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