In the Media: May 2017

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.

In prize news, the Granta Best of Young American Novelists list was announced:

• Laura Miller, ‘Granta Made Us Obsessed With “Best Young Novelist” Lists‘ on Slate
• Michelle Dean, ‘The age of anxiety: what does Granta’s best young authors list say about America?‘ in The Guardian

Fiona McFarlane took The Dylan Thomas Prize for her short story collection The High Places, Maylis de Kerangal won The Wellcome Book Prize, and Sarah Perry and Kiran Millwood-Hargrave were winners at The British Book Awards. While Kit de Waal and Rowan Hisayo Buchanan were shortlisted for The Desmond Elliott Prize.

Chris Kraus and I Love Dick are having a moment:

• Kraus is interviewed in The Guardian and on Hazlitt with Sarah Gubbins
• Rachel Syme, ‘The Liberating Obsessiveness of I Love Dick‘ in New Republic
• I don’t usually link to book reviews but ‘Reviewing this book put me off marriage. And book reviewing‘ by Anakana Schofield is a brilliant piece of writing in its own right and is about Kraus’ novel Torpor.

And The Handmaid’s Tale has generated even more pieces:

• haettinger, ‘I Grew Up In A Fundamentalist Cult — ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Was My Reality‘ on The Establishment
• Megan Garber, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale Treats Guilt as an Epidemic‘ on The Atlantic
• Priya Nair, ‘Get out of Gilead: Anti-Blackness in The Handmaid’s Tale‘ on Bitch Media
• Kayla Chadwick, ‘The Biggest Lesson Of The Handmaid’s Tale? Silence Is Complicity.‘ on the Huffington Post
• Nora Caplan-Bricker, ‘One Sly Lesson of The Handmaid’s Tale:Appreciate the Messy Feminism We Have Now‘ on Slate
• Elizabeth Day, ‘What the Handmaid’s Tale taught me about being a woman‘ on The Pool
• Laura Hudson, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale: The Biggest Changes From the Book‘ on Slate
• Alexandra Schwartz, ‘Yes, “The Handmaid’s Tale” Is Femininst‘ in The New Yorker
• Soraya Nadia McDonald, ‘In “Handmaid’s Tale” a postracial, patriarchal hellscape‘ on The Undefeated
• Various, ‘“Margaret Atwood Made a Feminist Out of Me”: 12 Authors on The Handmaid’s Tale‘ in Elle
• Stacey D’Erasmo, ‘On Power Between Women: The Handmaid’s Tale Revisited‘ on Catapult
• Jamie Lincoln, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale: The Hidden Meaning in Those Eerie Costumes‘ on Vanity Fair

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Emily Gould, ‘My Bad Parenting Advice Addiction‘ on Longreads
• Jenny Landreth, ‘Water Women: Jenny Landreth’s Swell and the Female Swimmers Who Changed the World‘ on the Waterstones’ blog
• Heather Corcoran, ‘One thing Amazon got wrong about “I Love Dick” (and women)‘ on Slate
• Judith Newman, ‘Dear Book Club: It’s You, Not Me‘ in The New York Times
• Susanna Basso (translated by Matilda Colarossi) ‘Lessons in Slowness‘ on Asymptote
• Rafia Zakaria, ‘The Lizzie Borden murder industry won’t die – but its feminism has‘ in The Guardian
• Elizabeth Alsop, ‘What Ferrante learned from Woolf‘ in The TLS
• Caren Lissner, ‘That Time a Guy Asked Me to Channel My Novel’s Protagonist On Our Creepy First Date‘ on Narratively
• Barbara Browning, ‘The Lie in My Novel‘ on Catapult
• Sarah Menkedick, ‘The Blue Jay’s Dance‘ in The Paris Review
• Sarah Menkedick, ‘The Book and the Baby‘ on Vela
• Meghan Daum, ‘What Makes a House a Home‘ on Literary Hub
• Alexandra Schwartz, ‘The Art and Activism of Grace Paley‘ in The New Yorker
• Kathryn Hughes, ‘George Eliot: is this a new portrait of the author as a young woman?‘ in The Guardian
• Lisa McInerney, ‘Don’t tell me that working-class people can’t be articulate‘ in The Guardian
• Emily Ballaine, ‘Bookselling in the 21st Century “Please Don’t Touch Me”‘ on Literary Hub
• Lisa Ko, ‘Not Finishing My Novel Would’ve Ruined My Life‘ on Literary Hub
• Hope Nicholson, ‘The fury and the fashion: comic-book heroines down the years‘ in The Guardian
• Helena Kelly, ‘The Many Ways in Which We’re Wrong About Jane Austen‘ on Literary Hub
• Jenni Fagan, on her path to publication on Dewar Art Awards
• Lorraine Berry, ‘on Didion, the South, and Race‘ on Essay Daily
• Rachel Rhys, ‘on writing a community of strangers‘ on The Literary Sofa
• Sarah Hughes, ‘‘She gave her mother 40 whacks’: the lasting fascination with Lizzie Borden‘ in The Guardian
• Nicola Streeten, ‘Drawn from history‘ in The TLS
• Sydney Moore, ‘Were women accused of witchcraft the first Essex Girls?‘ on The Pool
• Ever Dundas, ‘The Problems with Gender and Language‘ on The Skinny
• Danuta Kean, ‘Crossing the Line of Duty: why novels would never get away with TV’s crimes‘ in The Guardian
• Claire Cameron, ‘Why You Shouldn’t Get into a Fight with Jane Smiley‘ on Literary Hub
• Sunny Singh, ‘MP accuses BAME book prize of discrimination‘ on Media Diversified
• Kristen Arnett, ‘The Queer Erotics of Handholding in Literature‘ on Electric Literature
• Danuta Kean, ‘Why Brit crime fiction is paying international dividends‘ in The Guardian
• Nell Stevens, ‘Elizabeth Gaskell: Charlotte Brontë’s unlikely defender against prurient gossip‘ in The Guardian
• Sisonke Msimang, ‘All your faves are problematic: A brief history of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, stanning and the trap of #blackgirlmagic‘ on Africa Is a Country
• Rafia Zakaria, ‘A publisher of one’s own: Virginia and Leonard Woolf and the Hogarth Press‘ in The Guardian
• Laura Lam, ‘Gender-fluid Fiction: False Hearts Author on Breaking Stereotypes‘ on Waterstones’ Blog
• Dani Shapiro, ‘Writing About Marriage When You Want to Stay Married‘ on Catapult

Personal essays/memoir:

