In the Media, April 2017, 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.

Photograph by Murdo MacLeod

 

Women have been dominating the prize wins for the past fortnight. Hollie McNish won the Ted Hughes Prize and Kiran Millwood Hargrave won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize with The Girl of Ink and Stars.

While The Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist was announced. Rebecca May Johnson writes ‘Notes on . . . the Baileys Women’s Prize‘ (and reading women more generally) in the Financial Times. There are interviews with several of the longlisted writers on the prize’s site: Madeleine Thien, Naomi Alderman, Linda Grant, Yewande Omotoso, Heather O’Neill, Fiona Melrose, Eimear McBride, Emma Flint.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Claire Armistead, ‘Is Hilary Mantel’s view of historical fiction out of date?‘ in The Guardian
• Amy Bernhard, ‘Writing Behind Walls‘ on Catapult
• Catherine La Sota, ‘Reading Across America: A Scene Grows in Queens‘ on Literary Hub
• Alicia Maria Meier, ‘Marta Rojals’s “The Faithful,” and the American JASP‘ on Words Without Borders
• Megan Hunter, ‘Fiction to see the world through‘ in The TLS
• Vincent Scarpa, ‘The Uncanny Magic of Joy Williams, in a Single Paragraph‘ on Literary Hub
• Laura Waddell, ‘Is it time for a Handmaid’s Tale sequel, to reckon with the Trump era?‘ in The Guardian
• Aaron Bady, ‘Has Imbolo Mbue Written the Great American Novel?‘ on Literary Hub
• Mallory Soto, ‘Laura Kinney, Literary Fiction, and Coming-of-Age‘ on Bookriot
• Emily Temple, ‘A Brief History of Robots‘ on Literary Hub
• Terri Kapsalis, ‘Hysteria, Witches, and the Wandering Uterus: A Brief History‘ on Literary Hub
• Ayana Mathis, ‘On Impractical Urges‘ in Guernica
• Sophie Hughes, ‘Ferrante Fever and Knausgaard nuts‘ in The TLS
• Amelia Ayrelan Iuvino, ‘What Does it Mean to Set Your Novel at Harvard?‘ on Literary Hub
• Margaret Atwood, ‘on What ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Means in the Age of Trump‘ in The New York Times
• Edmund Gordon, ‘In Which Angela Carter Gives No Fucks‘ on Literary Hub
• Sophie Gilbert, ‘The Dark Morality of Fairy-Tale Animal Brides‘ on The Atlantic
• Fiona Taylor, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale: The Lost Pence Prequel‘ in The New Yorker
• Sarah Blackwood, ‘Parenting by the Books: ‘Little Women’‘ on The Hairpin
• Emily Temple, ‘Life Advice from Adrienne Rich‘ on Literary Hub
• Danika Ellis, ‘Let’s Talk About Star-Crossed: Why We Need Bisexual Kids Books, Backlash or Not‘ on Bookriot
• Naomi Alderman, ‘Dystopian dreams: how feminist science fiction predicted the future‘ in The Guardian
• Jami Attenberg, ‘Stop Reading My Fiction as the Story of My Life‘ in The New York Times
• Salena Godden, ‘How I Did It‘ on The Poetry School
• Scarlett Thomas, ‘Why I was wrong about children’s fiction‘ in The Guardian
• Ellen Feldman, ‘A Brief Literary History of Birth Control‘ on Literary Hub
• Laura Kaye, ‘on portraying England from a foreigner’s perspective‘ on the Literary Sofa
• Valerie Derbyshire, ‘Beauty and the Beast was originally a feminist fable disguised as marriage guidance‘ on The Conversation
• Bidisha, ‘The great contradiction‘ in The TLS
• Teri Vlassopoulos, ‘When I Think About Giving Up Writing‘ on Catapult
• Alexandra Alter, ‘New Crop of Young Adult Novels Explores Race and Police Brutality‘ in The New York Times
• Jami Attenberg, ‘Topography of a Novel: All Grown Up‘ on Blunderbuss
• Kathryn Heyman, ‘Fairytales are not just harmless, innocent fun. They need to be interrogated‘ in The Guardian
• Susan Braudy, ‘‘Sisters in Misery’: What It Was Like to Interview Joan Didion at Home in 1977‘ on Jezebel

Personal essays/memoir:

• Kim McLarin, ‘Outrunning Eshu: On Finally Seeking Treatment for Depression‘ on Literary Hub
• Marissa Bate, ‘Adventures aren’t always on the other side of the world‘ on The Pool
• Daisy Buchanan, ‘I’ve been an agony aunt since I could talk‘ in The Guardian
• Laura Turner, ‘How Do You Inherit Anxiety?‘ on Catapult
• Meg Elison, ‘El Hugé‘ on Catapult
• Melissa Febos, ‘Playing Cupid for a Gay Friend on a (Mostly) Straight Cruise‘ in The New York Times
• Ethel Rohan, ‘Bringing It Back Up‘ on The Hairpin
• Sinéad Gleeson, ‘Your Chroma‘ on RTÉ
• Melinda Salisbury, ‘Was my grandmother a witch?‘ in The Guardian
• Amy Jo Burns, ‘Writing, Risk, and Moonshine‘ on Electric Literature
• Dionne Ford, ‘Don’t Call Slaves “Immigrants”‘ on Literary Hub
• Melissa Wyse, ‘Learning to Live Alone Through the Legacy of Mary Tyler Moore‘ in The Rumpus
• Whitney Templeton, ‘The Evolution of a Trigger‘ on The Rumpus
• Elisabeth Fairfield Stokes, ‘Life and Breath: On Pregnancy and the Spirit World‘ on Catapult
• Gillian Jacobs, ‘I Can’t Have Enough Mothers‘ on Lenny
• Dina Nayeri, ‘How Love Ends: Scenes from a Refugee Hotel‘ on Electric Literature
• Maria Browning, ‘Doll in Shadow‘ on Guernica
• Xialou Guo, ‘Leaving the Village: on Traumatic Uprooting‘ on Literary Hub
• Alys Fowler, ‘There is no such thing as coming out: it’s a daily negotiation‘ in The Guardian
• Eve Peyser, ‘Trump, Trolls, and Rediscovering My Jewish Identity‘ on Vice
• Porochista Khakpour, ‘Why this Persian New Year is different‘ on CNN
• Ashley Ford, ‘Seeing My Body with Fresh Eyes‘ on Cup of Jo
• Laurie Frankel, ‘We adopted by choice not necessity‘ in The Guardian
• Ella Wilson, ‘Take Care: Mothers, Daughters, and Inheriting Self-Hatred‘ on Catapult
• Daisy Buchanan, ‘I am 32, successful and I am in therapy. This is why‘ on The Pool

