In the Media, April 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.

It’s the bicentenary of Charlotte Brontë’s birth. Contributors including Sarah Waters, Margaret Drabble and Jeanette Winterson reflect on Jane Eyre in The Guardian; Samantha Ellis wrote about ‘The Greatest Heroines of All Time‘ on the BBC, and Sam Jordison asked, ‘Reading Jane Eyre: can we truly understand Charlotte Brontë or her heroine today?‘ in The Guardian. The Brontë Blog is doing an excellent job of curating everything and well worth having a look at.

The Guardian commissioned some research into the 70 million comments which have been left on its website since 2006. The results revealed that while the highest commenters are white men, the most abuse was left on articles by eight women writers and two male writers of colour. The only people who seemed surprised were white men. It’s great to have statistical evidence in support of this but listening to female writers and male writers of colour and acting on it might be a good idea too. Jessica Valenti, the most targeted writer wrote, ‘Insults and rape threats. Writers shouldn’t have to deal with this‘.

Andrew Piper and Richard Jean So decided to carry out some analysis regarding the words used in book reviews of books by male and female writers, ‘Women Write About Family, Men Write About War‘ in the New Republic details their findings.

The Baileys’ Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist was announced this week. Hanya Yanagihara has ‘A Little Life – A Photo Story‘ on the Picador Blog; Anne Enright, Elizabeth McKenzie, Hanya Yanagihara and Lisa McInerney are interviewed on the Baileys’ Prize blog, along with longlistees Shirley Barrett, Vesna Goldsworthy, Becky Chambers, Julia Rochester and Kate Atkinson. Some of us (myself included) were shocked that Kate Atkinson’s A God in Ruins failed to make the shortlist, Eleanor Franzen considers why on Litro.

And in Australia, the Miles Franklin literary award longlist was announced with books by women taking five of the nine slots.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Gillian Flynn, ‘The book that inspired Gone Girl‘ in The Guardian
• Hilary Mantel, ‘My Writing Day‘ in The Guardian
• Curtis Sittenfeld, ‘Most romances are badly written‘ in The Telegraph
• Alison Flood, ‘Miss Peregrine author returns with illustrated collection of fairytales‘ in The Guardian
• Jonathon Sturgeon, ‘On a Strong 2016 Man Booker International Shortlist, Ferrante Still Looks Like a Sure Thing‘ on Flavorwire
• Harriet Brown, ‘Leave Peter Rabbit Alone‘ in The Guardian
• Robert Gottlieb, ‘Brilliant, Troubled Dorothy Parker‘ in The New York Review of Books
• Samantha Powell, ‘Fifteen Years Later, Bridget Jones Is Still Teaching Me to Embrace Imperfection‘ on The Cut
• Lynn Steger-Strong, ‘Reader-Based‘ on Catapult
• Tanya Gold, ‘Working as a diarist meant not caring about the people you hurt‘ in The New Statesman
• Alana Massey, ‘Climbing Mount Sontag‘ in Hazlitt
• Alexandra Alter, ‘Curtis Sittenfeld Is No Jane Austen, But She’s O.K. with That‘ in The New York Times
• Louisa Thomas, ‘The Conflicted Early Feminism of Louisa Catherine Adams‘  on Literary Hub
• Hilton Als, ‘Immediate Family: Maggie Nelson’s Life in Words‘ in The New Yorker
• Michelle Dean, ‘The Wreck: Adrienne Rich’s feminist awakening, glimpsed through her never-before-published letters.‘ in New Republic
• Kim Brooks, ‘A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Mom‘ in The Cut
• Anya Groner, ‘Space Tourism in Modern Storytelling‘ on Electric Literature
• Natasha Carthew, ‘I didn’t see working class identity in books when I was growing up, and I don’t see enough now‘ in The Guardian
• Rumaan Alam, ‘Why Wasn’t Great American Novelist Jane Smiley on the Cover of a Magazine?‘ in Literary Hub
• Elena Sheppard, ‘Why I’ve been reading and re-reading “Bridget Jones’s Diary” for 20 years‘ on Hello Giggles
• Daisy Buchanan, ‘How to buy the perfect book for someone else‘ on The Pool
• Esme Weijun Wang, ‘Why My Novel Uses Untranslated Chinese‘ on Literary Hub
• Diane McWhorter, ‘Harper Lee, the National Antidote‘ on Slate
• Bridget Read, ‘On Maggie Nelson’s The Red Parts, Ten Years Later’ on Literary Hub
• Anne K. Yoder, ‘Fiction Must Be Fed: On Margaret Cavendish, Frida Kahlo, and Marie Curie‘ on The Millions
• Lindsay Merbaum, ‘Not a Real Writer: How Self-Doubt Holds Me Back‘ on Electric Literature
• Laura Miller, ‘I’ll Be There for You: The difficult, dangerous task of writing about a friend‘ on Slate
• Melissa Chadburn, ‘The Girl in the Cabinet (I Read What You Wrote and I Hate You)‘ on Electric Literature
• Hannah Gersen, ‘Gluten-Free Proust‘ on The Millions
• Fatima Bhutto, ‘My Grandfather’s Library, Relic of a Freer Pakistan‘ on Literary Hub
• Ann Patchett, ‘The Bookstore Fights Back‘ on Literary Hub
• Anne Boyd Rioux, ‘Women Writers You Should Know: Constance Fenimore Woolson‘ in The Toast
• Ainehi Edoro, ‘How not to talk about African fiction‘ in The Guardian
• Jesse Crispin, ‘The Self-Hating Book Critic‘ on Copper Nickel
• Clare Warner, ‘‘Her nose was straight with a soft tip at the end’ — Writing Race at School‘ on Media Diversified
• Caroline Criado-Perez, ‘I realised I’d been sold a lie about women’ in The Guardian
• John William Walker Zeiser, ‘The Unsettling Gaze of Han Kang: Examining Han Kang’s The Vegetarian and Human Acts‘ on Electric Literature
• Lynnette Lounsbury, ‘I loved the beat generation. Then I realised it has no place for women‘ in The Guardian

Personal essays/memoir:

• Kat Lister, ‘Saying “No” doesn’t have to be negative‘ on The Pool
• Marina Lucic, ‘Lessons on Hate‘ in Litro
• Lauren Libbert, ‘Losing my mother, then losing the music that could soothe after she’d gone‘ on The Pool
• Maggie Thach Morshed, ‘Shooting in the Dark‘ on Catapult
• Meagan O’Connell, ‘How Did I Wind Up a Housewife in Paradise?‘ on The Cut
• Lydia Kiesling, ‘Throwing Away the Most Beautiful Dress I Ever Owned‘ on The Cut
• Lorena Piñeiro, ‘Penance‘ in Midnight Breakfast
• Faith Adiele, ‘All of the Above‘ on The Rumpus
• Mega Majumdar, ‘Laughter as Criticism‘ in Guernica
• Lily Gutierrez, ‘Peaches and Melisande‘ on Motherland
• Lynsey Hanley, ‘How I became middle-class‘ in The Guardian
• Kate Gavino, ‘A Band Named HotdogA Band Named HotdogA Band Named Hotdog‘ on Catapult
• Clare Archibald, ‘Congealed‘ on The Real Story
• Kate Bolick, ‘Afterlives: My Mother’s Breast Cancer, and My Own‘ in The New Yorker
• Kathryn Harrison, ‘On the Impossibility of Seeing Yourself‘ on Literary Hub
• Penny Anderson, ‘What it feels like to do your make-up when you’re blind‘ on The Pool
• Soraya Chemaly, ‘Listening to Old Women‘ in The Toast
• Melissa Broder, ‘How I Discovered the Power of a Hot-Pink Fake Penis‘ in The Cut
• Anissa Helou, ‘Before the War: The Lost Delicacies of Aleppo‘ on Literary Hub
• Heather Havrilesky, ‘My Wedding Was a Disaster, and Yours Will Be, Too‘ on The Cut

Feminism:

• Revati Upadhya, ‘I’m A Woman Who Doesn’t Have Or Want Kids, And I’m Happy‘ on Buzzfeed
• Fariah Roísín, ‘In My Image‘ on Maisonneuve
• Gaby Hinsliff, ‘Who would think any good could come from an MP calling a woman ‘totty’?‘ in The Guardian
• Marisa Bate, ‘The everyday bravery of being a woman‘ on The Pool
• Sara Pascoe, ‘Boob jobs are viewed as a decorative tweak, but these women are self-harming’ in The Guardian
• Jill Lepore, ‘The Sovereignty of Women‘ in The New Yorker
• Rachel Aviv, ‘The Cost of Caring‘ in The New Yorker
• Shohana Khan, ‘If Muslim women’s clothing makes them consenting slaves, who are their slave masters?‘ on Media Diversified
• Siobhan Fenton, ‘Today in the UK, a woman was sentenced for the crime of an abortion – yet we act outraged at Donald Trump‘ in The Independent
• Stephanie Boland, ‘Think Donald Trump’s comments are shocking? They’re the law for some UK women‘ in The New Statesman
• Jesse Singal, ‘Is Attachment Parenting a Plot to Force Women Back Into the Home?‘ in The Cut
• Melissa Gira Grant, ‘Heather‘ on Buzzed
• Bridget Minamore, ‘Being a dark-skinned woman and the prejudices we face ‘ on The Pool

Society and Politics:

• Erika Hayasaki, ‘In a Perpetual Present‘ on Wired
• Catherine Buni & Soraya Chemaly, ‘The Secret Rules of the Internet‘ on The Verge
• Laura Elizabeth Woollet, ‘In Search of the Darkest Cult in American History‘ on Literary Hub
• Ijeoma Oluo, ‘How Teju Cole Helped Me Make Peace with the Nigerian Scam Artist‘ on Literary Hub
• Elizabeth Kolbert, ‘Unnatural Selection‘ in The New Yorker
• Lynn Casteel Harper, ‘On Vanishing‘ in Catapult
• Elizabeth Senja Spackman, ‘Proximal Grief‘ in Guernica
• Pamela Rolloff, ‘The Reckoning‘ in Texas Monthly
• Rachel Vorona Cote, ‘The Agony and the Ecstasy of the Ugly Cry‘ in New Republic
• Suzanne Moore, ‘Making money is not a vice, but refusing to contribute tax is‘ in The Guardian
• Paris Lees, ‘Dear Ian McEwan, your ideas about penises are outdated‘ in The Telegraph

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

• Kate Aurthur, ‘How “Nina” Became A Disaster Movie‘ on Buzzfeed
• Sarah Lyall, ‘Swim. Bike. Cheat?‘ on Longreads
• Anna Leszkiewicz, ‘Lost and found: why are we obsessed with stories of young women escaping their kidnappers?‘ in The New Statesman
• Marie Phillips, ‘Kimmy Schmidt, and the unmitigated joy she will bring to your life‘ on The Pool

The interviews/profiles:

• Lisa Owens in The Bookseller
• Robin Black & Natalie Serber on Bloom
• Maggie Nelson in The Guardian
• Michelle de Kretser in Vol. 1 Brooklyn
• Brit Bennett on Jezebel
• Danielle Dutton in Brooklyn Magazine
• Idra Novey on The Rumpus
• Helen Garner in the Sydney Morning Herald
• Yvette Edwards on the Waterstones’ Blog
• Lynsey Hanley in The Guardian
• Elif Batuman on Literary Hub
• Rachel Traister on The Pool
• Sara Sheridan on From First Page to Last
• Janet Todd in Shiny New Books
• Sharon Guskin in Shiny New Books
• Karen Kovacik on Guernica
• Caitlin and Caz Moran on The Pool
• Maylis de Kerangal in BOMB
• Sophia Bennett in The Guardian
• Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney on Literary Hub
• Danielle McLaughlin on Short Fiction
• Jenny Downham on The Bookseller

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: January 2016

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.

January’s been living up to it’s reputation as the most miserable month in the calendar. There’s been the misogynistic and racist response to Sarah Howe’s Young Writer of the Year Award and TS Eliot Award wins. Poet, Katy Evans-Bush responded with ‘TS Eliot prize row: is winner too young, beautiful – and Chinese?‘ in The Guardian.

The deaths of David Bowie and Alan Rickman at least inspired some great writing: Stacey May Fowles, ‘Reconciling David Bowie‘ on Hazlitt and Sali Hughes, ‘I’ve had it up to here with the grief police‘ on The Pool. Gwendolyn Smith, ‘Forget Snape – in concentrating on him, we leave out one of the greatest roles Alan Rickman ever performed‘ in The Independent and Daisy Buchanan, ‘Alan Rickman’s Colonel Brandon taught me an important lesson about love‘ on The Pool

In happier news, there were a number of other prize wins for female writers: Kate Atkinson won the Costa Novel Prize; Anuradha Roy won the 2016 DSC prize for south Asian literature; A.S. Byatt won the Erasmus Prize, and the writers shortlisted for the Costa Short Story Award were revealed, including Annalisa Crawford, Peggy Riley and Erin Soros.

Glamour welcomed a transgender columnist: Juno Dawson will chart her journey in the magazine. I’ll add Juno’s column to the regular columnists list once it has a permanent URL.

The Observer revealed their New Faces of Fiction for 2016 and Joanna Cannon wrote this great piece – The Monster Under the Bed – about her inclusion.

And the woman with the most publicity of late is Amy Liptrot with ‘I swam in the cold ocean and dyed my hair a furious blue… I was moving upwards slowly‘ in The Guardian; interviews in The Independent and The Pool.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Morgan Jerkins, ‘Writing While Black: On Cliche, Stereotype and the Struggle to Describe Blackness‘ on Literary Hub
• E.V. de Cleyre, ‘On “the Terrible Efficiency of Gaslighting”‘ on Brevity
• Sarah Weinmann, ‘True-crime stories: a centuries-old craze from Ben Franklin to Making a Murderer‘ in The Guardian
• Zetta Elliott, ‘Nobody’s Cheerleader‘ on her blog
• Lauren Groff, ‘on Writing with Lightness‘ on The Atlantic
• Sian Cain, ‘Why a non-white Nancy Drew could be amazing‘ in The Guardian
• Lenika Cruz, ‘The Promising Case of a Non-White Nancy Drew‘ on The Atlantic
• Catherine Lacey ‘on the Inspiration Behind Nobody is Ever Missing‘ on the WHSMITH blog
• Brigid Delaney, ‘A Little Life: why everyone should read this modern-day classic‘ in The Guardian
• Zoe Heller and Francine Prose, ‘Is the Writer’s Only Responsibility to His Art?‘ in The New York Times
• Gideon Lewis-Kraus, ‘The Trials of Alice Goffman‘ in The New York Times Magazine
• Claire Fuller, ‘The Huge, Unwieldy Beast versus Flash Fiction‘ on Women Writers, Women’s Books
• Adelle Waldman, ‘The Ideal Marriage, According to Novels‘ in The New Yorker
• Ali Smith ‘on Trumpet by Jackie Kay‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah Crompton, ‘Sexism on the stage – meet the women tearing up the script‘ in The Guardian
• Maria Turtschaninoff, ‘Why is feminist fantasy important?‘ in The Bookseller
• Catherine Hokin, ‘The Challenges of Writing Historical Fiction‘ on Helen MacKinven’s blog
• Deborah Smith, ‘On Translating Human Acts by Han Kang‘ on Asymptote
• Alison Glock Cooper and T Cooper, ‘Transgender: identity is never one single thing so tick the box that says ‘other’‘ in The Guardian
• Ann Mah, ‘Elena Ferrante’s Naples, Then and Now‘ in The New York Times
• Chloe Angyal, ‘I Decided Not To Read Books By White Authors For A Year. Conservatives Lost Their Damn Minds‘ on The Huffington Post
• Carmiel Banasky, ‘Topography of a Novel: The Suicide of Claire Bishop‘ on Blunderbuss
• Laura Miller, ‘Ladies of Leisure: The resurgence of the housewife novel‘ on Slate
• Martha Tennent and Maruxa Relaño, ‘How a Mother-Daughter Translation Team Makes it Work‘ on Literary Hub
• Peter Bebegal, ‘Cracking the Codes of Leena Krohn‘ in The New Yorker
• Sarah Lyall, ‘The Author Elizabeth Strout on ‘Lucy Barton’ and How Her Characters Come Into Being‘ in The New York Times
• Isabel Rogers, ‘on What a Poet can teach a Novelist‘ on Isabel Costello’s Literary Sofa
• Vidhu Aggarwal, ‘“I’m nothing, if not”: An Anecdote of a Jar‘ on VIDA
• Dawn Finch, ‘Why are we still talking about diversity and inclusion?‘ on An Awfully Big Blog Adventure
• Samantha Hunt’s Literary Mixtape: how to be a deranged cult leader in The Guardian
• Emma Claire Sweeney, ‘on the power of poetry and fiction‘ on Legend Press
• Joanna Biggs, ‘Work is where we make friends, exert power, fall in love‘ in The Guardian
• Non Pratt, ‘No taboo should be off limits when writing for teenagers‘ in The Guardian
• Brittany K. Allen, ‘I Wrote the Accent: A Black Writer Considers “Urban Romance”‘ in The Toast
• Laura Miller, ‘Why Fates and Furies was this year’s most talked-about novel‘ in The Guardian
• Cynthia Ozick, ‘The Novel’s Evil Tongue‘ in The New York Times