• Linda Mannheim, ‘Searching for the Internment Camp Where My Father Was Held‘ on Catapult
• Sarah Maria Griffin, ‘This Is What It’s Like To Have Sleep Paralysis‘ on Buzzfeed
• Caity Weaver, ‘My 14-Hour Search for the End of TGI Friday’s Endless Appetizers‘ on Gawker
• Ashley C. Ford, ‘My Father Spent 30 Years In Prison. Now He’s Out.‘ on Refinery29
• Eva Dillon, ‘My Father’s Secret Life as a Cold War Spy‘ on Literary Hub
• Stacy Torres, ‘The Admission‘ on Longreads
• Lisa Ko, ‘How I Learned To Live With A Chronic Skin Condition‘ on Buzzfeed
• Laura Turner, ‘On Miscarriage, Anxiety, and the Burden of Hope‘ on Catapult
• Julia Kingsford, ‘Aspergers and Asparagus‘ on Medium
• Sari Botton, ‘Hit Eject‘ on Longreads
• Kat Lister, ‘It’s essential that I tell you about my miscarriage‘ on The Pool
• Marie Myung-Ok Lee, ‘J. Stands Up‘ in The Paris Review
• Erin Chack, ‘My Boyfriend Isn’t My Soulmate, He’s My Carrot‘ on Buzzfeed
• Jennifer Hope Choi, ‘I Filmed The End Of My Parents’ Marriage‘ on Buzzfeed
• Zing Tsjeng, ‘My 14-Year-Old Cousin Taught Me How to Be a Cool Teen‘ on Broadly
• Betty Ann Adam, ‘How I lost my mother, found my family, recovered my identity‘ in Saskatoon Star Phoenix
• Clarissa Wei, ‘The Struggles of Writing About Chinese Food as a Chinese Person‘ on Munchies
• Lyz Lenz, ‘Lead Me On‘ on Hazlitt
• Eloghosa Osunde, ‘Don’t Let It Bury You‘ on Catapult
• Erin Kelly, ‘Learning to be a red lipstick kind of person‘ on The Pool
• Elisabeth Geier, ‘The Nostalgia of the Neighborhood Hardware Store‘ on Okey-Panky

Feminism:

• Nimco Ali, ‘I’m a Women’s Equality Party candidate – here’s why I’m standing against a female Labour MP‘ on The New Statesman
• Jess Zimmerman, ‘Dove’s dumb body wash bottles are an answer to a question nobody asked‘ in The Washington Post
• Eleanor Margolis, ‘Thanks Dove! Now I will finally stop comparing myself to the perfect form of a soap bottle‘ in The New Statesman
• Becca Andrews, ‘As a Girl, I Went Through Abstinence Ed. As a Woman, I’m Trying to Understand the Damage Done.‘ on Mother Jones
• Jenny Landreth, ‘Heroic British women swimming figures who deserve statues‘ in The Guardian
• Sady Doyle, ‘“Stealthing” Is Not a Trend. It’s Sexual Assault‘ in Elle
• Amy Hatvany, ‘I Taught My Son How Not to Be a Rapist‘ in Harper’s Bazaar
• Jess Zimmerman, ‘The Monstrous Female Ambition of the Harpy‘ on Catapult
• Danielle Dash, ‘Serena Williams and Black Pregnancy‘ on Danielle Dash
• Hawa Allen, ‘Becoming Meta‘ on Longreads

Society and Politics:

• Zoe Samudzi, ‘Who Are You and What Do You Really Know?‘ on The New Enquiry
• Masha Gessen, ‘The Autocrat’s Language‘ in The New York Review
• Maya Binyam, ‘Spell-Check Nation‘ on The New Enquiry
• Carla Bruce-Eddings, ‘Creating a Community for My Black Daughter‘ in The Cut
• Carole Cadwalladr, ‘The great British Brexit robbery: how our democracy was hijacked‘ in The Guardian
• Jessica Wapner, ‘Austin, Indiana: the HIV capital of small-town America‘ on Mosaic
• Nesrine Malik, ‘I Am Not Your Muslim‘ on NPR
• Javaria Akbar, ‘In praise of smelly food‘ on The Pool
• Rebecca Solnit, ‘Facing the Furies‘ in Harper’s
• Katherine Fidler, ‘How it feels when your research is used to justify disability benefit cuts‘ in The New Statesman
• Chimene Suleyman, ‘Britain is still searching for Maddie – why don’t we care about missing children of colour?‘ in International Business Times
• Julia Rampen, ‘View from Paisley: How the Conservatives are wooing Labour’s Scottish heartlands‘ in The New Statesman
• Rachel Monroe, ‘How rich hippies and developers went to war over Instagram’s favourite beach‘ in The Guardian
• Emma Green, ‘How Two Mississippi College Students Fell in Love and Decided to Join a Terrorist Group‘ on The Atlantic
• Irin Carmon, ‘If abortions become illegal, here’s how the government will prosecute women who have them‘ in The Washington Post
• Nina Caplan, ‘Beware of tea: the cuppa has started wars and ruined lives’ in The New Statesman
• Jess Phillips, ‘May says this is about stability. She should meet my constituents‘ in The Guardian
• Santilla Chingaipe, ‘Hair and social inclusivity‘ on The Saturday Paper
• Megan Garber, ‘Are We Having Too Much Fun?‘ in The Atlantic
• Ruth Whippman, ‘Work/life integration? No, thanks – I’d rather have balance‘ on The Pool

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

• Caity Weaver, ‘Dwayne Johnson for President!‘ in GQ
• Anna Leszkiewicz, ‘“I’m only human”: the rise and rise of male singers who cannot take criticism‘ in The New Statesman
• Helen Lewis, ‘From wars to power ballads: the geopolitics of Eurovision‘ in The New Statesman
• Sophie Gilbert, ‘What Does a Girlboss Look Like?‘ on The Atlantic
• Jude Rogers, ‘Bananarama – the ultimate British girl band – is back‘ on The Pool

The interviews/profiles:

• Joanna Ruocco in The Paris Review
• Dorothy Allison on Lenny
• Meg Howrey on Electric Literature
• Patricia Lockwood on The Pool, Literary Hub and The Observer
• Alyssa Cole on Jezebel
• Jess Arndt in The Cut
• Claudia Rankine on Literary Hub
• Dana Schwartz on Electric Literature
• Hala Alyan on Electric Literature
• Stephanie Powell Watts on Literary Hub
• Doree Shafrir on Hazlitt
• Edan Lepucki on The Millions
• Scaachi Koul on Hazlitt
• Olivia Sudjic in Vogue
• Irenosen Okojie on Medium and Minor Literature[s]
• Fiona Melrose on Short Story Day Africa
• Naomi Alderman in The New Statesman
• G. Willow Wilson in The New Yorker
• Kate Tempest in The Guardian
• Paula Cocozza in The Hackney Gazette
• Anne Elizabeth Moore on Literary Hub
• Claire Cameron on The Millions
• Lise Gaston on All Lit Up
• Sally Rooney on Short Story Award
• Lidia Yuknavitch on The Rumpus
• Monica Youn on Dive Dapper
• Morgan Parker in The New Yorker
• Amy Liptrot on Literary Hub
• Diane Schoemperlen on Queen Mob’s Tea House
• Jessie Burton in The TLS
• Aliette De Bodard on SciFiNow
• Elizabeth Strout in The New Yorker

The regular columnists:

• Ijeoma Oluo on The Establishment
• Lucy Mangan in Stylist
• Roxane Gay in The Guardian US
• Caitlin Moran in The Times
• 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
• Lizzy Kremer on Publishing for Humans
• Juno Dawson in Glamour
• Louise O’Neill in the Irish Examiner
• Jendella Benson on Media Diversified
• Lola Okolosie in The Guardian
• Sarah Gerard, ‘Mouthful‘ on Hazlitt
• Books by Women We’d Love to See in English on Literary Hub

In the Media, November 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.