Feminism:

• Helen Charman, ‘Literary Representations of Maternity‘ on Women Are Boring
• Heather Kirn Lanier, ‘Superbabies Don’t Cry‘ on Vela
• Jia Tolentino, ‘The Infantilizing Ways We Talk About Women’s Ambition‘ in The New Yorker
• Leslie Jamison, ‘In the Shadow of a Fairy Tale‘ in The New York Times
• Rebecca Traister, ‘Of Course Donald Trump Doesn’t Think Bill O’Reilly Did Anything Wrong‘ in The Cut
• Salimah Perkins, ‘Choosing Sides‘ on Queen Mob’s Tea House
• Minda Honey, ‘Women of Color in Wide Open Spaces‘ on Longreads
• Jess Zimmerman, ‘Why Is Male Anger So Threatening?‘ in Dame
• Jessica Valenti, ‘Mike Pence doesn’t eat alone with women. That speaks volumes‘ in The Guardian
• Phoebe Maltz Bovy, ‘It’s time to drop the vagina as a protest symbol‘ in The Washington Post
• Morgan Jerkins, ‘How America Fails Black Girls‘ in The New York Times
• Sandra Newman, ‘Why men rape‘ on Aeon
• Mia Violet, ‘Taking Selfies As A Form Of Self Care‘ on Femsplain
• Brittney McNamara, ‘White Women Are Less Likely to Protect Black Women From Sexual Assault, Study Finds‘ in Teen Vogue
• Roe McDermott, ‘There is no perfect victim. And there is no perfect way to respond to sexual assault‘ on The Pool
• Morgan M Page, ‘Trans Women Shouldn’t Have To Constantly Defend Their Own Womanhood‘ on Buzzfeed
• Cathy Young, ‘The Other Women’s Movement‘ on Foreign Policy
• David Smith, ‘Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on transgender row: “I have nothing to apologise for”‘ in The Guardian

Society and Politics:

• Jeanette Winterson, ‘We need to be more imaginative about modern marriage‘ in The Guardian
• Taffy Brodesser-Akner, ‘The High Price of Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Life‘ in the New York Times
• Monica Mark, ‘Poor, Gifted and Black‘ on Buzzfeed
• Diana Darke, ‘A sarin attack and a swing in US policy‘ in The TLS
• Carla Bruce-Eddings, ‘Am I Going to Have Another Baby?‘ in The Cut
• Emily Holleman, ‘Is Hillary Clinton a Modern-Day Cleopatra?‘ on Literary Hub
• Hannah Goldfeld, ‘The Cool Brooklyn Dentist Who Wants Your Teeth to Look As Nice As Her Instagram Feed‘ in The Cut
• Suzanne Moore, ‘Labour is weak and immoral – as shown by Livingstone’s refusal to apologise‘ in The Guardian
• Alana Semuels, ‘Why It’s So Hard to Get Ahead in the South‘ in The Atlantic
• Zara Rahman, ‘Where Are You Really From‘ on Real Life
• Jeanne de Montbaston, ‘My Daughter’s Birth‘ on Reading Medieval Books
• Linda Besner, ‘Sleep Country‘ on Real Life
• Hilary Mantel, ‘The Tories will never confess to their social wrecking age‘ in The New Statesman
• Alana Massey, ‘Broken Links‘ on Aeon
• Sim Bajwa, ‘Multiculturalism hasn’t failed – but the rhetoric surrounding immigration has become poisonous‘ on The Pool
• Elena Passarello, ‘The Sense of an Endling‘ on Longreads
• Lisa Miller, ‘John Hinckley Left the Mental Hospital Seven Months Ago‘ in New York Magazine

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

• Jonatha Kottler, ‘Shopping at size 24: ‘The sales assistant shakes her head at me’‘ in The Guardian
• Caitlin McDonnell, ‘On Homeland‘s Carrie Mathison, Mental Illness, & the “Ugly Cry”‘ on Weird Sister
• Sophie Atkinson, ‘Feminism and the Pursuit of Relentless Happiness‘ on Electric Literature
• Christine Vines, ‘The Damage of ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’‘ on Electric Literature
• Laura McKeon, ‘Dressing Like Ladies‘ on Hazlitt
• Rachel Klein, ‘Smurfette’s Roots‘ on Hazlitt
• Lauren Schwartzberg, ‘Why Millennial Pink Refuses to Go Away‘ in The Cut
• Amy Wallace, ‘The Hollywood Exec and the Hand Transplant That Changed His Life‘ in Los Angeles Magazine
• Catherine Love, ‘Offside: the shocking moment female footballers were banned for 50 years‘ in The Guardian

The interviews/profiles:

• Durga Chew-Bose on Hazlitt
• Edna O’Brien on Kenyan Review
• Eleni Sikelianos in Numeró Cinq
• Sarah Waters in The Guardian
• Ursula K. Le Guin on Electric Literature
• Claire Fuller on Reading Women
• Julie Buntin on Electric Literature
• Ariel Levy on Electric Literature and The Fifth Sense
• Angie Thomas in The Guardian and The Cut
• Deb Olin Unferth on Electric Literature
• Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo in The Bookseller
• Valeria Luiselli in Brooklyn
• Aura Xilonen on Electric Literature
• Ana Marie Cox on Literary Hub
• Wioletta Greg and Eliza Marciniak on The Man Booker Prize
• Fay Weldon in The Guardian
• Brit Bennett on The Millions
• Marina Benjamin on Slate
• Maggie Nelson in The Cut
• Katie Kitamura in The LA Times
• Megan McDowell on Literary Hub
• Emma Richler on Maisonneuve
• Eve Ainsworth on Bookriot
• Anna Journey on Electric Literature
• Eileen Myles in The Irish Times
• Eula Bliss in The Los Angeles Review of Books
• Khadijah Queen on The Rumpus
• Emily Robbins on Hazlitt
• Helen McClory on Burning House Press
• Lidia Yuknavitch on Pen America
• Patty Yumi Cottrell on Literary Hub
• Nell Stevens in Vogue

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

Books of the Year 2016, Part One

As usual I’m dividing my Books of the Year into two parts. Part Two, coming tomorrow will be fiction published in 2016. Part One is fiction published pre-2016 and 2016 non-fiction. If you click on the pictures of the books they will take you to my full review.