Personal essays/memoir:

• Alana Massey, ‘Marriage and Two Kids: A Most Scandalous Fantasy‘ in The Cut
• Lydia Kiesling, ‘Death and Heirs: A View from the San Francisco Housing Market‘ on The Millions
• Saigowri Kuruvada, ‘How I Learned To Accept My Self-Harm Scars‘ on Buzzfeed
• Isabel Murray, ‘I’m a Disgusting Sleeper‘ on The Awl
• Rowan Whiteside, ‘Uninvited‘ in Standard Issue
• Jane Campbell, ‘The Long Run‘ on Hazlitt
• Yurina Ko, ‘Little Big Eater Girl‘ on The New Inquiry
• Fleur Smithwick, ‘A response from my mother to the weird kid blog‘ on her blog
• Jen Gann, ‘Why Am I So Sad About Having a Boy?‘ in The Cut
• Monica Sok, ‘On Fear, Fearlessness, and Intergenerational Trauma‘ on VIDA
• Jenny Diski, ‘The Island of lost words‘ on her blog
• Lyz Lenz, ‘Growing Up With White Paranoia: Persecution vs. Privilege‘ on Pacific Standard
• Ellabel Risbridger, ‘#BREAKFREE From Likes: ‘I’ve Grown Up On The Internet’‘ in Marie Claire
• Cris Mazza, ‘A Finished Brain‘ on The Rumpus
• Julianne Smolinski, ‘The Funny Thing About Abusive Relationships‘ on The Cut
• Jean Hannah Edelstein, ‘I’m a Previvor‘ on Catapult
• Nicole Chung, ‘What Goes Through Your Mind: On Nice Parties and Casual Racism‘ in The Toast
• Lauren McKeon, ‘As Women Scorned‘ on Hazlitt
• Kim Brooks, ‘I’m Having a Friendship Affair‘ in The Cut
• Claire Jimenez, ‘Spanish Lessons: On Language Loss and Recovery‘ in The Toast

Feminism:

• Amy Swales, ‘A Story of a Fuck Off Fund‘ on Medium
• Cade Lebron, ‘Liar, Liar: On Writing About Rape Online‘ on Electric Literature
• Jane Marie, ‘On Going Off My Depression Medication During Pregnancy‘ in Cosmopolitan
• Rosamund Urwin, ‘Why do crimes against women always have the same, sad ending?‘ on The Pool
• Kathy Dobie, ‘To Catch a Rapist‘ in The New York Times
• Ann Friedman, ‘The 2015 renaissance of the agony aunt‘ on The Pool
• Nadia Atia, ‘Your fascination with Muslim women’s bodies has a long misogynistic history‘ on Media Diversified

Society and Politics:

• Chimene Suleyman, ‘‘Integration’ or ‘Assimilation’ is a Two-sided Negotiation‘ on Media Diversified
• Afroze Zaidi-Jivraj, ‘What It’s Like Being Muslim In 2016‘ on Media Diversified
• Leena Habiballa, ‘Too Black to be Arab, too Arab to be Black‘ on Media Diversified
• Alicia Eler and Eve Peyser, ‘Tinderization of Feeling‘ on The New Inquiry
• Harriet Alida Lye, ‘The Myth of the Myth of the City of Love‘ on Hazlitt
• Emer O’Toole, ‘How to be a moderately successful person‘ in The Guardian
• Kavita Bhanot, ‘Decolonise, not Diversify‘ on Media Diversified
• Stacia L. Brown, ‘The ugly history of comparing black athletes and animals‘ in The Washington Post

Film, Television, Music, Art and Fashion:

• Lynn Enright, ‘The brilliant feminism of Transparent and Jill Soloway‘ on The Pool
• Jude Rogers, ‘Why we’re wired to love pop music‘ on The Pool
• Hannah McGill, ‘Nora Ephron: queen of hearts‘ on the BFI website
• Michelle Smith, ‘Suffragette reminds us why it’s a lie that feminists need men’s approval‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah Maria Griffin, ‘Girls Explain Star Wars to You‘ on Scannain
• Robin James, ‘Hello From the Same Side‘ in The New Inquiry

The interviews:

• Joyce Carol Oates on Electric Literature and in The Guardian
• Lisa Williamson in The Guardian and on Scottish Book Trust
• Amy Gustine on Electric Literature
• Helen Ellis in The New York Times
• Mira Ptacin on Flavorwire
• Chelsea Hodson in Hobart
• Tara Guha on Chouett
• Elizabeth Evans on Guernica
• Diane Williams in The Los Angeles Review of Books
• Ann Goldstein (Elena Ferrante’s translator) on Guernica
• Chaitali Sen on The Rumpus
• Valerie Martin in The Guardian
• Eileen Myles in The New York Times
• Liz Lochhead in The Guardian
• Margaret Atwood on Electric Literature
• Emma Donoghue on The Pool
• Sandra Cisneros on The Rumpus
• Lidia Yuknavitch and Anakana Schofield on Electric Literature
• Marlene Van Niekerk in The White Review
• Helen McClory on The Skinny
• Caitlin Moran in Stylist
• Roxane Gay on Sky Blue Window
• Tessa Hadley in the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times
• Ayisha Malik in The New Statesman
• Samantha Hunt on The Millions
• Claire Fuller on Sarah Jasmon’s blog
• Claudia Rankine in The Guardian
• Amy Poehler in The Guardian

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

In the Media: 25th January & 1st February 2015

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.

Thanks to everyone who said such lovely things last week after I lost the In the Media post and to everyone who offered suggestions to stop it happening again. I think I have a solution and it seems to have worked well this week.

The morning after last week’s last minute loss, I realised that all was not entirely lost; all the articles I’d linked to that hadn’t saved were in my laptop history, so I recovered the remainder of last week’s post (apologies if you received an email with a half-done post in it, it posted when I retrieved it) and relinked all the articles, then added this weeks. The result of that is this bumper issue. Enjoy!

This week saw the death of Colleen McCullough, author of The Thorn Birds, as well as 23 other books, and a neuroscientist. Steve Dow remembers her in The Guardian; Alison Flood gave her tribute with ‘Colleen McCullough’s The Thorn Birds helped me get over heartbreak‘ also in The Guardian, and in response to that obituary (I’m not linking to it) Rebecca Shaw wrote ‘We’ll celebrate a woman for anything, as long as it’s not her talent‘ in The Guardian while Liz Kearney responded with ‘You may be a best-selling writer, but never forget that you’re still fat and ugly‘ in The Irish Independent.