This fortnight’s been dominated by post-election coverage:

• Rebecca Traister, ‘Blaming Clinton’s Base for Her Loss Is the Ultimate Insult‘ in The Cut
• Mo Moulton, ‘An American in Brexit Britain: Reflections After the Presidential Election‘ on Catapult
• Toni Morrison, ‘Making America White Again‘ in The New Yorker
• Sal Randolph, ‘A Letter to My Male Friends Who May Not Know That They Are Women‘ on The Rumpus
• Gabrielle Bellot, ‘Queer Writers in the Age of Trump‘ on The Atlantic
• Hennessy Williams, ‘As a Sex Worker, I’m Terrified for the Next Four Years‘ on Vice
• Masha Gessen, ‘Why We Must Protest‘ on Literary Hub
• Valeria Luiselli, ‘This Is How the World Ends?‘ on Literary Hub
• Shani Gilchrist, ‘When There Is No Option to Forget: How My Family Shares Our Stories of Survival‘ on Catapult
• Jenny Zhang, ‘Against Extinction‘ on The New Enquiry
• Helen Lewis and Caroline Crampton, ‘How Ivanka, the new first daughter, sold the Trump brand to women‘ in the New Statesman
• Various, ‘What It Means To Be A Writer In The Time Of Trump‘ on The Huffington Post
• Kali Holloway, ‘Stop Asking Me to Empathize with the White Working Class‘ on Alternet
• Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, ‘Hillary Clinton lost because of her gender, and it hurts like hell‘ in the New Statesman
• Muna Mire, ‘Resisting Trump’s Islamophobic Promise for America‘ on The New Enquiry
• Liz Meriwether, ‘After the Election, the White People of Los Angeles Adopted Pets‘ on The Cut
• Megan Garber, ‘Pop Culture Resents ‘The Establishment’ Too‘ in The Atlantic
• Sarah Blackwood, ‘Parenting by the Books: Slavery’s White Women‘ on The Hairpin
• Christina Sharpe, ‘Lose Your Kin‘ on The New Enquiry
• Melissa Febos, ‘Teaching After Trump‘ on Granta
• Rebecca Solnit, ‘How to Survive a Disaster‘ on Literary Hub
• Various, ‘Aftermath‘ in The New Yorker
• Rebecca Solnit, ‘Don’t call Clinton a weak candidate: it took decades of scheming to beat her‘ in The Guardian
• Abi Wilkinson ‘We need to talk about the online radicalisation of young, white men‘ in The Guardian
• Catherine Baker, ‘Queer grief and the secret chord with Kate McKinnon: it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah‘ on Little Queer Ideograms
• Rachel Klein, ‘I, For One, As a White Woman, Welcome Our New Alien Overlords‘ on McSweeney’s
• Caitlin Frazier, ‘The Iconic Hillary Clinton‘ on The Atlantic
• Clare Foran, ‘Women Aren’t Responsible for Hillary Clinton’s Defeat‘ on The Atlantic
• Summer Brennan, ‘Cohen Dies, Trump Wins, and We Will Sing About these Dark Times‘ on Literary Hub

And the woman with the most publicity this fortnight is Zadie Smith. She’s interviewed on Literary Hub, Nylon, Waterstones, Lenny, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Slate and profiled by Sarah Hughes in The Observer.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Rebecca Slater, ‘Verse goes viral: how young feminist writers are reclaiming poetry for the digital age‘ in The Guardian
• Mica Lemiski, ‘Does Genre Really Matter?‘ on Room
• Emily Reynolds, ‘The literary glamour of madness‘ in The TLS
• Amy Kurzweil, ‘How I Made This Comic About How I Make My Comics: An Interactive Essay‘ on Catapult
• Miranda Popkey, ‘Call Me Elena‘ on The New Enquiry
• Sian Cain, ‘Costa book award 2016 shortlists dominated by female writers‘ in The Guardian
• Danielle Groen, ‘How Rupi Kaur Became the Voice of Her Generation‘ on Flare
• Aamna Mohdin, ‘Women are horribly under-represented in the world’s top literary awards‘ on Quartz
• Alanna Bennett, ‘The Harry Potter Fandom Is At A Crossroads‘ on Buzzfeed
• Ruth Padel, ‘Writing needs connection to the outside world: a lot of it seems to get done when you’re simply living’ in The Guardian
• Katherine Faw, ‘Elena Ferrante and Me: An Irrational Essay‘ on Catapult
• Svetlana Alexievich (tr. Anna Gunin and Arch Tait), ‘In Chernobyl‘ in Five Dials
• Melinda Sailsbury, ‘Why I will no longer submit my books for review by the Daily Mail or the Sun‘ in The Guardian
• Elaine Blair, ‘Chris Kraus, Female Antihero‘ in The New Yorker
• Ruth Scurr, ‘Elena Ferrante: Game of clothes‘ in the TLS
• Cornelia Funke, ‘Hurrah for translators: why we need to translate more children’s books‘ on BookTrust
• Nina Renata Aron, ‘Fake Failures: Why Are Successful Young Women Writers Playing Miserable Online?‘ on The Millions
• Zana Fraillon, ‘on writing about refugee children: “Their resilience keeps hope alive”‘ in The Guardian
• Jane Martinson, ‘Only 1.8% of sport articles are written by women – so much for progress‘ in The Guardian
• Jo Scott-Coe, ‘The Communion of Saints‘ on Talking Writing
• Milena Britto, ‘Women Writing in 21st Century Brazil: Experimentation and Narratives of Self‘ on Critical Flame
• Bim Adenwunmi, ‘Why “The Walking Dead” Has Become Fanfiction’s Muse‘ on Buzzfeed

Photograph by Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Personal essays/memoir:

• Kathleen Alcott’s Ghosts of Thanksgiving on Literary Hub
• Alison Stine, ‘Graffiti Taught Me Grit‘ on Lenny
• Jen Maidenberg, ‘Misfit Doc: In Living Colour‘ on Queen Mob’s
• Marian Ryan, ‘Things I Never Told Her‘ on Granta
• Kelly Luce, ‘Truth, Lies, and Videotape‘ in NY Mag
• Jen Sookfong Lee, ‘I Was Once That Girl‘ on Room
• Morgan Parker, ‘How to Stay Sane While Black‘ in The New York Times
• Ana Maria Guay, ‘Living in the Labyrinth of My Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder‘ on Catapult
• Elisabeth Sherman, ‘Why I Never “Fixed” My Teeth‘ on Catapult
• Evelyn Hampton, ‘Weightlessness‘ on Catapult
• Leah Kaminsky, ‘Finding Love at the End of History‘ on Literary Hub
• Esmé Weijun Wang, ‘After the Psych Ward, Eggs Are Freedom‘ on Extra Crispy
• Linda H. Davis, ‘Open After My Death‘ on Granta
• Eliza Kostelanetz Schrader, ‘The F Word‘ on Guernica

Feminism:

• Lisa Whittington-Hill, ‘Gateway Spice‘ on Hazlitt
• Alex Ronan, ‘What Women Used Before They Could Use the Law‘ in n+1
• Zoë Beaty, ‘Why we should celebrate our difficult friendships‘ on The Pool
• Kiera Feldman, ‘With Child‘ in Harper’s

Photograph by Kevin Day

Society and Politics:

• Celeste Ng, ‘Giving Thanks Is a Political Act‘ on Literary Hub
• Jane Martinson, ‘Why didn’t the Daily Mail put the jailing of Jo Cox’s murderer on its front page?‘ in The Guardian
• Anne Helen Peterson, ‘One Hundred Years Of Men Taking Off Their Shirts‘ on Buzzfeed
• Tara Isabella Burton, ‘Cult of One‘ on Real Life
• Rebecca Altman, ‘The Toxic-Waste Drum Is Everywhere‘ on The Atlantic
• Morgan Babst, ‘Everything Is Not Fine If It’s Not Fine for Everyone‘ on Literary Hub
• Charlotte Higgins ‘The hygge conspiracy‘ in The Guardian
• Ariel Ramchandani, ‘When the Devil Enters‘ on The Atavist Magazine
• Lara Whyte, ‘The Campaign Recruiting Former Extremists to Stop Girls from Joining ISIS‘ on Broadly
• Sara Peterson, ‘I Hate Shopping (and Shops Are the Problem)‘ on Catapult

The interviews/profiles:

• Kate Tempest (and Phoebe Waller-Bridge) in The Guardian
• Brit Bennett on Broadly
• Lydia Davis on Literary Hub and The TLS
• Alice Mattison on The Rumpus
• Emily Witt on Jezebel
• Magda Szubanski in The Guardian
• Julie Koh on Asymptote
• Lara Pawson on 3:am
• Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie on Racked
• Chivvis Moor on Literary Hub
• Elif Shafak in The TLS
• Ottessa Moshfegh on Publishers Weekly
• Ambai in the Indian Express
• Margot Livesey on The Millions
• Robin Coste Lewis on Literary Hub
• Carolyn Parkhurst on The Rumpus
• Elena Ferrante on Hazlitt

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
• Lola Okolosie in The Guardian
• Sarah Gerard, ‘Mouthful‘ on Hazlitt
• Books by Women We’d Love to See in English on Literary Hub

In the Media, April 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 as traditional media are likely and the categories used are a guide, not definitives.

There’s been a strong narrative about the abuse of women over the last fortnight. Jessica Knoll wrote a personal and powerful essay about the gang rape which informed the writing of her novel Luckiest Girl Alive. ‘What I Know‘ was published on Lena Dunham’s site Lenny. Daisy Buchanan interviewed Knoll for The Pool. Jia Tolentino looked at the reporting of abuse in ‘Is this the End of the Era of the Important, Inappropriate Literary Man‘ on Jezebel. Helen Walmsley-Johnson wrote ‘The shame of abuse has held me hostage for years‘ on The Pool; Kathryn Joyce wrote ‘Out Here, No One Can Hear You Scream‘ on The Huffington Post; Jade Blair wrote, ‘Women Do What They Need To Do To Survive‘ on Hazlitt, and Louise O’Neill wrote ‘Nothing could prepare me for what happened when I published my book‘ on The Pool and ‘What a privilege it is to think that I might have touched other peoples lives in some small way‘ in The Irish Examiner. (The later is O’Neill’s weekly column which I’ve now added to the regulars section at the bottom of the post.)

The 2015 VIDA count for the number of bylines and reviews for female writers in literary magazines was announced. There’s some good news in some areas but, overall, there’s still a long way to go. Rachel McCarthy James followed this with, ‘Women in Publishing 100 Years Ago: A Historical VIDA Count: Representation and Gender (Im)Balance in 1916‘ on Literary Hub

The longlist for the Desmond Elliott Prize was announced with seven books by female writers in the running.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Sara Barrett, ‘I have autism and the lack of authentic autistic voices in books angers me‘ in The Guardian
• Narwali Serpell, ‘Africa Has Always Been Sci-Fi‘ on Literary Hub
• Boris Kachka, ‘Claudia Rankine Challenges White Teachers, Pities White Racists in AWP Keynote‘ on Vulture
• Jane Mendlesohn, ‘Why I Wrote a Novel About Sex Trafficking‘ on Literary Hub
• Kate Tempest, ‘It’s difficult to look at words as pegs to hang a plot from’ in The Guardian
• Joanna Walsh, ‘On Self-Writing‘ in the Irish Times
• Harriet Reuter-Hapgood, ‘“I wake up panicked at 2am every night”: an author reveals what it’s (really) like to write a debut novel‘ in Stylist
• Mallory Ortberg, ‘Every Meal In Wuthering Heights Ranked In Order Of Sadness‘ in The Toast
• Ros Barber, ‘For me, traditional publishing means poverty. But self-publish? No way‘ in The Guardian
• Rachel Abbott, ‘14 hour days, marketing and dealing with snobbery: my life as a self-published bestseller‘ on The Guardian
• Brigid Delaney, ‘What we write about when we write about running‘ in The Guardian
• Kelly Kerney, ‘The Impossible Task of Writing Historical Fiction‘ on Publishers Weekly
• Sofia Samatar, ‘On the 13 Words that Made Me a Writer‘ on Literary Hub
• Gaby Wood, ‘Harper Lee’s letters: priceless literary artifacts or tasteless celebrity memorabilia?‘ in The Telegraph
• Viv Groskop, ‘Celebrating Eat, Pray, Love 10 years on‘ on The Pool
• Mairi Kidd, ‘Access to books and reading should be a right‘ on The Bookseller
• Rachel Kondo, ‘Write How You Like Write: Representing Hawai’i Creole English as a Literary Participant‘ on Electric Literature
• Katie Roiphe, ‘Remembering Susan Sontag’s Final Days‘ on Literary Hub
• Rowan Whiteside, ‘Why I ❤️ Georgette Heyer‘ in Standard Issue
• Leigh Stein, ‘Millennial Days‘ in The New York Times
• David Featherstone, ‘Doreen Massey obituary‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah Hughes, ‘Why those subversive Brontë sisters still hypnotise us‘ in The Guardian
• Hanya Yanagihara, ‘Writing can be lonely‘ in The Telegraph
• Kate Elliott, ‘Writing Women Characters into Epic Fantasy Without Quotas‘ on Tor.Com
• Sara Nović, ‘on how she wrote Girl at War‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah Bakewell, ‘At the Existentialist Café‘ on Literary Hub
• Mira Ptacin, ‘Hard Truth and Deep Trauma Behind Bars‘ on Literary Hub
• Shirley Barrett, ‘How to Be a Whaler’s Wife in 1908: Boil Everything, Wash the Clothes in Gin‘ on Literary Hub
• Lucy Mangan, ‘The forgotten genius: why Anne wins the battle of the Brontës‘ in The Guardian
• Danielle Dutton, ‘On Dressing Margaret Cavendish‘ in The Believer
• Vespa Goldsworthy, ‘I started from Gatsby as a Greek dramatist starts from Antigone‘ in The Guardian
• Rachel Cooke, ‘Anita Brookner’s wry, elegant world of disappointed women‘ in The Guardian

