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 it’s been almost impossible to escape Fifty Shades of Grey and the commentary surrounding it. Girl on the Net wrote ‘Is 50 Shades of Grey abuse?‘ on her blog; Leslie Bennets wrote, ‘Sex, Lies and Fifty Shades‘ for EW; Janice Turner wrote ‘At last, a man who knows what women want‘ in The Times, while Eva Wiseman went with ‘Why Fifty Shades finds itself in a world of pain‘ in The Observer.
And the pieces about and around the ‘new’ Harper Lee novel keep coming; The Guardian reported ‘Harper Lee ‘hurt and humiliated’ by Mockingbird sequel controversy‘; Salon reported on ‘Harper Lee and America’s silent abuse epidemic‘; Sadie Stein wrote, ‘Hot Stove‘ in The Paris Review; The New Yorker went with ‘Harper Lee and the Benefit of the Doubt‘; McSweeney’s ran ‘Harper Lee’s Letters to Her Editor After the Publication of To Kill a Mockingbird‘; The Los Angeles Times asked ‘Is Harper Lee’s new book headed for Hollywood?‘; while the Huffington Post asked ‘What Did Atticus Finch Think of the Civil Rights Movement?‘
There’s also been a focus on women’s deaths with the launch of The Femicide Census. Karen Ingala Smith wrote, ‘Femicide is a leading a cause of premature death for women – why aren’t we doing more?‘ and Sarah Ditum, ‘Why we need a Femicide Census‘ both in the New Statesman, while Parker Marie Malloy wrote ‘Trans Women of Color Deserve to Be Mourned as Much as Leelah Alcorn‘ on Slate.
The best of the rest articles/essays:
- Megan Garber, ‘Foucault That Noise: The Terror of Highbrow Mispronunciation‘ in The Atlantic
- Siobhan Phillips, ‘Beauty Work: Lessons in Ballet‘ in The Toast
- Emily Parker, ‘Writing Under Embargo: The Challenges of Controlled Information in Cuba‘ on Discourse in Progress
- Lee Siegel, ‘The Poet’s Keeper: Rereading Eileen Simpson’s “Poets in Their Youth”‘ in The New York Times
- Jaclyn Voran, ‘The Rise of the Teenage Breast Reduction‘ in The Atlantic
- Alana Semuels, ‘Is Ending Segregation the Key to Ending Poverty?‘ in The Atlantic
- Tara Ison, ‘How to lose your virginity: What movies taught me about sex and vulnerability‘ on Salon
- Perks, ‘Paul Dacre Leaves House Wearing Unflattering Suit, Sporting High Forehead Haircut and No Make Up‘ in the Evening Harold (I don’t know the gender of the person who wrote this but figured it was worth it for the Daily Mail ridiculing.)
- Lizzy Kremer, ‘Here I Am, In Your House‘ on her blog, Publishing for Humans
- Snigdha Poonam, ‘The Fixer‘ in Granta
- Melissa Harrison, on The Fish Ladder and female nature writers on Caught By the River
- Rosalind Jana, ‘Reckless‘ on her blog Clothes, Camera and Coffee
- Ann Morgan, ‘All the world’s a page: One woman’s year-long quest to read a book from every country‘ in The Independent
- Glosswitch, ‘Paternity leave: why we should stop romanticising fatherhood‘ on the New Statesman
- Lissa Evans, ‘I’m Serious About This‘ on Commonwealth Writers
- Paul Collins, ‘Vanishing Act‘ on Barbara Newhall Follett in Lapham’s Quarterly
- Yvonne Roberts, ‘Depression and the fragility of the strong, silent male‘ in The Guardian
- Gayle Lazda, ‘Valentine’s Day is Over: Celebrating the Literary Spinster‘ on BookMachine
- Marjorie Brennan, ‘We’ll talk openly about sex – but why are periods still a taboo subject?‘ in the Irish Examiner
- Marissa Higgins, ‘No Results Found‘ in Guernica
- Megan Garber, ‘But Seriously, ‘”Ought Women to Learn the Alphabet?”‘ in The Atlantic
- Emily Bolton, ‘“My Macabre Passion”: The Musical Saw‘ in The Toast
- Elisabeth Donnelly, ‘Joni Mitchell Wants to Define Her Own Legacy — So Why Don’t We Let Her?‘ on Flavorwire