It’s been a fortnight filled with awards. Last week, Claudia Rankine became the first person ever to be nominated for two National Critics Circle Awards in the poetry and criticism categories; her editor tells The Washington post why she’s a ‘genius’ and Jonathon Sturgeon tells us why the double nomination is ‘the correct decision’ on Flavorwire;  While Jhumpa Lahiri won the DSC Prize. Here’s ‘Six things you should know about Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland’ on Scroll.in

This week, it’s been the turn of the Costa Awards. Helen Macdonald won the overall award for the fantastic H is for Hawk. Here’s an interview she gave to The Times last week; you can watch her talking about the book here; you can listen to an audio excerpt and read her piece ‘On Ringing Wild Goshawks’ on Vintage Books, and discover the six books that made her in The Guardian. You can also watch the short films made of the other finalists: Emma Healey; Kate Saunders; Ali Smith. Zoe Gilbert won the Short Story Award with Fishskin, Hareskin. With Joanne Meek, Lucy Ribchester, Jane Healey and Paula Cunningham also shortlisted. You can read all the shortlisted stories here (scroll to the bottom of the page).

Other exciting news for female writers is the launch of #ReviewWomen2015, following the success of the #ReadWomen2014 campaign. Hannah Beckerman explains why she wants more books by female writers, especially commercial fiction, to be reviewed in the broadsheets in the Huffington Post. Anne Enright became the first Laureate for Irish Fiction in a unanimous decision and in China came the discovery of a new poet, ‘dubbed China’s Emily Dickinson‘, Want China Times reports on Yu Xihua.

There’s been a wave of feminist articles this fortnight, partly thanks to The Sun newspaper appearing to stop publishing pictures of topless women on p3 and then declaring it a joke by the middle of the week. Sarah Ditum wrote, ‘The “return” of Page 3: the Sun revels in the chance to make women with opinions look stupid‘ in the New Statesman; Marina Hyde responded with, ‘No more t*ts in the Sun – a campaign we can all get behind‘ in The Guardian. Elsewhere, Sophie Heawood wrote, ‘If Björk can’t stop a man stealing the limelight, what hope is there for the rest of us?‘ in The Guardian; Eleanor Catton wrote a statement on her website following a media furore in New Zealand about comments she made about the government; Louise O’Neill related, ‘My journey to feminism‘ in The Guardian; Elisabeth Camp asked ‘Should I let my daughter wear pink?‘ in Aeon; Jami Attenberg recounted her time passing as a man, ‘Track Changes‘ in The New York Times; Bayan Perazzo wrote ‘The Burden of Being Female in Saudi Arabia‘ on Muftah; Rose George declared, ‘My period may hurt: but not talking about menstruation hurts more‘ in The Guardian; Arabelle Sicadi wrote, ‘A Bridge Between Love And Lipstick: Queering the beauty industry‘ on Buzzfeed; Jeanne de Montbaston responded to an Alison Wolf article (link in the piece) with ‘What the Hell kinds of Feminists are you Reading, Alison Wolf‘ on Reading Medieval Books; Lucy Magan says, ‘Let’s Silence the Voice That Tells Us We Can’t‘ in Stylist; Marina Sofia looked at the new Barbie Princess Power on her blog; Rebecca Carroll wrote, ‘I was six when a man first touched me. I didn’t speak up until I was an adult‘ in The Guardian; Jia Tolentino wrote, ‘Rush After ‘A Rape On Campus’: A UVA Alum Goes Back to Rugby Road‘ on Jezebel; Homa Mojtabai listed ‘Reasons You Were Not Promoted That Are Totally Unrelated to Gender‘ on McSweeney’s; C M Meadows-Haworth, ‘Reading Audre Lorde Is Changing My Life‘ on A Room of Our Own; Chika Unigwe wrote, ‘Why Nigeria is failing its citizens over Boko Haram attacks‘ in Litro; Maddie Crum told us ‘Why Virginia Woolf Should Be Your Feminist Role Model‘ on Huffington Post; Brandi Bailey selected ‘The Best Feminist Picture Books‘ on Book Riot, Monique Wilson said, ‘Critics of the Vagina Monologues must acknowledge its transformative powers‘ in The Guardian, Alison Flood told us ‘Why I hate the Little Miss books‘ in The Guardian, Sarah Ditum also told us, ‘I ain’t afraid of no girls: why the all-female Ghostbusters will be good for Hollywood‘ in the New Statesman; Max Cairnduff wrote, ‘Looking back on #readwomen2014 and my favourite reads of the year‘ on his blog; Hannah Renowden shares, ‘2015 – When I got angered by a reading list so read it. Also, crochet.‘ on her blog, and Isabel Rogers read and took down Mike Buchanan’s Justice for Men and Boys (and the women who love them) Party Election Manifesto on her blog.

And a number about class following James Blunt’s open letter to Chris Bryant. Sarah Perry responded with, ‘James Blunt has misunderstood the relationship between privilege and success‘ in The Independent and Suzanne Moore with, ‘What James Blunt doesn’t understand about the politics of envy‘ in The Guardian. Other issues surrounding class were covered by Lisa McKenzie, ‘The estate we’re in: how working class people became the ‘problem’‘ in The Guardian; Lucy Mangan, ‘If you don’t understand how people fall into poverty, you’re probably a sociopath‘ also in The Guardian; Nicola Morgan asked, ‘Why fund libraries when it’s all online?‘ on An Awfully Big Blog Adventure; Harriet Williamson said, ‘Every time I visit the job centre, the staff treat me like a subhuman‘ in the New Statesman; Grace Dent said, ‘When rents are so high that you have to share a bed with a stranger, surely the revolution can’t be far off‘ in The Independent, and Kathryn Hughes wrote, ‘Yes, Kirstie Allsopp, littering’s bad. But then so is self-righteousness‘ in The Guardian

The best of the rest articles/essays:

• Zoe Williams, ‘Wolf Hall: A Lesson in the triumph of low birth over hierarchy‘ in The Guardian
• Rachel Cooke, ‘Oscars 2015: All about Eve? In today’s films, it’s more like All About Adam‘ in The Guardian
• Kim Kankiewicz, ‘The Watcher and the Watched‘ in the Los Angeles Review of Books
• Beluah Maud Devaney, ‘Three thousand reasons to choose your reading carefully‘ in The Guardian
• Tiffany Midge, ‘Part One: Redeeming the English Language (Acquisition) Series‘ in The Butter
• Rene Steinke celebrates the profound influence of independent bookstores on Read Her Like an Open Book
• Mary Wollstonecraft, ‘On Poetry, and Our Relish for the Beauties of Nature‘ on Berfrois
• Judith Lennox, ‘Loneliness and the Long-Distant Granparent‘ in The Guardian
• Laura Sook Duncombe, ‘Literary Ladies Cage Fight: Clash of the Titans‘ in The Butter
• Sasha Dugdale, ‘The Necessity of Translation‘ on Commonwealth Writers
• Priscilla Ward, ‘I’m tired of suppressing myself to get along with white people‘ on Salon
• Susanna Basso (tr. Mati Colarossi), ‘On translation‘ on Parallel Texts
• Elizabeth Haynes, ‘Closer Than You Think‘ on her blog
• Diane Mehta, “And She Went On Her Way Rejoicing” (On Muriel Spark) on The Rumpus
• Leesa Cross-Smith, ‘Anxiety & Comfort‘ on Real Pants
• Brittany Wilmes, ‘Growing Up‘ in The Butter
• Rosie Gray, ‘France’s Far-Right Party Seizes the Moment – And the Youth‘ on Buzzfeed
• Dan Piepenbring, ‘A Dissatisfaction with Life‘ (on Patricia Highsmith) in The Paris Review
• Trisha Ready, ‘How Listening to Music and Fighting with Susan Sontag Helped Me Cope with Chemo‘ on The Stranger
• Dinah Jeffries, ‘The Hidden Psychology of a Writer‘ on her blog
• Eva Wiseman, ‘Questions to Make You Fall in Love‘ in The Guardian
• Nina Martyris, ‘Auden, Rabelais, and “Charlie Hebdo” in The Los Angeles Review of Books
• Zoe Heller, ‘Rape on the Campus‘ in The New York Review of Books
• Amanda Foreman, ‘Why Footbinding Persisted in China for a Millennium‘ in Smithsonian
• Sophie Heawood, ‘A little bit of hatred can take you a long way‘ in The Guardian
• Kat Brown, ‘Depression made me feel ‘appalling — I couldn’t bear my own company’ in The Times
• Catherine Taylor on Elena Ferrante on Open Book
• Suzanne Moore, ‘Eventually, I took a driving test. But Mister Much didn’t think much of my motoring skills‘ in the New Statesman
• Paula McLain, ‘I Was Always, Always Looking for More‘ in Good Housekeeping
• Virginia Woolf on E.M. Forster in Berfrois
• Ijeoma Oluo, ‘I understand why people believe sexual predators before victims. I did‘ in The Guardian
• Sybil Baker, ‘The History of the Wanderer‘ in The Critical Flame
• Lauren Westerfeld, ‘Mother Maps‘ on The Butter
• Ruth Graham, ‘Chandler Bing Is the Worst Thing About Watching Friends in 2015‘ on Slate
• Anne Helen Peterson, ‘The Trouble with “It Girls”‘ on Buzzfeed