Personal essays/memoir:

• Madison Griffiths, ‘An Open Letter to My Vagina: Sex, Pain, and Vaginismus‘ on Vice
• Lynn Steger Strong, ‘Running Still‘ in Guernica
• Lynn Steger Strong, ‘To Be a Mother, To Be a Writer‘ on Literary Hub
• Sara Black-McCulloch, ‘Catching the Light‘ on Maisonneuve
• Liz Jackson, ‘Four Years Ago Today, I Fell Out of Bed.‘ on Medium
• Susan Ito, ‘Names‘ on Catapult
• Molly Prentiss, ‘From a California Commune to New York City or, How to Be an Adult Woman in NYC‘ on Literary Hub
• Nandini Balial, ‘Agemus‘ on Midnight Breakfast
• Vivian Huyun, ‘I thought assimilation was the key to happiness, but I ended up trapped in a cultural prison‘ in The Guardian
• Abby Higgs, ‘A Conversation with Brandon‘ on Catapult
• Clare Vaye Watkins, ‘How to Escape Your Hometown‘ on Literary Hub
• Patricia Smith, ‘Bazooka Smackdown‘ in Guernica
• Marissa Korbel, ‘No, Lolita‘ on The Rumpus

Feminism:

• Katie Daubs, ‘The woman who was trans before her time‘ in The Toronto Star
• Glosswitch, ‘Cristiano Ronaldo’s approach to fatherhood is a victory for male supremacy‘ in the New Statesman
• Chimene Suleyman, ‘There is an epidemic of missing women and girls of colour in the UK‘ on Media Diversified
• Elisa Albert, ‘Confessions of a Radical Doula‘ in The Cut
• Tabitha Blankenbiller, ‘The Slow Fall of the Hot Heroine‘ on The Rumpus
• Jendella Benson, ‘Is It Worth it?: Black Women’s Voices and the Permission to Speak‘ on the Huffington Post
• Laura Bates, ‘Why is travelling alone still considered a risky, frivolous pursuit for women?‘ in The Guardian
• Rosie Fletcher, ‘It’s great that Emma Watson is standing up for feminism – but #HeforShe is the wrong approach‘ in The New Statesman

Society and Politics:

• Bettina Judd, ‘On or about July 10, 2015‘ on The Offing
• Jo Scott-Coe, ‘Listening to Kathy‘ on Catapult
• Ellen Cantarow and Alison Rose Levy, ‘A Fukushima on the Hudson?‘ in Guernica
• Christina Cauterucci, ‘We Expect Women to Have Impostor Syndrome. That’s Why We Can’t Handle Hillary Clinton.‘ on Slate
• Erica Schweigershausen, ‘How Biased Policies Push Black Girls Out of School‘ on The Cut
• Angie Maxwell, ‘Donald Trump and the Lost Cause‘ in VQR
• Miranda Trimmier, ‘Dark Pools‘ on The New Inquiry
• Patricia Lockwood, ‘Lost in Trumplandia‘ in the New Republic
• Zoe Williams, ‘These Tory messages show us why faith has no place in politics‘ in The Guardian
• Elaine Brown, ‘‘A Taste of Power’: The Woman who Led the Black Panther Party‘ on Longreads
• Rebecca Solnit, ‘Death by gentrification: the killing that shamed San Francisco‘ in The Guardian
• Amanda Chicago Lewis, ‘How Black People Are Being Shut Out of America’s Weed Boom‘ on Buzzfeed
• Emma Green, ‘Black Activism, Unchurched‘ in The Atlantic
• Eleanor Margolis, ‘“Faithful amanuensis”: how the guise of friendship is used to erase lesbian relationships‘ in The New Statesman

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

• Taffy Brodesser-Akner, ‘Water’s Edge‘ on ESPN
• Bronwen Dickey, ‘Dogs of Character: Pride, Prejudice, and the American Pit Bull Terrier‘ in VQR
• Hanna Yusuf, ‘Why the fashion elite needs to stop undermining Muslim women’s choice of clothing‘ in The Pool
• Helen Garner, ‘‘A certain sort of maleness’: on a week spent watching Russell Crowe films‘ in The Guardian
• Ali Smith, ‘The enigma of Giorgione‘ on The Royal Academy of Arts blog
• Anne Helen Peterson, ‘The Unbearable Sadness Of Ben Affleck‘ on Buzzfeed
• Anne Helen Petersen, ‘How Jennifer Garner Went Full “Minivan Majority”‘ on Buzzfeed
• Megha Majumdar, ‘Privileged Nostalgia: On Hollywood, Perception, and the Quest for Authenticity‘ on Electric Literature
• Jean Hannah Edelstein, ‘Unpicking the fascination with the Queen of Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow‘ on The Pool
• Zadie Smith, ‘Windows on the Will‘ in The New York Review of Books
• Ella Risbridger, ‘You walk differently in boots – and that’s their power‘ on The Pool

The interviews:

• Maggie Nelson in The Observer
• Ursula Le Guin on Literary Hub
• Mona Awad on Electric Literature and Tin House
• Jennifer Barber on The Rumpus
• Anne-Marie Slaughter in The Cut
• Attica Locke on the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction blog
• Phoebe Fox on Women Writers, Women’s Books
• Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney on Electric Literature
• Danielle Dutton on Literary Hub
• Marilynne Robinson in The Washington Post
• Donna Leon on the Waterstones blog
• Idra Novey in 3:AM Magazine
• Jackie Copleton on the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction blog
• Shelley Harris on Rebecca Mascull’s blog
• Dawn Tripp on Salon
• Lynn Steger Strong on Electric Literature
• Clio Gray on the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction Blog
• Edna O’Brien in The New York Times
• Helen Oyeyemi on Vice
• Camille Rankine in Interview Magazine
• Tracy Chevalier in The Independent
• Angela Flournoy and Kaitlyn Greenidge on Literary Hub
• Antonia Honeywell on Jo Hogan Writes
• Susan Orlean on Broadly
• Sinéad Gleeson on Minnie Melange

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

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

In the Media: 26th October 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.

 

This week there’s definitely a celebration of feminist role models happening. At the forefront (mostly because her book Yes, Please is out in the US on Tuesday and the UK the following week) is Amy Poehler. Bustle have 15 Quotes that Prove She’s Our Brilliant Fairy Godmother; Popsugar have 19 Times Amy Poehler Said What We Wish We’d Said, while People have her answering questions people posted on Twitter and Facebook. Amanda Hess, in Slate, wrote about Poehler joining the famous women’s comedy/memoir/advice-book club; Lydia Kiesling wrote in Salon about how Nora Ephron presides over Poehler, Dunham, Fey and Kaling’s books, while Sam Baker in Harpers Bazaar wrote about Fearless Feminist Reads and why they’re important for teenage girls as well as adults.

Someone else who’s been written about as a feminist role model this week is Jane Austen. Jane Austen: Feminist in Action by Sinéad Murphy ran on the Huffington Post blog; Alexander McCall Smith explained why he’s modernised Emma on the Waterstones’ Blog; Sarah Seltzer on Flavorwire wrote about ‘Why We Can’t Stop Reading – and Writing – Jane Austen Sequels‘, while on Something Rhymed, Emma Claire Sweeney wrote ‘In Praise of the Spinster‘ about playwright, Ann Sharpe, Austen’s family’s governess.