- Juhanna Rogers, ‘Lessons I’ve Learned as a Black Woman World Traveler‘ on For Harriet
- Suzanne Moore, ‘The Baftas don’t even bother with tokenism any more‘ in The Guardian
- Dianca London Potts, ‘I, Tituba: Working as a Historical Reenactor in Salem‘ in The Toast
- Miranda Ward, ‘Dream Body‘ in Vela
- Katherine Heiny, ‘With Writing, Opportunity Comes From Small Moments‘ on The Atlantic
- Sadie Stein, ‘Into the Weekend‘ on Elizabeth Bowen in The Paris Review
- Francine Prose, ‘The Case for Hollywood History‘ in The New York Review of Books
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, ‘Democracy, Deferred‘ on The Atlantic
- Stella Newman, ‘Stella’s Dream Valentine’s Date‘ on Handwritten Girl
- Helen Lewis, ‘Beyond the pink bus: why we still need to talk about “women’s issues”‘ on the New Statesman
- Margaret Sullivan, ‘The Times and Transgender Issues (Part 1 of 2): On Pronouns‘ in The New York Times
- Maria Popova, ‘Joan Didion’s Favorite Recipes‘ on Brainpickings
- Amy Collier, ‘A Paint Company Describes White Paint Colors‘ in The Toast
- Katy Phillips, ‘My Feminist Engagement (And Why I Won’t Crash Diet to be a Bride)‘ on Vagenda
- Lisa Gardner, ‘on Researching for Crash & Burn‘ on WHSmith Blog
- Mallory Ortberg, ‘What The Happiest Woman In The World Looks Like‘ in The Toast
- Emily Gould, ‘What Would Laurie Colwin Do?: On Eating and Contentment‘ in The Toast
- Rob Dunn, ‘The Hearts of Mary Shelley‘ in the Huffington Post
- Helen Harris, ‘Where are all the grandparents in modern fiction?‘ in The Guardian
- Kait Heacock, ‘I Spent A Year Following #ReadWomen2014, And I Learned 5 Big Lessons From Reading Female Voices‘ on Bustle
- Emily Bullock, ‘Double English‘ on Bookanista
- Deborah McKinlay, ‘In Praise of Love Letters‘ on One Book Lane
- Alexander McCall Smith, ‘Very Barbara Pym‘ in The Guardian
- Bethany Black, ‘As a Trans Woman, You Find That Your Stories Are Rarely Told‘ in the Huffington Post
- Anthony Lawton, ‘Rosemary Sutcliff’s account of her First Love‘ on Slightly Foxed
- Tanya Landman, ‘YA – A Double Edged Sword?‘ on The History Girls
- Robin Black, ‘One of the Most Difficult Things About this Career‘ on Gulf Coast
- Diana Walter, ‘How To Tell If You Are In A Logic Puzzle‘ in The Butter
- Terese Svoboda, ‘The Too Small House: Lola Ridge and I‘ in The Los Angeles Review of Books
- Hannah Beckerman, ‘A Year in the Life of a Debut Novelist‘ on the Huffington Post
- Aminatta Forna, ‘Don’t judge a book by its author‘ in The Guardian
- Gail Rebuck, ‘Reflecting on Women in Publishing‘ in The Bookseller
- Andrew Dickson, ‘Sarah Kane: a Blast from the past‘ in The Guardian
- Francine Prose, ‘on the Modern Classic Novel A House and its Head by Ivy Compton-Burnett‘ on NYBooks (PDF)
- Alissa Nutting ‘on Sara Woods’ Sara or the Existence of Fire‘ on Electric Literature
- Myriam Francois-Cerrah, ‘Feminism has been hijacked by white middle-class women‘ in the New Statesman
- Jennifer Weiner responds to Jonathan Franzen’s latest comments on her blog
- Brooke Jarvis, ‘Homeward‘ in The California Sunday Magazine
- Cat Winters, ‘US Suffragettes in YA Fiction‘ on For Books’ Sake
- Mashaal Mir, ‘Chapel Hill shooting: Would the media have covered the tragedy if Twitter didn’t exist, and what would have happened if the murderer was Muslim?‘ in The Independent
- Marion McGilvary, ‘The importance of my work ‘family’‘ in The Guardian
- Sophie Heawood, ‘Think you don’t have a racist bone in your body?‘ in The Guardian
- Lorrie Moore, ‘Our Date with Miranda‘ in The New York Review of Books