• Shelley Harris, ‘Writing a hero from the inside‘ on Isobel Costello’s Literary Sofa
• Shruti Ravindran, ‘A circus of the senses‘ in Aeon
• Sadie Stein, ‘More things in heaven and earth‘ in The Paris Review
• Tracy Borman, ‘Big bad Wolf: Why have we fallen for Thomas Cromwell?‘ on BBC Arts
• Rene Denfeld, ‘The Other Side of Loss‘ on The Manifest-Station
• Soo Na Pak, ‘Woman‘ in The Butter
• Jonathan Gibbs, ‘The Art of the Novella challenge 11: The Awakening‘ on Melville House
• E.B. Bartels, ‘Freedom, My Dear‘ in The Butter
• Evan McMurry, ‘The stunning weirdness of Ayn Rand: Why her newfound popularity makes no sense‘ on Salon
• Susanna Daniel, ‘What took you so long? The quiet hell of 10 years of novel writing‘ on Slate
• Randon Billings Noble, ‘The Heart as a Torn Muscle‘ in Brevity
• Heather Sellers, ‘Fun for Everyone Involved‘ in Brevity
• Jennifer Sinor, ‘One Hundred Days in India‘ in Brevity
• Fleda Brown, ‘Home Bodily Repair Kit‘ in Brevity
• Jenny Boully, ‘I Remain Very Sorry For What I Did to the Little Black Kitten‘ in Brevity
• Sarah Freligh, ‘Lessons of the Body‘ in Brevity
• Anna Journey, ‘For Great-Aunt Jeannette, Who Donated Her Body to Science‘ in Brevity
• Anna B. Sutton, ‘Carolina/Tennessee‘ in Brevity
• Ginny MacDonald, ‘Go, Jim Dandy‘ in Brevity
• Jen Palmares Meadows, ‘Imprint‘ in Brevity
• Lisa Nikolidakis, ‘Landlines‘ in Brevity
• Margo Barnes, ‘Falling‘ in Brevity
• Lessa Cross-Smith, ‘Other Boys & High School Hearts‘ on Real Pants
• Elisa Gabbert, ‘Some Notes on Packing‘ on Real Pants
• Stassa Edwards, ‘From Aesop to doge‘ in Aeon
• Sadie Stein, ‘Common Colds‘ in The Paris Review
• Samantha Lyon, ‘Gender Inequality in the World of Children’s Books‘ on The Inflectionist
• Alex Clark, ‘TV books programmes: if nobody watches them, make better ones‘ in The Guardian
• Jonathan Diaz, ‘Hello, Cruel World: Silvina Ocampo Is Argentina’s Literary Middle Child‘ on Flavorwire
• S.L. Huang, ‘On the Subject of Unlikeable Woman Protagonists‘ on Chuck Wendig’s blog
• Gemma Todd, ‘The Life of a Mobile Librarian‘ on the Picador Blog
• Wiam El-Tamami, ‘Cairo: September 2014‘ in Granta
• Elizabeth Kolbert, ‘Such a Stoic‘ in The New Yorker
• Dan Piepenbring, ‘Speaking Bluntly‘ (A letter from Colette) in The Paris Review
• Jill Dawson ‘The Life You Save May be Your Very Own‘ on Fat Is a Feminist Issue on Platform 505
• Jessica Levine, ‘On Writing About Sex: Is It Necessary‘ on Read Her Like an Open Book

• Lizzy Kremer, ‘The Stories Writers Tell‘ on her blog
• Suzanne Moore, ‘Single parents don’t need anonymous generosity but public respect‘ in The Guardian
• Corrine Duyvis, ‘Why Strong Characters Aren’t All That‘ on For Books’ Sake
• Ann Bauer, ‘“Sponsored” by my husband: Why it’s a problem that writers never talk about where their money comes from‘ on Salon
• Becca Rose, ‘The Third Generation‘ in The Butter
• Lydia Kiesling, ‘I Would Do This for You: The Narrative Possibilities of Leaked Emails‘ on The Millions
• Sarah Hollowell, ‘This is an Essay About a Fat Woman Being Loved and Getting Laid‘ in The Butter
• Margo Rabb, ‘In My Cat’s Death, a Human Comfort‘ in The New York Times
• Antonia Honeywell, ‘The Book That Changed My Life‘ on Novelicious
• Christopher Fowler, ‘Invisible ink no 259: Female short story writers‘ in The Independent
• Nicole Wolverton, ‘Mourning New York: Cari Luna and The Revolution of Every Day‘ on Bloom
• Rachel Aviv, ‘Your Son Is Deceased‘ in The New Yorker
• Vanessa Curtis, ‘On the 30,000 lost Jews of Riga‘ in The Guardian
• Nicolette Jones, ‘The renaissance of Beatrix Potter’s great rival‘ in The Telegraph
• Hermione Lee, ‘Alice Munroe’s Magic‘ in The New York Review of Books
• Helen Oyeyemi, ‘Born Out of Rapt Distraction: On Silvina Ocampo’s “Thus Were Their Faces”‘ on The Millions
• Roxane Gay, ‘Living with my parents in Florida, it’s difficult to feel like an adult‘ in The Guardian
• Samantha Tucker, ‘Kitchen Remodel‘ in Guernica
• Lucy Mangan, ‘There Are No Life Hacks for Love‘ in Stylist
• Claudia Smith, ‘Basic. Bitch‘ in The Butter
• Pallavi Aiyar, ‘The Foreign Correspondent‘ in Granta
• Sara Majka, ‘Cities I’ve Never Lived In‘ in Guernica
• Sara Gerard, ‘On Helen Keller Really Lived and The Wallcreeper:
  How Should a Woman Behave?‘ in the Los Angeles Review of Books
• Dana Stevens, ‘Tumbling into the Screen‘ on Slate
• Emily Gould, ‘How Being Pregnant Ruined Shopping For Me‘ on Fast Company
• Vanessa M. Gezari, ‘Why it pays to work the fringes‘ on Lynsey Addario in the Columbia Journalism Review
• Roger Tagholm, ‘Why “Gone Girl?” Why Not “Gone Woman?”‘ on Publishing Perspectives
• Charlotte Higgins, ‘Leonora Carrington: wild at heart‘ in The Guardian
• Beth Miller, ‘There’s a difference in living and living well‘ on her blog
• Joan Didion, ‘on Writing and Revising‘ on The New York Public Library Podcast
• Helen Brocklebank, ‘The Books that Built Samantha Ellis‘ on Mrs Trefusis Takes a Taxi
• Kavita Bhanot, ‘Too Asian, Not Asian Enough‘ on Media Diversified
• Angela Köckritz, ‘They Have Miao‘ on Zeit Online
• Sarah B. Boyle, ‘Reports from the Field: A Textbook Case of Diversity: How Educational Publishing Skims the Surface‘ on VIDA
• Anna Maxymiw, ‘Making Gains‘ in Masionneuve
• Megan Mayhew Bergman, ‘Bring In the Old: The Writer as Collector‘ on Ploughshare
• Maya Jaggi, ‘Literature has Liberated Africa’s Authors‘ in The Financial Times

The interviews:

• Katie Coyle on Flavorwire
• Eula Bliss on Salon
• Mary Gaitskill in BOMB Magazine
• Vanessa Lafaye on Bookaholic Confessions
• Gurinder Chadha in The Guardian
• Kate Bernheimer on The Brooklyn Rail
• Mary Kay Zuravleff on Fiction Writers Review
• Paula Hawkins on Writer’s Bone and in The New York Times
• Sarah Gerard in Interview Magazine and in Vice
• Danielle Steele in T Magazine
• Chelsea Hodson and Juliet Escoria on Emily Books
• Tiphanie Yanique on Publishers Weekly
• Emma Hooper on Open Book
• Samantha Harvey on Salon
• Janet Mock on Queer of Gender and Bitch Media
• Peyton Marshall on Annethology
• Molly Peacock on Maisonneuve
• Miranda July on Longreads and The Millions and in The Cut
• Polly Coles and Liz Jensen on Something Rhymed
• Cari Luna on Bloom
• Shelley Harris on Novelicious
• Muriel Spark on Toby Litt’s blog twice
• Joyce Carol Oates in The Independent
• Kelly Link in The New York Times
• Jenny Ashcroft on Rebecca Mascull’s blog
• Jennifer Niven in The Guardian
• Wendy Ortiz in Mutha Magazine
• Dylan Landis on Electric Literature
• Mindy Kaling in Stylist
• Lena Dunham in the Los Angeles Review of Books
• Celeste Ng on Radio Gorgeous and Novelicious
• Lucy Ribchester, Elisabeth Gifford and Lucy Hughes-Hallett on Book Talk
• Frances Vick in Shiny New Books
• Sophia Tobin in Shiny New Books
• Adèle Geras in Shiny New Books
• Lynn Sloan on Bloom
• Lynne Segal in The Observer

If you want some fiction/poetry to read:

• ‘Olikoye‘ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in Matter
• ‘Idaho‘ by Isabel Rogers on her blog
• ‘Hummers‘ by Amy Gottfried in Blunderbuss
• ‘The Garden Party‘ by Katherine Mansfield on The Centre for Fiction
• ‘Body as Device‘ by Brandi Wells in The Butter
• ‘Ellen Says No‘ by Vanessa Vitiello Urquhart in The Butter
• An extract from The Serpent Papers by Jessica Cornwell
• Five stories from Carys Bray’s Sweet Home on BBC Radio 4 Extra
• ‘Blood and Water‘ by Elizabeth Muchemwa on Brittle Paper
• ‘Alt Vices‘ by Michelle Dove in Guernica
• ‘Alice‘ by Elizabeth Harrower in The New Yorker and she discusses the story here
• ‘steph n deaf‘ by Jay Merrill in 3:am magazine
• An extract from The Undertaking by Audrey Magee in the Irish Times
• ‘Performance Art‘ by Manjula Padmanabhan in Granta
• An excerpt from Principles of Navigation by Lynn Sloan on Bloom
• ‘Miss Havisham’s Disability Application Is Denied‘ by Olga Oksman on McSweeney’s
• Three Poems by Yvonne Green on And Other Poems
• ‘The Moth Mother‘ by Joanne Harris on her blog
• An extract from Campari for Breakfast by Sara Crowe on Novel Kicks
• ‘For the Love of Squirrels‘ by Claire Fuller on her blog
• ‘Tell Us a Story, Grandma‘ by Natalie Wise in The New Yorker
• ‘The Secret Lives of Shoes‘ by Atoke on Brittle Paper
• ‘t.w. gore‘ by Helen McClory on Litro
• ‘My Son Is a Good Man‘ by Rosanna Boscawen on Litro
• ‘And So It Begins‘ by Lara Williams on Litro
• ‘An Unsolved Mystery Of Quantum Mechanics‘ by Beatrice Garland on Visual Verse
• ‘Heel Drags‘ by Susan Gray on Visual Verse
• ‘Please Come‘ by Jennifer Falkner on Visual Verse
• ‘The Last Leg‘ by Hazel Mason on Visual Verse
• ‘Crossing the Line‘ by Avalina Kreska on Visual Verse
• ‘Stuck‘ by Samantha Newbury on Visual Verse
• ‘In a Rush‘ by Catherine Lødøen on Visual Verse
• ‘Sketch of an Abandoned Journey‘ by Linda Ashok on Visual Verse
• ‘Parallels of Time‘ by Pauline Suett Barbieri on Visual Verse
• ‘Poem for Isaac‘ by Freya Dean on Visual Verse
• ‘Towards the Penal Colony‘ by Corrine Lawrence on Visual Verse
• ‘Limbs Anonymous‘ by Judith A. Daniel on Visual Verse
• ‘The Rainforest‘ by Olive Lowena on Visual Verse
• ‘Coney Island Cap‘ by Jennifer Albon Burns on Visual Verse
• ‘What Happened in the Hold‘ by Lindsey Grundnicki on Visual Verse
• ‘Over the Limit‘ by Sue Ellis on Visual Verse
• ‘Moonlit Road‘ by Sarah Doughty on Visual Verse
• ‘Colgate‘ by Isadora Vibes on Visual Verse
• ‘Circles and Lines‘ by Sarah Salway on Visual Verse
• ‘Crossing the Line‘ by Birgita Orel on Visual Verse
• ‘Yarn‘ by Shirley Anne Cook on Visual Verse
• ‘Bad Habit‘ by Wendy Choi on Visual Verse
• ‘Arrival‘ by Georgina Joss on Visual Verse
• ‘No Overtaking‘ by Sally Hepplewhite on Visual Verse
• ‘Blinders‘ by Grace Black on Visual Verse
• ‘Found‘ by Luciana Francis on Visual Verse
• ‘Gateway‘ by Olivia Sprinkled on Visual Verse
• ‘Return‘ by Elizabeth Rogers on Visual Verse
• ‘Love‘ by Jennifer Harvey on Visual Verse
• ‘Shadows of the Showgirl‘ by Clare Archibald on Visual Verse
• Three Stories by Chiara Barzini in BOMB Magazine

Or some non-fiction:

• Feminist Radical Thinkers: A Sampler from Verso Books
• An extract from Girl in a Band: A Memoir by Kim Gordon in Vogue
• An extract from The Fish Ladder by Katharine Norbury in The Observer

The lists:

• The Seven Ages of Women in Virago Modern Classics and Persephone titles on heavenali’s blog
• Novelicious Picks…Books that Are Creating a Buzz (Part 1) on Novelicious
• 10 Great Psychological Thrillers That Are As Good As Gone Girl on Buzzfeed
• Miranda July’s Bookshelf on Strand Books
• 25 Books By Women To Help Diversify Your Bookshelves And Expand Your Horizons, Because #WeNeedDiverseBooks on Bustle
• A sonnet of Canadian women writers on Lynn Kanter’s blog
• 11 Books on Inspiring Women to Read This Year That’ll Completely Energize You to Hit Your Goals on Bustle
• 50 Essential Literary Biographies on Flavorwire
• Bleak Books to Read in January in Vanity Fair
• Diverse voices: the 50 best culturally diverse children’s books in The Guardian
• These Female Contemporaries Weren’t Afraid of Virginia Woolf on The Daily Beast
• 21 Scottish Novels to Look Forward to in 2015 on Scottish Book Trust
• 15 YA Writers on Their Favorite Book for Adults on Flavorwire
• 30 Legendary Literary Mean Girls We Love to Hate on Flavorwire
• Ten Classic ‘Chick-Lit’ Novels All Romantic Fiction Fans Should Read in Stylist
• Girl Canon: 50 Essential Books About the Female Experience
• 14 Novels About Muslim Life That Shouldn’t Be Missed on Buzzfeed
• 10 beautiful quotes from The Diary of a Young Girl in The Guardian
• Female Writers Who Won Nobel Prizes on Galley Cat
• Best Snow Day Reads: 19 Page-Turners To Enjoy While Snowed In in the Huffington Post
• Vivian French’s Top Ten Evil Characters on My Book Corner
• 50 Books Guaranteed to Make You More Interesting on Flavorwire
• 10 Must Read Female Writers From the Middle East on The Culture Trip
• 30 Women Novelists You Should Know – #21 Wendy Lee on Lynn Kanter’s blog
• 12 Books To Read If You Loved ‘The Girl On The Train’ (That Aren’t ‘Gone Girl’) in Bustle

and Diane Watt is spending February recommending LGBT reads on her Twitter account using the hashtag #mylgbtbooks

In the Media: 7th December 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 brought the news that the police involved in the deaths of Mike Brown and Eric Garner would not stand trial. Reaction came from many people. Janee Woods writes, ‘A Different Kind of Justice‘ in Guernica; Roxane Gay, ‘What he St Louis Rams know about Ferguson is a righteous glimpse of the way forward‘ in The Guardian; Mallory Ortberg, ‘Eric Garner’s Killer Won’t Be Indicted‘ on The Toast.