Waking Lions – Ayelet Gundar-Goshen (translated by Sondra Silverston)

Doctor Etian Green finishes a nineteen hour shift at Soroka Hospital, six of which he spent helping to stabilise road traffic accident victims. In the time it takes for him to walk from the hospital ward to his car, he goes from exhausted to adrenaline-fueled. He decides to drive to ‘a particularly challenging SUV track’ he’s read about. Sprinting along, he hits a man and leaves him for dead. The next morning, Sirkit, the man’s wife, appears at his door along with Etian’s wallet which he dropped at the scene. Sirkit offers him a deal but it’s one that will have serious consequences for his home life and his job. Everything in Waking Lions is grey area. Sharp, thoughtful and challenging.

Push – Sapphire

Claireece Precious Jones – Precious to her friends, Claireece to ‘mutherfuckers I hate’ – 16-years-old, five feet nine or ten, two hundred pounds, is pregnant for the second time to her father. Suspended from school, she goes to Each One Teach One, located on the nineteenth floor of a local hotel. Precious tells the story of her time attending the group, in which she learns to read and write, intertwined with that of her family situation. Push could be an unbearable read: every time you think it couldn’t get any darker, it does, but it’s balanced by Precious’ determination and Sapphire’s rendering of Precious’ voice which is pitch perfect and authentic.

One Night, Markovitch – Ayelet Gundar-Goshen (translated by Sondra Silverston)

Yaacov Markovitch and Zeev Feinberg go on the run after Feinberg is caught having sex with the wife of Avraham Mandelbaum, the slaughterer. The deputy commander of the Irgun, a friend of Feinberg’s, sends the pair to Europe where they will marry ‘a Jewish girl’ and bring them back to Palestine, thus circumventing the closed gates of Europe. Once the men return, they will divorce and the women will be free to remain. But Markovitch refuses to divorce his wife, the stunning but cold, Bella Zeigerman. The backbone of the story is that of three women: Bella; Feinberg’s wife, Sonya, and Mandelbaum’s wife, Rachel. Gundar-Goshen uses them to explore the ups-and-downs of marriage, parenthood, war, death …basically all of life is here.

The Glorious Heresies – Lisa McInerney

Maureen kills Robbie O’Donovan when she finds him in her house. As the mother of Cork’s biggest gangster, Jimmy Phelan, she doesn’t need to worry about clearing up her mess. But the mess is bigger than a body and some blood: Robbie’s girlfriend, Georgie, is looking for him and she has problems of her own; Tara Duane, Georgie’s confidant is keen to know everyone’s business and she lives next door to Jimmy’s alcoholic clearer-upper, Tony Cusak. And then there’s Cusak’s son, fifteen-year-old Ryan, who loses his virginity, starts his first long term relationship and begins to step out from the shadow of his alcoholic, violent, widowed father. A bloody entertaining read.

Ruby – Cynthia Bond

Ruby’s returned to Liberty Township, Texas from New York City. Everyone knows she’s mad: she pees in the street and has sex with many of the men in Liberty, but Ruby’s caught the attention of one man who wants to treat her differently; Ephram Jennings is planning to bring Ruby one of his sister’s white lay angel cakes. Ruby’s tortured by the ghosts which have attached themselves to her. As she gives herself to them, we learn about her childhood and the long-standing relationship she has with Jennings’ family. Bleak but threaded with hope and beautiful writing.

 

The Devil in the Marshalsea – Antonia Hodgson

Tom Hawkins, eldest son of a Suffolk gentleman, Oxford graduate, set to join the clergy and inherit his father’s position, finds himself in the Marshalsea for unpaid rent and other debts. He arrives after the widow of Captain Roberts has taken up residence in the debtor’s  prison after Robert’s murder made to look like suicide. Hawkins gets drawn into solving the murder as he deals with his roommate, the despised Samuel Fleet, and the prison’s regime, divided by rich and poor. Intelligent, packed with period detail and plot, bawdy, has a social conscience and some hilarious lines. Entertaining.

 
Pleasantville – Attica Locke

Pleasantville is a neighbourhood in Houston, Texas, built in 1949 “specifically for Negro families of means and class”. As a middle class, politically aware area, it also holds political power, a power which has become legendary over four decades. The story takes place in 1996 in the run-up to Houston’s mayoral election, the results of which might bring Alex Hathorne to office as the city’s first black mayor. As the novel begins the situation is quickly complicated by two events: the first is the abduction of a teenage girl, following a stint distributing campaign leaflets door-to-door in Pleasantville; the second is a break-in at Jay Porter’s office.As the story unravels, all the threads become entwined with the mayoral race at the centre. Locke considers who really runs an election campaign: a matter of business and money – who pays for the campaigns, who dictates strategy – but ultimately, how low people are prepared to go in their desperation for power.

Negroland – Margo Jefferson

Margo Jefferson grew up in Chicago in the 1950s and ’60s. Born to a paediatrician father and a socialite mother, she experienced a particular type of privilege: that of the well-off, educated, black family. Personal experience is interwoven with the history of those Jefferson identifies as belonging to Negroland: Frances Jackson Coppin and Joseph Willson, for example; and cultural commentary on film, television and the media, discussing those black men and women who did appear on and in those mediums and what they came to represent for black communities. Negroland is a superb book which consider the intersections of race, class and gender. It’s a fascinating read and an insight into an underexplored area of society.