Another amazing woman, Joan Didion, is also being celebrated this week. Her nephew is making a documentary about her. You can watch the trailer here. He’s decided to raise funds via Kickstarter which led to Flavorwire publishing Some Other Joan Didion Kickstarter Rewards We’d Like to See and Vogue re-publishing her 1961 essay ‘On Self-Respect‘.

It would be wrong not to mention Hallowe’en this week, particularly as there’s been a group of pieces around that theme. Wired’s podcast, which features Lauren Beukes, is What’s Scarier, Haunted Houses or Haunted People?; Electric Literature have published ‘“Then, a Hellbeast Ate Them”: Notes on Horror Fiction and Expectations‘, looking at Diane Cook and Helen Oyeyemi amongst others; Sarah Perry has written on The Gothic for Aeon, and Kate Mayfield who wrote the memoir ‘The Undertaker’s Daughter’ is on For Books’ Sake talking about How Not to Write a Memoir and in The Guardian talking about ‘Growing Up in the Family Funeral Parlour‘.

Talking of scary, Gone Girl‘s still a hot topic this week. Tana Wojczuk wrote ‘Gone Girl, Bluebeard, and the Meaning of Marriage‘ in Guernica in response to Elif Bautman’s piece ‘Marriage Is an Abduction‘ from last week’s New Yorker. Amanda Ann Klein wrote about the ‘Unbearable Whiteness of Gone Girls‘ for Avidly, and Steph Cha wrote about ‘Laughing at “Gone Girl”‘ in the LA Review of Books.

This week’s other notable essays/articles:

• Maxine Frances Roper On Writing about Politics and Privilege for For Books’ Sake
• Jo Bloom on why she wrote her forthcoming novel Ridley Road
• Sonya Chung, Ruthless, Beautiful, Dangerous Comforting: How it is in the World of Tove Jansson on The Millions
• Emmanuella Kwenortey on The African Woman and her Conditional Place in the West on the Fourth Estate Blog
• Susan Elliot Wright on The Writing Life
• Jane Smiley on writing Some Luck on the Picador Blog
• Two pieces on ‘chick-lit’/the labelling of books by women – one by Deborah Batterman, ‘Is It Chick Lit? Is It Not Chick Lit? What Do We Call It?‘ on Women Writers, Women’s Books and another by India Knight, ‘Chick lit is in its death throes‘ on The Guardian
• The Literary Legacy of Women Expats in Paris on The Culture Trip
• Alina García-Lapuerta on La Belle Créole, Cuba’s first female author
• Cate Sampson, ‘“She” for “He” in Children’s Books‘ in The Guardian
• Katherine Grant on her book Sedition on the Waterstones’ Blog
• Holly Smale ‘Teem Teen‘ on celebrating YA books on The Bookseller Blog
• Cynthia Miller Coffel, ‘Fanny Trollope “Tested as Few Women Have Been“‘ on Bloom
• Erika T. Wurth, ‘Less Boring Art, More Diversity‘ in Publishers Weekly
• Lydia Kiesling in Salon on ‘“Friendship” and the new Brooklyn novel‘
• Louise Erdich on the first sentence of her piece ‘Domain’ in Granta
• Nicole Dieker on GeekGirlCon being an oasis of acceptance on Boing Boing
• Feminist Wednesday Womancrush on Cheryl Strayed
• Leslie Wilson ‘How to Remember Them?‘ on The History Girls
• Marian Keyes on Sali Hughes’ Pretty Honest and impostor syndrome
• Tracey Thorn on being asked to do the identity parade on Never Mind the Buzzcocks for the New Statesman
• Kate Merry ‘Why Is Talking About Miscarriage Still Taboo?‘ for Vice
• The Millions puts a group of writers, including Jane Smiley and Francine Prose, in a room to discuss writing in ‘The Art of Dialogue‘
• Electric Literature has a group of writers discuss their ‘lowbrow’ influences
• Alison Flood says Edith Blyton’s ‘Not as good as she used to be‘ in The Guardian
• Julie Mayhew ‘This Electric Love‘ for Standard Issue
• Annabel Smith ‘Is the Publishing Industry Ready for Truly Interactive Books‘ on The Wheeler Centre’s site
• Eve Fairbanks on ‘How personal essays conquered journalism – and why they can’t cut it‘ in The Washington Post
• Christine Hennessy on the inspiration for Ayelet Waldman’s novel Love and Treasure on Greenwich Time
• Caroline Crampton ‘Women Writers after Woolf: Still Fighting for a Room of One’s Own‘ in the New Statesman
• Joanne Harris wrote about the aftermath of last week’s Kathleen Hale piece in The Guardian in which she wrote about stalking a blogger
• Book Riot, ‘No Really, Read Ann Leckie‘ (I don’t usually include reviews but this is almost an ‘in praise of’.)
• Kate Mosse on living with a name similar to another famous person’s in The Times (paywalled)
• Malala Yousafzai, ‘Girls continue to be killed and schools blown up‘ on Waterstones’ Blog

And the interviews:

• Lisa Williamson interviews designer Alice Todd on creating the amazing cover for Williamson’s forthcoming book The Art of Being Normal in We Love This Book
• Amanda Coe on Open Book
• Sandra Newman and Roopa Farooki also on Open Book
• Elizabeth Harrower on The Monthly Book
• Nina Stibbe on Bookanista
• Luci Tapahonso, the first Navajo Poet Laureate
• Hilary Mantel in conversation with Harriet Walter for The Royal Society of Literature
• Janice Galloway on Off the Page
• Joyce Carol Oates in Nightmare magazine
• Rowan Coleman talks to Richard and Judy. (There are links to all the other R&J Book Club choice podcasts on that link too.)
• Theresa Breslin on Scottish Book Trust’s website
• Rachel Joyce on Writing.ie and on the BBC
• Kate Tempest in The Guardian
• Sarah Thornton on The Economist
• Dorothea Lasky in Granta
• Emily St. John Mandel on Broadcast Exchange
• Detective Sergeant Marnie Rome, protagonist of Sarah Hilary’s Someone Else’s Skin, on the Richard and Judy Book Club site
• Anne Rice did the Guardian Q&A
• Bell Hooks and Laverne Cox in The New Yorker
• Alice Furse on The Workshy Fop

In translation news, I’ve seen no articles this week about the identity of Elena Ferrante – hurrah! But I have seen that there’s a new imprint called Periscope devoted to translating poetry by women – hurrah!

