but it’s definitely an indication that they’ve made me think. I’m using the term ‘media’ to include social media, so links to blog posts as well as traditional media are likely and the categories used are a guide, not definitives.
This fortnight’s mostly been about end of year lists. Last year I linked to those that were gender balanced but this year I gave up counting after the first two, deciding it was a futile endeavour. Having said that, Sarah Seltzer says , ‘White Men Are the Minority on This Year’s Biggest Book Lists‘ on Flavorwire and there was some excitement around a new ‘Best UK novels’ list commissioned by the BBC. On The Pool, Lynn Enright said ‘Women writers dominate the top spots in list of best British novels‘. Which they do but the list as a whole isn’t balanced and it’s dominated by Nineteenth Century novels.
A fortnight ago I was going to begin this piece by mentioning The Good Immigrant an essay collection being published by Unbounders which means it needed crowdfunding. It includes essays by Chimene Suleyman, Bim Adewumni, Salena Godden, Sabrina Mahfouz, Coco Khan, Sarah Sahim and Reni Eddo Lodge and was fully funded in three days, partly thanks to JK Rowling. You can read about what an excellent person she is and what a great collection it sounds in The Guardian. And you can still contribute to the funding.
Clare Vaye Watkins essay ‘On Pandering’ is still being discussed. She talks about it further (with Marlon James) on NPR. Anne Boyd Rioux responded with ‘A Brief History of Pandering‘ on The Rumpus. Aya de Leon responded initially with ‘“On Pandering” and Subversive Revelations of Female Insecurity‘ and then to Marlon James’ Guardian conversation with ‘On Pandering, White Women as Scapegoats, and the Literary Industry as a Hand-Me-Down‘ on her blog, while Dreda Say Mitchell replied with ‘Black authors don’t write only for white women‘ in the Guardian.
In prize news, Sarah Howe won the resurrected Young Writer of the Year Award for her poetry collection Loop of Jade. She’s profiled in The Sunday Times (£) and interviewed on Bookanista and The Workshy Fop. And the Saltire Society Literary Award was announced with wins for Helen McClory, Patricia Andrew and Tanja Bueltmann.
The best of the rest:
On or about books/writers/language:
- Harper Lee, ‘My Christmas in New York‘ in The Guardian
- Blake Butler, ‘The Hallucinatory Terror of Unica Zürn‘ on Vice
- Patti Marxsen, ‘A Taste of Immortality: The Post-Earthquake Haitian Novel‘ in The Critical Flame
- Svetlana Alexievich, ‘On the Battle Lost‘ on Nobel Prize
- Alison Flood, ‘How Amazon came to dominate fiction in translation‘ in The Guardian
- Jane Hu, ‘Between Us: A Queer Theorist’s Devoted Husband and Enduring Legacy‘ in The New Yorker
- David Griffith, ‘The Displaced Person: Reading Flannery O’Connor in the age of Islamophobia.‘ on The Paris Review
- Amy Watkin, ‘Women Who Should Be Pretty Pissed Off: Jane Austen Is Probably Mad at Us‘ on McSweeney’s
- Siri Hustvedt, ‘Knausgaard Writes Like a Woman: On Gendered Literature and the Feminization of Feelings‘ on Literary Hub
- Sandeep Parmar, ‘Not a British Subject: Race and Poetry in the UK‘ in The Los Angeles Review of Books
- Anne Enright, ‘Antigone in Galway: on the dishonoured dead‘ in the London Review of Books
- Melissa Benn, ‘Vivian Gornick: one of the most significant writers you have probably never heard of‘ in The New Statesman
- Zanib Mian, ‘‘We need books that just happen to feature a Muslim protagonist’‘ in THe Bookseller
- Theresa Shim, ‘I Read Because We’re All Storytellers — It’s Human Nature, After All.‘ on Medium
- Susie Day, ‘Why we have to create more disabled characters in children’s fiction‘ in The Guardian