- Diane Watts #mylgbtbooks 8-14 February on Storify
- Kathryn Hughes, ‘Angela Brazil: dorm feasts and red-hot pashes‘ in The Guardian
- Colin Stokes, ‘Pride and Prejudice in the Club‘ in The New Yorker
- Louise O’Neill, ‘Single White Female‘ in the Irish Examiner
- Jennifer Weiner, ‘Great! Another Thing to Hate About Ourselves‘ in the New York Times
- Elizabeth Kolbert, ‘A Stone for My Great-Grandmother‘ in The New Yorker
- Laura Van Den Berg on the complex writing process behind Find Me on Read Her Like an Open Book
The interviews:
- Fay Weldon in The Guardian
- Susan Daniel in The Times of India
- Kelly Link on The Millions
- Liu Yu in The New York Review of Books
- Sarah Gerard on Electric Literature
- Fay Weldon web chat on The Guardian
- Ann Pancake on Bloom
- Virginia Burges on Bookbag
- Roxane Gay on Poets & Writers
- Eva Holland on Longreads
- Cate Marvin on American Microreviews and Interviews
- Meghan Daum on Forth
- Sara Baume in The Irish Times
- Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis and Shannon Watters, creators of Lumberjanes on Comic Alliance
- Katherine Heiny in The Observer
- Anne Tyler in The Observer
If you want some fiction/poetry to read:
- An extract from The Impossible Fairytale by Han Yoojoo (tr. Janet Hong) on PEN American Centre
- ‘The Tree Planted By Water‘ by Megan Byrne on Necessary Fiction
- ‘Labyrinth‘ by Amelia Gray in The New Yorker which she discusses here
- An excerpt from Sister Golden Hair by Darcey Steinke on Hypertext
- An excerpt from Me and My Daddy Listen to Bob Marley by Ann Pancake on Bloom
- ‘Forest fire, supper time‘ by K.T. Billey on Blunderbuss
- ‘The Transparency Project‘ by Alissa Nutting on Guernica
- ‘There Is an Angel Inside Me I’m Constantly Shocking‘ by Sabrina Tom in the New Orleans Review
- ‘Making Monuments‘ by Christine Murray on Poethead
- ‘The Bottomless Pit‘ by Sharma Shields on Electric Literature
- An extract from The Longest Fight by Emily Bullock on Bookanista
- An extract from Dust by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor on Penguin Random House Canada
- ‘The Time Being‘ by Antonia Honeywell (a prequel story to The Ship) on Whole Story Audiobooks
- ‘Penelope‘ by Sarah Thomasin on Three Drops Poetry
- ‘formal place setting‘ by Sophie Collins and Livia Franchini in 3:AM Magazine
- ‘Happy Valentines‘ by Amie Taylor on The 1033 Project
- ‘Driveways‘ by Kathryn Ailes in Quotidian
- ‘The House Made of Sugar‘ by Silvina Ocampo (tr. Daniel Balderston) on Longreads
The lists:
- The 2015 Amelia Bloomer Project List (Best Feminist Books for Children and Young Adults) on Amelia Bloomer
- Five Books Which Romanced Me on Louise Marley’s blog
- 6 Awesome YA Books Coming in February on the Huffington Post
- The top 10 books about addiction in The Guardian
- 10 Reasons to Love Edna O’Brien on For Books’ Sake
- 2015 Fiction Preview, Part 2: 15 Books to Add to Your Spring List on Read Her Like an Open Book
- Maggie Nelson’s Six Non-Fiction Writers in Vela
- 19 Unforgettable Children’s Books That Celebrate Diversity on Buzzfeed
- 10 Young American Poets Changing the Face of Poetry on The Culture Trip
- 19 Stories About Love in The Riveter
- Six Books by Black Women We’re Looking Forward to in 2015 on For Harriet
My favourite pieces this week:
- Leesa Cross-Smith, ‘Red & Lipstick‘ on Real Pants
- Naomi Alderman, ‘A Fat Person Making a Fitness App Is Like a Nun Giving Sex Advice, Right?‘ on Matter
- Emma Green, ‘Helen Keller Puts the Smackdown on Mansplaining‘ on The Atlantic
- Emma Jane Unsworth, ‘Holidays for one: why I love to hit the road alone‘ in The Guardian
The Writes of Womxn 