It’s fitting that Claudia Rankine’s Citizen was published recently. Here it’s discussed in The New York Times and on PBS.

It’s that time of year; the round-ups started weeks ago but this week they’ve proved impossible to ignore. First up is Joanna Walsh, creator of #ReadWomen2014 on the Shakespeare and Company blog and Sinéad Gleeson in The Irish Times. While The Millions do fantastic ‘A Year in Reading’ round-ups. Here’s Haley Mlotek, Karen Joy Fowler, Emily Gould, Laura van den Berg, Celeste Ng and Lydia Kiesling. Huffington Post has its ‘Best Books of 2014‘; Electric Literature asks ‘Was 2014 the Year of the Debut?‘; ‘Three million voters reveal the books of 2014‘ on Stylist; ‘The 24 Best Fiction Books of 2014‘ on Buzzfeed along with ‘32 of the Most Beautiful Book Covers of 2014‘; The Independent has ‘The best debuts‘ The New York Times has ‘The 10 Best Books of 2014‘; Bustle has ‘10 Female Authors That Ruled 2014‘, while Slate has ‘The 22 Best Lines of 2014‘, ‘27 Books You Shouldn’t Have Overlooked in 2014‘ and an all-female, yes, you read that correctly, an all-female – by choice not design – ‘Best Books of 2014‘.

Ayelet Waldman took to Twitter to comment on her non-inclusion in The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2014. You can read about it in The Guardian and Erin Keane responds on Salon. While Laura Miller tells us ‘What I learned from reading two decades worth of NYT notable books lists‘ also on Salon.

The best of the rest articles/essays:

• Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, ‘African Books for Western Eyes‘ on The New York Times
• Emily Nurenberger, ‘On Chick Lit‘ on her blog
• Zoe Todd, ‘An Indigenous Feminist’s Take on the Ontological Turn: ”ontology is just another word for colonialism‘ on her blog
• ‘Snapshots from a Life: Egyptian Novelist Radwa Ashour, 1946-2014‘ on Arablit
• Julie Naughton, ‘In Loving Color: Diversity in Romance Publishing, 2014‘ in Publisher’s Weekly
• Marie Hansen, ‘Reconciling My Feminism With My Beauty Mag Obsession‘ on Huffington Post
• Elif Shafak on why she writes in English and Turkish on English Pen
• Sarah Weinman, ‘The Real Lolita‘ in Hazlitt
• Rohan Maitzen, ‘Sex, Style and Sewage Farms: Winifred Holtby and Virginia Woolf‘ in 3:am Magazine
• Tamzin Baker, ‘La Milonguera‘ on Guernica
• Carole DeSanti asks ‘Why Is American book publishing so white?‘ in The Guardian (here is your ‘don’t read the comments’ warning)
• Julie R. Enszer, celebrates ‘Leslie Feinberg, Transgender Warrior‘ on The Butter
• Anne Lamott on forgiveness on Salon
• Sadie Stein ‘Angry Birds‘ in The Paris Review
• Alison Willmore, ‘Reece Witherson Plays the Year’s Most Satisfying Female Character in Wild‘ on Buzzfeed
• Cindy Lamothe, ‘Fireworks in June‘ on Guernica
• Jenn Lyons, ‘I Hate…Strong Female Characters‘ on Rewriting Mary Sue
• An all-female issue of The Critical Flame
• Kathryn Schulz, ‘Talking to Cheryl Strayed About What Made Wild Work‘ on Vulture
• Roxane Gay, ‘Our Stories‘ on The Butter
• Preeti Singh, ‘Are India’s young adults ready for LGBT literature?‘ on Mid-day
• Dan Chiasson on Olena Kalytiak Davis in The New Yorker
• Alexandra Kleeman on Fruitarians in The Guardian
• Alison Phipps, ‘The Dark Side of the Impact Agenda’ in THE
• Mary-Lan Tan on being nominated for the Bad Sex in Fiction award (YouTube)
• Jacqueline Wright, ‘What Kind of Girl‘ on Lena Dunham in Standard Issue
• Rebekah Frumkin, ‘The Abyss‘ in Granta
• Marina Benjamin on selfies on Various Small Fires
• An interestingly structured review of Valeria Luiselli’s Faces in the Crowd on Open Letters Monthly
• Ann Leckie, ‘What Makes Me Happy‘ in The Guardian
• Jill Lepore, ‘Wonder Woman: the feminist‘ in The Guardian
• Megham Daum on personal essays on Salon
• Robert MacFarlane on Nan Shepherd on the BBC (iPlayer available until Tuesday 9th)
• ‘The End of Alt Lit‘ on VIDA, includes interviews with Alexandra Naughton, Diane Marie and Lizzy Yizzil
• A Small Sampling of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Prescient Wisdom and Where To Find It on Electric Literature

The interviews:

• Herta Müller in The Paris Review
• Jessie Burton in The Guardian and on the BBC
• A round table discussion, including Jennifer Bartlett and Jillian Weise on ‘Disability and Poetry‘ on Poetry Foundation
• Jane Stubbs in Nudge
• Trisha Ashley on Tara Ford’s blog
• Meghan Daum (at 11.53) on The Gist on Slate and on bookforum
• Lydia Davis interviewing Dan Gunn (her questions are interesting) on Music and Literature
• Jane Smiley on The Guardian books podcast
• Jacqueline Woodson on Publishers Weekly
• Elif Shafak in The Guardian
• Samantha Norman on Shiny New Books

If you want some fiction/poetry to read:

• Three short pieces by Livia Franchini in The Quietus
• ‘Hopper’s Women‘ by Emily Carroll
• ‘My Father’s Poison‘ by Carrie Shippers on AGNI Online
• An extract from Butterflies in November by Audur Ava Ólafsdóttir (translated by Brian Fitzgibbon) on Guernica
• ‘Nostalgia‘ by Carol Ann Duffy in The TLS
• ‘Come Make Love With Us‘ by Cari Luna in Midnight Breakfast
• ‘Lost Love Lounge‘ by Cassie Pruyn on AGNI Online
• ‘A Mexican Fairytale‘ by Leonora Carrington on Weird Fiction Review
• An extract from The Affairs of Others by Amy Grace Lloyd on One Book Lane
• ‘The Lie Tree‘ by Jules Archer on The Toast
• ‘Grandfather’s Loop‘ by Marianne Morris on The Literateur
• ‘Grass‘ by Christina Sanders in Litro

The lists:

• The Best Dystopian Novels Everyone Should Read on Huffington Post
• 5 Great Books to Read in December on Buzzfeed
• 30 Women Novelists You Should Know #17: Laura McBride (read the whole series for far, it’s great) on Lynn Kanter’s blog
• 25 Genre Novels that Should Be Classics on Flavorwire (although that’s the strangest definition of genre novel I’ve ever seen, how about ‘books’ instead?)
• 35 Susan Sontag Quotes on Art, Writing and Life on Flavorwire
• 10 Great Books to Read Based on Your Favorite New Movies on Huffington Post
• Pictures from the TV adaptation of The Casual Vacancy in The Guardian

And the things I’ve most enjoyed reading this week:

• Tim Adams interviews Jenny Diski in The Observer
• Stephanie Feldman, ‘Great Local Moms in History‘ on The Toast (written after a profile of her focused on her being a mother)
• Rebecca Solnit, ‘Las Vegas and the Global Casino We Call Wall Street‘ on Guernica
• Adelle Waldman, ‘An Answer to the Novel’s Detractors‘ in The New Yorker
• Mallory Ortberg, ‘The Fictional Spinster Classification Index‘ on The Toast
• Sarah Perry interviewed on You Wrote the Book!

In the Media: 30th 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.