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

• Rachel Joyce’s The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy is being adapted for BBC Radio 4. Here’s the first episode.
• ‘Technical Support‘ by Adele Geras in the Sunday Express
• The first chapter of Some Luck by Jane Smiley on the Picador blog
• Jane Flett, ‘The Things They Don’t Tell You About Fire‘ in Litro
• ‘Room to Write Short Story Prize Anthology‘ including a story by Isabel Costello
• ‘The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis‘ by Karen Russell on Electric Literature
• The all-female Stockholm Review of Literature, Volume 4
• The first chapter of The Good Children by Roopa Farooki
• Andrea Levy reading from Six Stories and an Essay on Waterstones’ Blog
• Julie Mayhew’s play The Electrical Venus on BBC Radio 4
• ‘Letter to an Optician‘ by Judy Brown on Seren Books’ blog
• Kathleen Hale ‘The Tub Is Just the Safest Place‘ in Hazllitt
• The first chapter of Head for the Edge by Kate Tough in The Scotsman

Or some non-fiction:

• An extract from Vivienne Westwood’s autobiography on the Picador Blog

This week’s lists:

• 15 Crime Books Perfect for a Winter’s Day on Dead Good Books
• Fourth Estate’s Very Best Short Stories by women
• 10 Historical Superstitions we carry on today by Karen Maitland on History Extra
• 10 Reasons to Love Ursula K. Le Guin on For Books’ Sake
• Book Loving Celebrities Name Their Favourite Fictional Reads in Stylist
• Apocalypse Now! Top 10 Novels about the End of Days by Annabel Smith
• Charlie Jane Anders on The 10 Types of Fictional Apocalypses (And What They Mean) on io9
• Sarah Hilary’s 7 Best Crime Reads of 2014 in Red magazine
• Sarah Hilary (again) with her Fictional Heroines for the Richard and Judy Book Club
• 10 Books by Women that Everyone Should Read by Julia Bell on Writers’ Hub
• 9 Reasons to read Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood on Books Speak Volumes
• The five defining moments in Arsenal’s ‘Invincible’ season by Amy Lawrence in GQ

And the best things I’ve read this week:

• Stella Duffy on cancer and The Language Battleground

In the Media: 19th October 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.

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:

• Roxane Gay on being hospitalised following an accident, written in the hospital
• Colin Dickey on Time in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando in Lapham’s Quarterly
• Neil Gaiman on ‘My Hero: Mary Shelley‘
• Bim Adewunmi’s Crush of the Week is on Claudia Winkleman’s Fringe
• Sarah Churchill on ‘The Joys of Judging the Man Booker Prize‘ (I should probably point out, lest anyone’s new to the blog, that I was one of the people to openly criticise the lack of gender parity on the longlist.)
• Elizabeth Minkel in the New Statesman on ‘Why It Doesn’t Matter what Benedict Cumberbatch thinks of Sherlock Fan Fiction‘
• Elizabeth Minkel again in the New Statesman on whether adults should read Young Adult novels
• Corrine Duyvis ‘on the decline of “issue” books‘ in The Guardian and this response to it from Caroline Clark on Queer YA.
• Members of the 4th Estate team on their favourite female characters from 4th Estate publications – Aunty Ifeoma from Purple Hibiscus; Flora 717 from The Bees
• ‘We Should All Be Feminists’, behind the cover of Adichie’s latest publication on the 4th Estate blog
• Kate Mosse on trying taxidermy in The Guardian
• Laura van den Berg ‘Natasha: On a Storyteller Raised by a Wolf‘ in The Millions
• Laura June in praise of the Amazon Reviews Anne Rice writes (yes, you read that correctly) on Vulture
• Alice Furse on ‘How to Make 48 Scotch Eggs‘ or what to do when your life changes dramatically
• Rowan Williams on Marilynne Robinson’s moral world in the New Statesman
• James Wood in the New Yorker on Rediscovering Elizabeth Harrower (late to this)
• Alison Kinney on Frankenstein as a metaphor for revision in Avidly (late to this too)
• A variety of writers on Alice Munroe in the New Yorker
• Rupert Pirie-Hunter on Agnes Owens in Overland
• Louisa Treger on Dorothy Richardson: The Forgotten Virginia Woolf on Women Writers, Women’s Books
• Kate Christensen on her favourite bar in Electric Literature
• Natalie Ferris on Christine Brooke-Rose in Frieze (published in 2012 but I’ve only just discovered her)
• Helen Pidd on Emma Jane Unsworth at Manchester Literature Festival in The Guardian
• Darcey Steinke on Barry Hannah and I on The Millions
• Elif Batuman ‘Marriage Is an Abduction‘ on Gone Girl in the New Yorker
• Antonia Honeywell, ‘Four Months till Publication‘ and tragedy strikes
• Kristiana Willsey ‘Hunger Is the Beginning of Every Folk Tale‘ on The Toast
• Catherine Lacey ‘The Question of Fate‘ in Granta
• Jessie Burton on the difficult of writing a second novel after such huge success with the first on her blog
• Emma Warren continues her series ‘A Year in Oxleas Woods‘ on Caught By the River

And the interviews:

• Margaret Atwood on why Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea is a masterpiece on ion
• Diane Cook on Electric Literature and in conversation with Sam Lipsyte in Granta
• Shelley Harris, Abigail Tarttelin and Essie Fox on One Book Lane
• Rebecca Mascull on jaffareadstoo
• Women In Clothes aka Heti, Shapton and Julavits on The Rumpus
• Qaisra Shahraz on Woman Writers, Women’s Books
• S.E. Hinton in the New Yorker
• Emily St. John Mandel on the Adventures with Words podcast
• Meike Ziervogel on Female First

On translation:

• ‘Concept and Form‘ – Poet and translator Sophie Collins interviewed in Review 31
• And in case you’re not fed up of it yet, Zeljka Marosevic, MD of Melville House UK, wrote about Elena Ferrante and whether writers should reveal their real identities following this article by Lizzy Davies in The Guardian.

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

• Tender, quarterly journal made by women
• An all-female edition of Right Hand Pointing – Short Poetry, Short Fiction and Short Art
• ‘Exquisite Corpse‘, fifteen writers including Zadie Smith and Jenny Offill co-write a story for the New York Times
• Kirstin Valdez Quade ‘Ordinary Sins‘ in The New Yorker (Quade talks about the writing of the story here)
• Kirsty Logan ‘The Elephant Dance‘ in Ambit
• Tanya Ray ‘Zoriada‘ in Granta
• Paul Theroux reading Elizabeth Taylor’s ‘The Letter Writers‘ on The New Yorker podcast
• Anne Carson ‘Krapp Hour‘ in Granta
• Jackie Kay’s ‘Dear Library‘ poems on Scottish Book Trust
• Katherine Stansfield, ‘There’s No Such Thing as Pandas‘ and three other poems on the Seren Books blog
• Kate Tempest reads her poem ‘The woman the boy became‘ on the Picador Blog
• Sylvia Plath reading ‘Daddy’

Or some non-fiction:

• An extract from India Knight’s In Your Prime: Older, Wiser, Happier in The Times (paywalled)
• Extract from The Iceberg by Marion Coutts, shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize (Warning: this made me sob)

This week’s lists:

• Louise Treger’s Top Five Feminist Characters in We Love This Book
• Val McDermid’s Top Five Crime Novels Everyone Should Read Before They Die in the Big Issue
• Lynn Kanter’s 30 Women Novelists You Should Know is up to number 13: Caroline Leavitt
• The 10 Best Short Story Collections according to Elizabeth Day in The Guardian
• Six Life Lessons from Amy Poehler in Good Housekeeping
• Judith Kinghorn’s Ten Favourite Novels by Women Writers
• Five books Jojo Moyes recommends on her blog
• Lena Dunham’s bookshelf for Strand Bookshop
• 28 Feminist Writers Recommend Books Every Man Should Read on Flavorwire
• The 50 Best Culturally Diverse Children’s Books in The Guardian

And my favourite pieces this week:

• Ursula K. Le Guin on Being a Man on Brain Pickings
• Monica Heisey’s ‘A Cool Book Review By a Hip Writer Who Has Definitely Had Sex‘ on The Hairpin
• Moira Redmond on ‘How Nylons Changed Literature‘, in The Guardian
• Mallory Ortberg, ‘Fictional Characters whose Lives Would Have Been Vastly Improved By An Abortion‘ on The Toast
• Alison Bechdel’s one panel graphic review of The Paying Guests
• Antonia Honeywell’s spoof interview of Richard Flanagan as if he was a female writer

In the Media: 5th October 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.