The Argonauts – Maggie Nelson

The Argonauts charts Nelson’s relationship with the artist Harry Dodge, including the conception and birth of their son, Iggy, and Dodge’s decision to begin taking testosterone and have top surgery. The Argonauts is not straightforward memoir, it is intellectual argument illuminated by personal experience and supported by academic rigour. It explores love – constructing and maintaining a relationship outside of heteronormativity and maternal love as stepmother and mother (the latter from the point of view of adult child and parent as well as the expectant mother/mother of a young child) – and the body – sex, gender fluidity, pregnancy and birth. Rigorous and fascinating.

The Lonely City – Olivia Laing

Laing examines the idea of being lonely in the busiest place on earth – the city, specifically in her case New York City. Part memoir, part mediation on art, Laing looks at a number of artists who’ve dealt with the theme of loneliness – in their work and often in their private lives too – focusing in on Edward Hopper, Andy Warhol, Henry Darger and David Wojnarowicz. The Lonely City is a fascinating exploration of what loneliness is; how we attempt to stave it off; why some people are consumed by it, and what its relationship to artistic creation might be.

 

In the Media: October 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.

The fortnight began with the outing of Elena Ferrante. I’m not going to link to the original article, but there’s been a huge reaction to it:

• Rachel Donadio, ‘Revelation Surrounding Novelist Elena Ferrante Exposes Cultural Differences‘ in The New York Times
• Priscilla Frank ‘Elena Ferrante, Francesca Woodman, And Women Who Yearn To Disappear In Plain Sight‘ on The Huffington Post
• David L. Ulin, ‘Leave Elena Ferrante Alone‘ on Literary Hub
• Christian Lorentzen, ‘If You Want to Know Who Elena Ferrante ‘Really’ Is, You’re Asking the Wrong Questions‘ on Vulture
• Jeanette Winterson, ‘The malice and sexism behind the ‘unmasking’ of Elena Ferrante‘ in The Guardian
• Tom Hawking, ‘The Unmasking of Elena Ferrante: Journalistically Defensible, Perhaps, But Morally Questionable‘ on Flavorwire
• Marie Myung Ok-Lee, ‘Occupy Author Photo: On Elena Ferrante, Privacy, and Women Writers‘ on The Millions
• Rebecca Falkoff, ‘“To translate is to betray”: the Elena Ferrante phenomenon in Italy and the US‘ in The Guardian
• Noreen Malone, ‘Elena Ferrante’s “Unmasking” Wasn’t the End of the World‘ on Slate
• Megan Garber, ‘Elena Ferrante and the Cost of Being an Author‘ on The Atlantic
• Alexandra Schwartz, ‘The “Unmasking” of Elena Ferrante‘ in The New Yorker
• Christine Friar, ‘Female Trouble: There’s no safe way to be a woman in public‘ on The Awl
• Lisa Campbell, ‘Ferrante’s unmasking “likely to increase sales” say booksellers‘ in The Bookseller
• Erica Wagner, ‘The unmasking of Elena Ferrante: why a writer’s biography is irrelevant‘ in The New Statesman
• Rachel Donadio and Jennifer Schuessleroct, ‘ Who Is Elena Ferrante? Supporters Say NOYB‘ in The New York Times
• Charlotte Shane, ‘The Sexist Big Reveal‘ in New Republic
• Rachel Stirling, ‘The Ferrante Farago‘ on Queen Mobs
• Lincoln Michel, ‘We May Know Who Ferrante Is, But Have We Learned Anything?‘ on Electric Literature
• Adam Kirsh, ‘Elena Ferrante and the Power of Appropriation‘ in The New York Times
• Frances Wilson, ‘Elena Ferrante: the story of a new name‘ in The TLS
• Ann Friedman, ‘Kim Kardashian West, Elena Ferrante, and the Right to Privacy‘ in The Cut
• Arifa Akbar, ‘Exposing Elena Ferrante whiffs of misogyny and is without purpose‘ on The Pool
• The Guardian view on unmasking Elena Ferrante: an impoverishing act
• Suzanne Moore, ‘Who cares who Elena Ferrante really is? She owes us nothing‘ in The Guardian
• Stig Abell, ‘Why the TLS would not have named Elena Ferrante‘ in The TLS
• Elena Avanzas Álvarez ‘What Our Insistence on Ferrante’s Identity Actually Means About Women, Consent, and Art‘ on Books and Reviews
• Lana Schwartz, ‘Drafts of Emails Elena Ferrante Never Sent to Claudio Gatti‘ in The Hairpin

Photograph by Kate Neil

The other big story of the fortnight has been the release of the film version of The Girl on the Train.

• Interviews with Paula Hawkins in The Wall Street Journal and Woman and Home
• Anne Helen Petersen, ‘“The Girl On The Train” And Women’s Dark Fantasies‘ on Buzzfeed
• John Mullan, ‘How we got to The Girl on the Train – the rise of the psychological thriller‘ in The Guardian
• Erin Kelly, ‘How the psychological thriller came to tackle coercive control‘ on The Pool