Friday night saw the winner of this year’s The Green Carnation Prize revealed. Congratulations to Anneliese Mackintosh whose book Any Other Mouth came top of a very strong shortlist. You can read about the decision on The Green Carnation Prize blog. Anneliese’s reaction is on her blog. It’s interesting to see Mackintosh’s book described as a fiction, memoir, short story hybrid, particularly as there’s been a focus on women writing memoirs this week.

Susanna Rustin is in The Guardian talking about ‘Why women are the masters of the memoir‘; Ceridwen Dovey writes ‘The Pencil and the Damage Done: The perverse attraction of autobiographical fiction‘ in The monthly; Lydia Kiesling writes ‘Meghan Daum won’t apologise: How she forged a new generation of confessional writing‘ on Salon, while Hannah Gersen writes on Meghan Daum, ‘Her Well-Spent Adulthood‘ on The Millions.

If you want to read some memoir essays, Lucinda Rosenfeld has ‘The Battle Hynm of the Papier-Mâché Mother‘ in The New Yorker; Sunny Singh writes, ‘To Become a Woman and a Writer, One Must Cast Aside Modesty‘ on her blog; Soniah Kamal writes, ‘Girls from Good Families‘ on The Butter; there’s an excerpt from Viv Albertine’s Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys on Vulture, while Sam Baker lists her pick of the best biographies and memoirs of 2014 in Harpers Bazaar.

Sadly, this week saw the death of crime writer, PD James. Ruth Rendall talked about their 40-year friendship in The Guardian. Linda Semple took a different angle on Slate looking at James’ homophobia.

The Scottish Book Trust chose Book Week Scotland to celebrate libraries. Many writers penned love letters to their chosen libraries, you can read letters from A.L Kennedy and Jacqueline Wilson in The Guardian and Alison Irvine, Anne Donovan, Francesca Simon, Helen Grant, Joanne Harris, Kate Tough, Lari Don, Lesley McDowell, Lin Anderson, Maggie Craig, Shari Low and Zoe Venditozzi on the Scottish Book Trust site. Rosie Garland also wrote about her passion for libraries to celebrate The Feminist Library on their blog.

And finally, The Guardian reported on a Goodreads survey in which they discovered that readers prefer authors of their own sex. Before anyone tells me we don’t need #readwomen2014 or this blog anymore, wait until this year’s VIDA statistics are published.

The best of the rest essays/articles:

• Tatyana Movshevich, ‘I Am From Dzerzhink‘ in Litro
• Anya A.H. Jamieson, ‘Black Blessings: Toni Cade Bambara and Octavia E. Butler‘ on The Feminist Wire
• Sam Baker, ‘What happens to your wardrobe when you leave life on the front rows‘ in The Telegraph
• Alex Engebretson, ‘Marilynne Robinson’s Singular Vision‘ on The Millions
• Daniel E. Pritchard, ‘To Revive the Lyric: Hoa Nguyen‘ in The Critical Flame
• Charlotte Seager, ‘When characters are difficult to get on with‘ in The Guardian
• Robin Stevens, ‘Murder Most Unladylike and diversity in children’s fiction‘ on Author Allsorts
• Josephine Livingstone, ‘Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues Isn’t Just for Queers’ on Slate
• Alicia Lutes on Doctor Who hiring it’s first female writer in six years on Nerdist
• Roxane Gay, ‘Only Words‘ on Michael Brown on The Butter
• Edwidge Danticat, ‘Enough Is Enough‘ also on Michael Brown in The New Yorker
• Stephanie Young, ‘Waterline, Part 1‘ on Drunken Boat
• Eleanor Updale, ‘Helping Miss Worthington‘ on The History Girls
• Sadie Stein, ‘Head Cases‘ on migraines in The Paris Review
• Sabrina Khan, ‘The Importance of Diversity in YA Fiction‘ on Women Writers, Women’s books
• Tuula Karjalainen, ‘Tove Jansson’s Moominland: What was the inspiration for Finland’s most famous family?‘ in The Independent
• Beluah Maud Devaney, ‘Little Women’s Unfortunate Brothers‘ in The Guardian
• Beverly Lyon Clark, ‘Why Louisa May Alcott’s Morality Still Resonates with Readers‘ on Huffington Post
• Claire Fuller, ‘And the winner is…‘ on her blog
• Rachel Holmes, ‘How Eleanor Marx Changed the World‘ on the New Statesman
• Valeria Costa-Kostritsky, ‘Letter from: the heart of Chechnya‘ in The Calvert Journal
• Rachel Donadio, ‘Italy’s Great, Mysterious Storyteller‘ (Guess who that is…) in The New York Review of Books
• Rivka Galchen, ‘What Kind of Funny Is He?‘ on Kafka in the LRB
• Kate Mayfield, ‘My Terrifying Thanksgiving‘ on her blog
• Mary Lécuyer, ‘The Puzzle of Puzzles/And that we call Being‘ in The Stockholm Review
• Marcia Lynx Qualey, ‘Small World: Impac prize’s version of global literature is distinctly parochial‘ in The Guardian
• Lily Dunn, ‘Writing Motherhood‘ on Mslexia
• Antonia Honeywell, ‘Three Months till Publication‘ on her blog
• Hilary Mantel on judging the Hilary Mantel Prize in The Guardian (Yes, it’s real.)
• Felicia R. Lee on Claudia Rankine in The New York Times

Photo by Dan Hansson

The interviews:

• Deborah Levy on Short Story Masterclass
• Tessa Hadley on Short Story Masterclass
• Sandra Ozzolo Ferri and Sandro Ferri, the husband and wife team who founded Europa Editions and discovered Elena Ferrante on Publishers Weekly
• Tena Štivičić on the National Theatre’s Soundcloud
• Fiona McCrae, Publisher of Graywolf Press on their blog via Guernica
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie via Brittle Paper
• Jacqueline Woodson in The Guardian
• Jane Smiley on The Millions
• Shelly Oria in The Paris Review
• J.C. Todd on Bloom
• Sarah Koenig talking about Serial on Slate
• Ali Smith in The New York Times
• Ava Chin on Bloom
• Megan Amran on Flavorwire
• Jodi Picoult in The Telegraph
• Marilynne Robinson on the New Statesman
• Joanne Harris in The Herald
• Celese Ng on The Writes of Woman (yes, I linked to my own blog)
• Catherine Hall on The Writes of Woman (and again)

If you want some fiction/poetry to read:

• ‘The Untelling‘ by Claire Fuller on Bookanista
• ‘Canada‘ by Katherine Stansfield in The Guardian
• Claudia Rankine reads from Citizen on Lemon Hound
• ‘Engineer‘ by Helen Mort in the TLS
• Contemporary Irish Women Poets on Poethead (links to several poems)
• ‘Leaving Her‘ by Deborah Pintonelli on Literary Orphans
• Two Sentence Thanksgiving Stories on Salon (45 of them!)
• An extract from ‘The Crooked House‘ by Christobel Kent on The Crime Vault
• ‘The Price’ and other poems by Jane Clarke on Poethead

Or some non-fiction:

• Claire-Louise Bennett reading from her essay ‘I Am Love‘ at the launch of Gorse Journal No. 2

The lists:

• The 10 Best Books of 2014 in Time Out New York
• The 15 Best Non-fiction Books by Black Authors in 2014 on The Root
• 10 Obscure Non-Fiction Books by Your Favorite Fiction Writers on Flavorwire
• 5 Must-Read Poetry Collections by Women on Ravishly
• 10 Reasons to Love Marilynne Robinson on For Books’ Sake
• 9 PD James Quotes Every Writer Needs to Read on Buzzfeed
• Five African Novels to Read Before You Die on The Conversation

And the best pieces I’ve read this week:

• Amina Gautier, ‘On Male Verbal Privilege‘ on Read Her Like an Open Book
• Shannon Barber, ‘We Deserve It‘ in Nailed (reposted following the Michael Brown decision this week)
• Eva Stalker on ‘The TBR20 Project: Taking a Break from Too Many Books‘ on her blog
• Isabel Rogers, ‘In my beginning is my end‘ – Friday QuickFic on her blog
• Lynsey White, on ageing and writing on her blog. White has blogged every day of NaNoWriMo and written almost 75,000 words on her WIP. All of the blogs are worth reading.
• Gaby Wood on Fairytales in The Telegraph (starts with Neil Gaiman but covers many others too)