Is anyone else aware there’s a film version of Gone Girl out this week? Love it or loathe it, you certainly can’t miss it. Gillian Flynn’s been interviewed by Emma Brockes in The Guardian and told Vulture about 21 Things that Influenced her books. Erin Kelly wrote in the Telegraph about Why we are all in the grip of suburban noir, while Stylist ran some Words of Wisdom from History’s Greatest Female Crime Writers and Vulture ran a list of Seven Books to Scratch Your Gone Girl Itch which are not what you might expect (I’ve reviewed four and have two of the remaining three on my TBR).

Also having a moment is Jane Eyre and her creator Charlotte Brontë partly due to The Secret Life of Books‘ episode dedicated to the book last week. Presenter of that episode, Bidisha, wrote a piece telling us Beware Your Classic Heroines as they might not be all you thought they were. Pam McIlroy wrote Is Jane Eyre passive or strong? in reaction to the programme. While Claire Hayes wrote about rereading and rethinking Jane Eyre as part of the Massive Open Online Course she’s taking. And if you can’t stand Jane Eyre (just me?), here’s Lucy Hughes-Hallet’s piece from earlier in the year about Why Villette is better.

Lots this week about gender parity or, more specifically, the lack of it. Anne Boyd Rioux wrote on her blog about the Challenge to a (Woman) Writer’s Credibility following the Washington Post’s review of Karen Abbott’s Liar Temptress Soldier Spy and on The Millions asked Is There No Gender Equity in Nonfiction? (I don’t need to remind you not to read the comments on that one, do I?) Rebecca Winson from For Books’ Sake wrote in the TES about their Balance the Books campaign, to challenge the gender divide on the new UK GCSE specifications. While Elisabeth Donnelly wrote on Flavorwire about the difference between Lena Dunham and Aziz Ansari’s Million Dollar Book Deals.

(Portrait by Jay Grabiec )

Talking of Lena Dunham (and other current high profile feminists), she’s still big news this week following the publication of her book. Roxane Gay interviewed her on Vulture and posted the outtakes. While the New York Times ran a piece on how she was turning her book tour into ‘a Literary Circus’. While the LA Times linked her with Laurie Penny to discuss how they are ‘rewriting womanhood for the 21st Century‘. Standard Issue interviewed Penny while the TLS ran a piece discussing Penny’s book alongside Laura Bates’ Everyday Sexism and The Vagenda titled ‘Modern Sexism‘. And as I’ve mentioned Gay, I’m very excited by the news that The Toast have hired her to run their new sister site ‘The Butter’.

In translated literature news, there’s a great portrait of Russian writer Lyudmila Ulitskaya in The New Yorker and a piece on Chinese Women Writers by Chialin Yu on Women Writers, Women’s Books. Still the Elena Ferrante pieces continue: there’s a podcast on The New Yorker about her mysterious power and Kat Stoeffel has a girl-crush on her on The Cut. While there’s an extract of Catherine Bessonart’s forthcoming novel And if, at Notre Dame, by night, translated by Louise LaLaurie on French Culture. All the more interesting for having the original text alongside the translation. And finally, Sal Robinson at Melville House commented on the possibility of a Women in Translation prize.

I never mention poetry. It’s not because I don’t enjoy it, more that I don’t feel even vaguely qualified to talk about it. However, I’m changing that as of this week (talking about it, that is). Poet of the moment, Kate Tempest is in The Guardian talking about how rapping changed her life. This fantastic poem, Leak by Lauren Levin in The Brooklyn Rail is well worth a read. While Patience Agbabi performs the Prologue from her reworking of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.

If you prefer prose, Lionel Shriver emerged as the winner of the BBC National Short Story Award, you can read ‘Kilifi Creek‘ on The Guardian site; Hilary Mantel’s ‘The Long QT‘ from The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher; the opening of Marilynne Robinson’s new novel ‘Lila’ on the Virago Books, or Bidisha’s new novel-length fiction work Esha Ex on her blog.

The best of the rest articles:

• Jenny Diski’s second entry in her cancer diary in the LRB.
• Olivia Laing on Loneliness on Aeon (very late to this but it’s excellent).
• Alissa Nutting’s favourite bar on The Millions.
• Ruth Ozeki on buddhism and her writing on The Dish.
• Kate Mayfield on death on gransnet.
• Emma Claire Sweeney on the friendship between Zora Neale Hurston and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings on Something Rhymed.
• Kate Mosse on taxidermy in the Daily Express.
• Stella Duffy on the Tories ‘Aspiration Suffocation’ (older but very worth it, as is anything Duffy writes) on her blog.
• Rob Hardy on Nicola Griffith’s Hild and female identity on The Critical Flame.
• Rebecca Makkai on Literary Mansplaining on Read Her Like an Open Book.
• Elisabeth Donnelly on Jesmyn Ward’s Men We Reaped and Ferguson on Flavorwire.

And the interviews:

• Marilynne Robinson in the New York Times.
• Kathleen Founds on Electric Literature.
• Caitlin Moran in US Cosmopolitan where she discusses THAT tweet.
• Jesmyn Ward (again) discussing Salvage the Bones on Writers & Company.
• S.D. Sykes on Rebecca Mascull’s blog (which made me even more desperate to read Sykes’ novel).
• Edna O’Brien in The Independent.
• Rivka Galchen on Poets & Writers.
• R.J. Palaccio on The Guardian Children’s Books’ Podcast.

This week’s lists:

• The Best Sentences from Debo Mitford’s Wait for Me! on The Toast.
• Flavorwire’s 10 Must Read Books for October.
• Bustle’s October’s Best Books.
• Seven Japanese Authors to Read (who aren’t Haruki Murakami) on BookRiot.

And my favourite pieces this week:

• Anne Booth on burning books and why tackling the darkest corners of society in books is important.
• Zadie Smith ‘Find Your Beach‘ on the limitless mind and Manhattan.
• The new edition of Five Dials magazine, the second part of the #ReadWomen2014 edited edition. A smorgasbord of fiction and non-fiction pieces.
• Marina Benjamin on her changing relationship with her daughter in Aeon.
• Susan Minot on the Brown sisters’ Forty Portraits in Forty Years.