And the writer with the most coverage is Brit Bennett who’s interviewed on The Cut, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Jezebel, The New York Times and Literary Hub.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Carmen Maria Machado, ‘How to Suppress Women’s Criticism‘ on Electric Literature
• Diana Darke, ‘In Syria‘ in The TLS
• Liz Thomson, ‘Bob Dylan’s Nobel: “Yippee! I’m a poet and I know it/Hope I don’t blow it“‘ in The Bookseller
• Julia Kingsford, ‘“The Nobel Academy is breaking its trust with us” by awarding Dylan‘ in The Bookseller
• Anna Funder, ‘Sound of Silence‘ in The TLS
• Stella Duffy, ‘A London Lies Beneath Walk‘ on Virago
• Ying Ju-Lai, ‘Dispatches from a Writer’s Retreat on a Playground for the Super Rich‘ on Literary Hub
• Xiaolu Guo, ‘One language is not enough – I write in both Chinese and English’ in The Guardian
• Julie Phillips, ‘The Fantastic Ursula K. Le Guin‘ in The New Yorker
• Bridget Read, ‘Lean In, Swipe Right: On Tinder and the Politics of Singledom‘ on Literary Hub
• Miranda Popkey, ‘All the Time I’ve Wasted Watching the Better Versions of Me‘ in The Cut
• Kathleen Harris, ‘What We Write About When We’re Not Writing‘ on Vela
• Melissa Lee-Houghton, ‘Articulating your experience is remarkably life-affirming‘ in The Guardian
• Edmund Gordon, ‘Angela Carter in Japan‘ in The TLS
• Yiyun Li, ‘All that Offers a Happy Ending Is a Fairy Tale‘ in Granta
• Lina Mounzer, ‘War in Translation: Giving Voice to the Women of Syria‘ on Literary Hub
• Lidija Dimkovska, ‘How the Yugoslav Wars Shaped a Generation of Writers‘ on Literary Hub
• KJ Orr, ‘BBC National Short Story winner – a plea to publishers to take risks‘ in The Guardian
• Elisa Albert, ‘The Snarling Girl‘ on Hazlitt
• Eric Thurm, ‘Is Joyce Carol Oates Trolling Us?‘ on Literary Hub
• Nell Zink, ‘How to Become a Novelist in Ten Easy Steps‘ on Literary Hub
• ‘Gloria Naylor, award-winning novelist, dies aged 66‘ in The Guardian
• Allegra Hyde, ‘Literary Alchemy: the Wedding of Subject and Style‘ on Electric Literature

Personal essays/memoir:

• Tracy O’Neill, ‘After the Playground‘ on Catapult
• Cari Luna, ‘Under Threat of the Really Big One‘ on Catapult
• Curtis Sittenfeld, ‘My Friend Sam‘ in The New Yorker
• Laura Turner, ‘I Was Pregnant, And Then I Wasn’t‘ on Buzzfeed
• Chloe Caldwell, ‘On Female Friendship and the Sisters We Choose for Ourselves‘ on Longreads
• Christine Ro, ‘How I Talk to My Mother‘ on Catapult
• Nancy Jooyoun Kim, ‘Love (or Live Cargo)‘ on Okey-Panky
• Sali Hughes, ‘My life in makeup: the beauty products I’ll never, ever throw away‘ in The Guardian
• Kristen Arnett, ‘The Lord’s Supper‘ on Catapult
• Lizzie Feidelson ‘The Clean‘ in n+1
• Affinity Konar, ‘My Sister’s Abusive Marriage Was Never About Me‘ on Buzzfeed
• Sarah Gerard, ‘Eat Life, Not Matter‘ in Hazlitt
• Clare Archibald, ‘Paper Dolls Join Together with Dots of Whispered Steel‘ on Dangerous Women
• Gillian Flynn, ‘Be Kind to People Dressed as Food‘ in The New Yorker
• Erica Wagner, ‘The silver scent of fear: Learning to live with epilepsy‘ in The New Statesman

Feminism:

• Dayna Evans, ‘Do Women Still Need a Space of Their Own?‘ in The Cut
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, ‘Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions‘ on Facebook
• Rebecca Solnit, ‘City of Women‘ in The New Yorker
• Rep. Tammy Duckworth, ‘Caretaking Equals Strength, Not Weakness‘ on Lenny
• Joanna Klein, ‘Metaphorically Speaking, Men Are Expected to be Struck by Genius, Women to Nurture It‘ in The New York Times
• Rachel Charlene Lewis, ‘Queering Gender, Queering Genre‘ on Electric Literature
• Kristen Hanley Cardozo, ‘The Terrible Power Of White Women Fears In Donald Trump’s Campaign‘ in The Establishment
• Tobi Oredin, ‘As a black British woman I still need Black History Month‘ on The Pool
• Shannon Shreibak, ‘We need to talk about the fetishization of the tattooed alt-girl‘ on Hello Giggles

Society and Politics:

• Jill Soloway, ‘on Donald Trump, Locker Rooms and Toxic Masculinity‘ in Time
• Esther Wang, ‘Asian American voters are crucial to victory. Will they actually turn out to vote?‘ on Fusion
• Rebecca Traister, ‘Trump’s One Public Service Was Exposing the Misogyny of the GOP‘ on The Cut
• Edwidge Danticat, ‘Hurricane Matthew’s Devastating Toll in Haiti‘ in The New Yorker
• Lindy West, ‘Donald and Billy on the Bus‘ in The New York Times
• Kathryn Miles, ‘Spoiler Alert‘ in Pacific Standard
• Sarah Smash, ‘Dangerous idiots: how the liberal media elite failed working-class Americans‘ in The Guardian
• Anna Merlan, ‘The Team of Men Behind Rachel Brewson, the Fake Woman Whose Trump-Fueled Breakup Went Viral‘ on Jezebel
• Alana Massey, ‘When New York Stopped: Confronting the Lingering Aftermath of Hurricane Sandy‘ in Brooklyn Magazine
•  Your Fat Friend, ‘The 400-pound hacker & fat shaming without fat people‘ on Think Progress
• Kristin Dombek, ‘Emptiness‘ (on narcissists) on n+1

The interviews/profiles:

• Margaret Atwood on Hazlitt, in The Guardian
• Tessa Hadley and Helen Garner on Electric Literature
• Jami Attenberg and Maria Semple on Literary Hub
• Anuradha Roy on Electric Literature
• Madeleine Thien in The Guardian and in Granta
• Claudia Rankine on The Cut
• Kit de Waal on Too Full to Write
• Maria Padian on Book Riot
• Marcy Dermansky on Buzzfeed
• Seraphina Madsen on The Writes of Woman and Storgy
• Holly Throsby on The Guardian
• Hettie Jones on Lenny
• Tracy Chevalier and Paulette Jiles on Literary Hub
• Marisa Silver on Electric Literature
• Leigh Stein in The Huffington Post
• Zoe Wittall on Maisonneuve
• Robin Stevens on The Bookseller
• Chloe Cadwell on Electric Literature
• Sinéad Gleeson in The Irish Times
• Natalie Baszile on Literary Hub
• Nell Zink on The Millions and Vulture
• Eimear McBride in The Irish Times
• Pamela Erens on Bloom
• Mary Gaitskill in the Los Angeles Review of Books
• Maggie Nelson on Fiction Advocate
• Ali Smith in The Observer

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
• Books by Women We’d Love to See in English on Literary Hub

In the Media, May 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.