- Ginger Strand, ‘How Jane Vonnegut Made Kurt Vonnegut a Writer‘ in The New Yorker
- Stephanie LaCava, ‘Slow Days, Fast Company:Eve Babitz’s singular take on Los Angeles.‘ on The Paris Review
- John Mullan, ‘How Jane Austen’s Emma changed the face of fiction‘ in The Guardian
- Lorraine Berry, ‘How the Literary Class System Is Impoverishing Literature‘ on Literary Hub
- Margaret Atwood, ‘My journey with a young writer‘ on Medium
- Alana Massey, ‘Molly Crabapple Is The Writer Who Made Me A Writer‘ on Buzzfeed
- Morgan Parker, ‘I Don’t Need Diverse Books: On Re-defining ‘We’ and Making Black Art‘ on The Poetry Foundation
- Alison Flood, ‘Earliest known biography of an African woman translated to English for the first time‘ in The Guardian
- Sarah Farooqui, ‘Why Ismat Chugtai’s stories should not be dropped from Rajasthan’s school textbooks‘ in Business Standard
- Shami Chakrabarti, ‘How do we keep up the fight for democratic values? With solidarity and storytelling’ in The Guardian
- Ester Bloom, ‘When Women’s Literary Tastes Are Deemed Less Worthy‘ on The Atlantic
- Sarah Franklin, ‘“Short stories lift you out of your own world for 10 minutes”‘ on The Pool
- Professor Sharon Rustin, ‘The Science of Life and Death in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein‘ in The Public Domain Review
- Anne de Courcy, ‘The prime minister fell in love with his daughter’s best friend‘ in The Guardian
Personal essays/memoir:
- Terri White, ‘Fairytale of New York?‘ on The Pool
- Leslie Kendall Dye, ‘Contrast Study‘ on Vela
- Anne Thériault, ‘Being a Girl: A Brief History of Personal Violence‘ on The Belle Jar
- Andrea Yu, ‘Going Back Home: Life as a Reverse Immigrant‘ in The Wilson Quarterly
- Sulagna Misra, ‘Learning Body Positivity From a 700-Year-Old Hindu Statue‘ on Racked
- Karissa Chen, ‘The Audacity to Dream: On Asian Women, Feminism, and My Grandmother‘ on Vida
- Jess Zimmerman, ‘The Year in Luck‘ on Hazlitt
- Alexandra Kimball, ‘Unpregnant: The silent, secret grief of miscarriage‘ in The Globe and The Mail
- Katie Klabusich, ‘When The Poor Get Taken Advantage Of By Friends And Family‘ on The Establishment
- Alana Massey, ‘An Ode to the Hometown Friends Who Got Away‘ on The Cut
- Samantha, ‘Do Black Girls Even Get to Be Depressed?‘ on Bitches Gotta Eat
- Katy Waldman, ‘There Once Was a Girl: Against the false narratives of anorexia.‘ on Slate
- Jennifer Tseng, ‘How to Leave an Island: on Life, Libraries, and Commuting by Canoe‘ on Literary Hub
- Kelly Thompson, ‘The Story of My Fear Over Time‘ on The Rumpus
- Rachel Wilkinson, ‘Valuation Methods‘ on The Rumpus
- Caroline Crampton, ‘Travelling alone as a woman is incredibly empowering‘ on The Pool
- Ashley Ford, ‘How I Got Depressed, Forgave Myself, and Grew Up in the Process‘ in Elle
- Marisa Bate, ‘A letter to my friend: you are experiencing emotional abuse‘ in The Pool
- Laura Lampton Scott, ‘The Person Next to You on a Plane‘ on Electric Literature
- Collette Arrand, ‘Chrysalis: Transitioning and My Trans Identity‘ in The Toast
- Porochista Khakpour, ‘My Life in the New Age‘ in VQR
- Jhumpa Lahiri, ‘Teach Yourself Italian‘ in The New Yorker
- Molly Crabapple, ‘My Life in a Parisian Bookstore‘ on Literary Hub
- Alisson Wood, ‘‘Get Home Safe,’ My Rapist Said‘ in The New York Times
Feminism:
- Hermione Hoby, ‘The problem with being ‘badass’‘ in The Guardian
- Anonymous, ‘No, Mrs Mugabe, I am not responsible for my rape.‘ on Media Diversified
- Arabelle Sicardi, ‘Beauty Is Broken‘ on Medium
- Cass Geller, ‘I Am Woman, Hear Me Curse: Confessions Of A Potty Mouth‘ on Femsplain
- Jessica Woodbury, ‘“In Good Conscience”: Mormon Feminists on the Brink‘ in The Toast
- Gaby Hinsliff, ‘Why we should talk about menopause in the workplace‘ on The Pool