The last fortnight’s been dominated by death. On Thursday, Jenny Diski died less than two years after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. Literary Hub ran ‘Remembering Jenny Diski‘ including pieces from Hayley Mlotek, Michelle Dean, Joanna Walsh, Bridget Read, Laura Marsh, Marta Bausells and Charlotte Shane. The Guardian ran an extract from her cancer diary. Joanne Harris wrote a found poem ‘Opium Ice Cream‘ from Diski’s tweets, and The London Review of Books opened Jenny Diski’s entire archive to non-subscribers.

The previous week comedian Victoria Wood died. A.L. Kennedy declared her, ‘My Hero‘ in The Guardian; Helen Walmsley Johnson wrote, ‘Victoria Wood gave us the gift of being able to laugh at ourselves‘ in The New Statesman

Although he’s not a female writer, Prince also died just over a week ago and so much brilliant writing by women has come from that: Porochista Khakpour, ‘Prince’s Woman and Me: The Collaborators Who Inspired a Generation‘ in the Village Voice; Maya West, ‘A Hierarchy of Love and Loss and Prince‘ on Jezebel; Bim Adewunmi, ‘Celebrating Prince For 48 Hours In Minneapolis‘ on Buzzed; Heather Haverilsky, ‘Prince Showed Me a Whole New Way of Existing‘ on The Cut; Amanda Marcotte, ‘Sexy MFers, unite: The feminist power of Prince’s sex-positive songs‘ on Salon; K.T. Billey, ‘Prince and the queer body: Our dirty patron saint of pop gave me permission to think outside the gender binary‘ on Salon; Kaitlyn Greenidge, ‘Surviving a Long Alaskan Winter with Prince‘ on Literary Hub; Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, ‘Prince Spent His Life Elevating and Mentoring Women‘ on Jezebel; Lily Burano, ‘Why Prince Was a Hero to Strippers‘ on The Cut; Ashley Weatherford, ‘Understanding the Politics of Prince’s Hair‘ on The Cut; Mona Hayder, ‘Prince Was a Demigod Who Uplifted the Masses Through Music‘ on Literary Hub; Naomi Jackson, ‘Prince: Finding Joy Outside Conformity‘ on Literary Hub; Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, ‘Prince conjured the kind of sex you’d want to have – filthy and fun, and sometimes offensive‘ in The Independent; Tracy King, ‘We should celebrate Prince for championing female musicians‘ in The New Statesman; Laura Craik, ‘“I loved him because of how his music made me feel”‘ on The Pool; Michelle Garcia, ‘Prince gave black kids permission to be weirdos‘ on Vox; Ijeoma Oluo, ‘Prince Was The Patron Saint Of Black Weirdos‘ on The Establishment.

Other brilliant writing about music came from the launch of Beyoncé’s new album Lemonade. Brittany Spanos, ‘How Beyonce’s ‘Lemonade’ Reclaims Rock’s Black Female Legacy‘ in Rolling Stone; Mandy Stadtmiller, ‘How Lemonade Helped Me Talk to My Husband About Cheating‘ on The Cut; Treva Lindsey, ‘Beyoncé’s Lemonade Isn’t Just About Cheating, It’s About Black Sisterhood‘ in Cosmopolitan; Caroline O’Donoghue, ‘Monica, Becky With The Good Hair, and the power of the Other Woman‘ in The Pool; Diamond Sharp, ‘Beyonce’s ‘Lemonade’ Is an Anthem for the Retribution of Black Women‘ on Vice; Morgan Jerkins, ‘‘Lemonade’ Is About Black Women Healing Themselves and Each Other‘ in Elle; Daisy Buchanan, ‘What can Beyoncé’s Lemonade teach us about love?‘ on The Pool; Vanessa Kisuule, ‘Why Beyoncé’s ‘Lemonade’ Shows a Refinement of her Artistry‘ on Gal-Dem; Carrie Battan, ‘Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” Is a Revelation of Spirit‘ in The New Yorker; Priscilla Ward, ‘Beyoncé’s radical invitation: In “Lemonade,” a blueprint for black women working through pain‘ on Salon; Ezinne Ukoha, ‘I Will Do Better By My Sisters‘ on Medium; June Eric-Udorie, ‘Beyoncé’s Lemonade, and the power it bestows young black women‘ on The Pool; Rafia Zakaria, ‘Warsan Shire: the Somali-British poet quoted by Beyoncé in Lemonade‘ in The Guardian; Juliane Okot Bitek wrote, ‘On the Poet Warsaw Shire, Nobody’s Little Sister‘ on Literary Hub. While Jamila addressed Piers Morgan’s criticisms of the album with ‘Dear Piers…‘ on her blog.

And I wanted to include this story because it’s just lovey: Jessie Burton’s new novel The Muse includes a setting named after Waterstones’ bookseller Leila Skelton. Skelton does the most incredible window displays at the Doncaster shop which are often shared on Twitter.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Catherine Bennett, ‘Modern tribes: the Elena Ferrante fan‘ in The Guardian
• Erika Janik, ‘Women Detectives in Fact and Fiction‘ on Literary Hub
• Amanda Fortini, ‘Why Can’t You Be Sweet?‘ in The Los Angeles Review of Books
• Jacqueline Wilson, ‘My Writing Day‘ in The Guardian
• Elizabeth Poliner, ‘How Mapping Alice Munro’s Stories Helped Me as a Writer‘ on Literary Hub
• Sarah Churchill, ‘Bring out the Great Gatsby gin and jazz: it’s time to breath new life into the literary lecture‘ in The Guardian
• Laura Barnett, ‘The Joys (and Perils) of Literary Tourism‘ on Literary Hub
• Nakul Krishna, ‘Enid Blyton, moral guide‘ on Aeon
• Summer Brennan, ‘On the Heartbreaking Difficulty of Getting Rid of Books‘ on Literary Hub
• Selin Gökcesu, ‘Jane and I: On Re-Reading Jane Eyre‘ on Electric Literature
• Idra Novey, ‘Learning to Be Embarrassed on the Page‘ on Catapult
• Sarah Moss, ‘Shakespeare for Children‘ on Granta
• Jillian Keenan, ‘Hamlet Was a Bro Who Didn’t Even Like Sex‘ on Literary Hub
• Julianne Ross, ‘You Want a Piece of Me: Elena Ferrante and the Myth that Female Artists Owe Us More than Their Work‘ on MTV
• Robert McCrum, ‘The 100 best nonfiction books: No 13 – The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer (1970)‘ in The Guardian
• Carol Lovekin, ‘on being published in later life‘ on The Literary Sofa
• Nora Zelevansky, ‘How to Write Teen Girl Characters‘ on Literary Hub
• Kit de Waal, ‘Ideas are free, but writing is expensive: how can we ensure disadvantaged voices are heard?‘ in The New Statesman
• Joanna Walsh, ‘Are we sex-literate? Why we should all be writing more about pleasure‘ in The New Statesman
• Aysha Khan, ‘Face-Off‘ in Reorient
• Anne Enright, ‘My Writing Day‘ in The Guardian
• Curtis Sittenfeld, ‘The secret to work/life balance? There isn’t one‘ on The Pool
• Melissa Goodrich, ‘Diving Into the Faery Handbag: On Fabulism‘ on Electric Literature
• Emma Butcher, ‘The secret history of Jane Eyre: Charlotte Brontë’s private fantasy stories‘ in The Guardian

• Zeffie Gaines, ‘Falling Apart: A Meditation on Love and the Work of Baldwin, Winterson, and Morrison‘ on Electric Literature
• Bridget Read, ‘Charlotte Brontë May Have Started the Fire, But Jean Rhys Burned Down the House‘ on Literary Hub
• Varaidzo, ‘From school books to publishing, black girls deserve better representation‘ in The New Statesman
• Lyndsay Faye, ‘If Jane Eyre Came Out Today Would it Be Marketed as Genre?‘ on Literary Hub
• Sarah Berry, ‘My Pilgrimage to the House of Brontë‘ on The Millions
• Anna March, Jen Fitzgerald, Ashley Ford and Ashley Perez, ‘Most writers get screwed: We did the math, and it’s true — literary prizes exclude writers outside the campus gates‘ on Salon
• Stephanie Boland, ‘From Enid Blyton to Richard Hoggart: The use of literacy‘ in The New Statesman
• Alexandra Molotokow, ‘Maggie Nelson Refuses to Make Things Simple‘ on The Cut
• Elif Shafak, ‘On Women Writers Transcending Boundaries‘ on the Bailey’s Prize blog
• Ilana Massad, ‘Read Between the Racism: The Serious Lack of Diversity in Book Publishing‘ on Broadly
• Alison Flood, ‘Are most romance novels badly written?‘ in The Guardian
• Alison Flood, ‘Books by earliest women writers in English on display together for first time‘ in The Guardian
• Aya de Leon, ‘Portrait of the #WriterMom as a Member of the Working Class‘ on her blog
• Zoey Cole, ‘Remembering the Great C.D. Wright‘ on Literary Hub
• Virginia Baily, ‘Travels with my Aunt‘ on Virago
• Steph Harmon, ‘Charlotte Wood’s The Natural Way of Things wins $50,000 Stella prize‘ in The Guardian
• Bhavneet Kaur, ‘The Poetics of Resistance‘ in Kindle
• Sam Jordison, ‘Virginia Woolf in Brontë country: picking apart the genius in Jane Eyre‘ in The Guardian
• Georgette Mushier, ‘What literacy can do for children in institutions‘ in The New Statesman
• Sarah Ladipo Manyika, ‘Why I chose an African publisher over a western one‘ in The Guardian
• Curtis Sittenfeld, ‘Was Jane Austen a feminist? The answer is in her stories‘ in The Guardian

Personal essays/memoir:

• Terri White, ‘The story of me and my beehive‘ on The Pool
• Claire Woods, ‘‘As I woke up each morning, my pregnancy screamed at me’‘ in The Irish Times
• Eleanor Franzén, ‘Death Out of Season‘ on Litro
• Alana Massey, ‘My Boyfriend Isn’t My Best Friend — My Cat Is‘ on The Cut
• Lorena Piñeiro, ‘Penance‘ on Midnight Breakfast
• Linh Le, ‘How I learned to love my selfie‘ on Hello Giggles
• Lynn Murray, ‘The Carnival of Kid Baseball‘ on Tin House
• Susan Shapiro, ‘The Line Between Professor and Predator Isn’t Always So Clear‘ on The Cut
• Jung Yun, ‘My Fargo‘ on The Atlantic
• Kai Kalia Yang, ‘My Father the Song Poet‘ on Literary Hub
• Alexandra Reisner, ‘Small Bodies‘ on Electric Literature
• Jennifer Fliss, ‘The Day I told My Father to Shoot Himself‘ on Narratively
• Sara Lieberman, ‘Dating in New York Ruined Me for Paris‘ on The Cut
• Christina Crosby, ‘Your Puny, Vulnerable Self‘ on The Offing
• Anca Szilágyi, ‘Used to Be Schwartz‘ on The Rumpus
• Catherine Lloyd Burns, ‘Remembering John the Hotdog Man‘ on Guernica
• Rebecca Schiff, ‘On My Abnormally Quiet Jewish Family‘ on Literary Hub
• Mandy Stadtmiller, ‘I Love My Husband, But I Hate Working With Him‘ on The Cut
• Abigail Rasminsky, ‘I Had a Baby in Europe; Here’s What It Did to Me‘ in The Cut
• Chantal Braganza, ‘A Grief Like This‘ on Hazlitt
• Deborah A. Lott, ‘My Dream of Androgyny‘ on The Rumpus
• Rachel Charlene Lewis, ‘After Sandra Bland‘ on The Normal School
• Marisa Bate, ‘My mum was stalked when I was a child. The impact is lasting on us all‘ on The Pool
• Ella Dawson, ‘Good Girl‘ on Femsplain
• Laura Kasinof, ‘The Violence Was Once Mine‘ on Guernica
• Decca Aitkenhead, ‘The Loneliness of Losing Your Partner‘ on Well Doing