- Professor Heidi Safia Mirza, ‘Shame and Sexual Harassment‘ on Sexual Harassment in Higher Education
- Ratika Kapur, ‘Delhi’s same-sex carriages: The ladies’ compartment is a public space where women can assert their independence‘ in The Independent
- Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, ‘Do some men *still* find working women a problem?‘ on The Pool
- Ina Goel, ‘Menstrual Chronicles from Delhi‘ on The Fem
Society and Politics:
- Maya Goodfellow, ‘America may be ‘Trumped’, but Britain has its demons too‘ on Media Diversified
- Sandra Newman, ‘Possessed by a mask‘ on Aeon
- Olga Khazan, ‘The Hardest Job‘ on The Atlantic
- Deanna Othman, ‘Where was Donald Trump radicalized?: The hate-spewing candidate proves any ideology can lead to radicalization‘ on Salon
- April White, ‘The Divorce Colony‘ in The Atavist Magazine
- Priya Rane, ‘“The Silent Majority of Muslims”: Islamophobia and Counter Extremism in the UK‘ on Media Diversified
- Sarah Schweitzer, ‘The life and times of Strider Wolf‘ in The Boston Globe
- Eula Biss, ‘White Debt: Reckoning with what is owed — and what can never be repaid — for racial privilege.‘ in The New York Times
- Rachel Shabi, ‘Were you carried away by Hilary Benn’s ‘electrifying’ speech? This is political theatre, not democracy‘ in The Independent
- Jennifer Mascia, ‘What It Feels Like to Cover Gun Violence in America‘ in Vogue
- Kiona Smith-Strickland, ‘Princesses, Slaves, and Explosives: The Scandalous Origin of Vaccines‘ on Gizmodo
- Maya Goodfellow, ‘If only Diane Abbott had a job! Then we wouldn’t all have to describe her as “Corbyn’s former lover”‘ in The Independent
- Paris Lees, ‘“Being transgender is not a trend” Paris Lees on why being trans shouldn’t be headline news‘ in Stylist
Film, Television, Music, Art and Fashion:
- Ariel Levy, ‘Dolls and Feelings: Jill Soloway’s Post-Patriarchal Television‘ in The New Yorker
- Marisa Crawford, ‘Bloodlines: No Wave Performance Task Force’s PERIOD PIECE Traces the Lineage of Menstrual Art‘ on Weird Sister
- Shaadi Devereaux, ‘Netflix, Uncovering Cycles of Abuse and Chill: Jessica Jones and Domestic Violence‘ on Model View Culture
- Megan Koester, ‘Why It Sucks to Be a Woman in Comedy‘ on Vice
- Katherine Schwab, ‘Highbrow Ink‘ in The Atlantic
- Adriana Tobin, ‘Why Women’s Pockets Are Useless: A History‘ on Marketplace
- Gabrielle Jackson, ‘Please Sia, don’t show us your face‘ in The Guardian
The interviews:
- Jennifer Baker on The Rumpus
- Molly Crabapple on NPR, in The Guardian
- Diane Lefer on Awst Press
- Lauren Groff on Vulture
- Elaine Sciolino on Literary Hub
- Elena Ferrante in the Financial Times
- bel hooks in The New York Times
- Jane Ciabattari on The Rumpus
- Kate Gavino on Electric Literature
- Nell Zink in Tank Magazine
- Debra Monroe on The Rumpus
- Miranda July in The Believer
- Ratika Kapur in The Hindu
- Bette Adriaanse in Structo Magazine
- Sloane Crosley on Bookanista
- Louisa Hall on The Rumpus
- Dawn Lundy Martin on Literary Hub
- Isabel Allende in The Guardian
- Diana Athill in The Independent
- Naja Marie Aidt in BOMB Magazine
- Catherynne M. Valente on Electric Literature
- Alex Mar on Electric Literature
The regular columnists:
- Laurie Penny in The New Statesman
- Lucy Mangan in Stylist
- Roxane Gay in The Guardian US
- Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in The Independent
- Caitlin Moran in The Times
- Lauren Laverne in The Pool
- Ella Risbridger in The Pool
- Sali Hughes in The Pool
- Bim Adewunmi in The Guardian
- Sophie Heawood in The Guardian
- Eva Wiseman in The Observer
- Tracey Thorn in The New Statesman
- Chimene Suleyman and Maya Goodfellow on Media Diversified
- Josie Pickens on Ebony
- Bridget Christie in The Guardian
- Lizzy Kremer on Publishing for Humans
The Writes of Womxn 