Feminism:

• Megan Garber, ‘Seeing Red: The Rise of Mensesplaining‘ on The Atlantic
• Alexandra Petri, ‘Play the ‘woman card’ and reap these ‘rewards’!‘ in The Washington Post
• Dayna Evans, ‘Here’s What Happens When Men Write About the Gender Pay Gap‘ on The Cut
• Glosswitch, ‘It harms women more than men when dads doing parenting are seen as “babysitters”‘ in The New Statesman
• Bridget Minamore, ‘Can you be a feminist and … ?‘ in The Guardian
• Tobi Oredein, ‘How YouTube became the best place to see black women’s stories‘ on The Pool
• Jennifer Tamyayo, ‘When You Handle Poison‘ in Mice Magazine
• Mona Eltahawy, ‘How to Fight the Patriarchy‘ on Literary Hub
• Ruth Whippman, ‘Sorry, but people need to stop telling women they shouldn’t apologise‘ on The Pool
• Maura Quint, ‘How to Negotiate a Raise (If You’re a Woman)‘ on McSweeney’s
• Eve Barlow, ‘Grimes: I’m not a victim of sexism, I’m a successful producer‘ on The Pool
• Tali Mendelberg and Christopher F. Karpowitz, ‘Are Women the Silent Sex?‘ in The Boston Review
• Jia Tolentino, ‘How ‘Empowerment’ Became Something for Women to Buy‘ in The New York Times
• Isabel Rogers, ‘Top Ten Totty Tips‘ on her blog

Society and Politics:

• Graciela Mochkofsky, ‘The Faithful‘ in The California Sunday Magazine
• Anna Wiener, ‘Uncanny Valley‘ in n+1
• Juleyka Lantigua-Williams, ‘‘Ban the Box’ Goes to College‘ on The Atlantic
• Jacqueline Rose, ‘Who Do You Think You Are?‘ in The London Review of Books
• Megha Majumdar, ‘Half-Truth and Reconciliation: After the Rwandan Genocide‘ on Literary Hub
• Eleanor Margolis, ‘When it comes to Labour and anti-Semitism, there’s only so much this left-wing Jew can suck it up‘ in The New Statesman
• Abby Rabinowitz, ‘The trouble with renting a womb‘ in The Guardian
• Laura Reiley, ‘From Farm to Fable‘ on Tampa Bay
• Aminatta Forna, ‘The Modern and the Medieval Collide: on Ebola‘ on Literary Hub
• Hope Jahren, ‘On Earth Day, Let Lab Girl Persuade You to Plant a Tree‘ on Slate
• Brigid Delaney, ‘The generation gap is dead. But is the result freedom or oppression?‘ in The Guardian
• Suzanne Moore, ‘A generation of artists were wiped out by Aids and we barely talk about it‘ in The Guardian
• Chimene Suleyman, ‘There’s an epidemic of missing people of colour who aren’t photogenic enough for us to find‘ in The Independent
• Kendra James, ‘A Black Girl’s Manual to Attending a New England Boarding School‘ in The Toast
• Rebecca Traister, ‘Could Hillary Clinton Ever Have Imagined This?‘ on The Cut
• Lisa Owens, ‘Is this the worst question you can ask someone?‘ on The Pool
• Laurie Goodstein, ‘Sex Abuse and the Catholic Church: Why Is It Still a Story?‘ in The New York Times

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

• Helen O’Hara, ‘25 years on from Thelma and Louise, its spirit of rebellion lives on‘ on The Pool
• Soleil Ho, ‘The Jungle Book’s Complicated Relationship with Imperialism‘ in Bitch
• Suzanne Moore, ‘The Hillsborough verdict shatters the fantasy that class war doesn’t exist‘ in The Guardian
• Anna Silman, ‘Damn, It’s a Good Time for Funny Women on TV‘ on The Cut
• Francine Prose, ‘The Ballad of Slippin’ Jimmy‘ in The New York Review of Books
• Kelly Kanayama, ‘Hollywood’s upcoming films prove it loves Asian culture – as long as it comes without Asians‘ on Media Diversified
• Ana Leszkiewicz, ‘The outrageous sexism on The Island with Bear Grylls might be what makes it a great show‘ in The New Statesman

The interviews/profiles:

• Rebecca Schiff on Electric Literature
• Emily Skillings on the Huffington Post
• Paula Hawkins in The Guardian
• Mylo Freeman on The Pool
• Joanna Walsh on The Literary Sofa
• Shirley Barrett on Electric Literature
• Maggie Mitchell on One Book Lane
• Louise Erdrich in The New York Times
• Susanna Donato on Okey Panky
• Sarai Walker in The Guardian
• Jillian Keenan on Longreads
• Angela Flournoy on Buzzfeed
• Camille Rankine on Grazing Grain Press
• Curtis Sittenfeld on The Millions
• Emma Cline on Publishers Weekly
• Laurie Penny on The Bailey’s Prize blog
• Lisa Owens on Bookanista and in The Bookseller
• Linda Legters on Bloom
• Mary Beard in The Guardian
• Deborah Levy on Foyles’ blog
• Tammy Cohen on The Prime Writers
• Ann Goldstein in Asymptote
• Sara Pascoe on Huffington Post
• Emily O’Neill on Vagabond City
• Joanne Harris on Waterstones
• Jenni Fagan on The Skinny
• Deborah Install on Rebecca Mascull’s blog

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

The Argonauts – Maggie Nelson

In simple terms The Argonauts charts Nelson’s relationship with the artist Harry Dodge, including the conception and birth of their son, Iggy, and Dodge’s decision to begin taking testosterone and have top surgery, but the slightness of the book and its short sections belie the depth of thought which surrounds these events.

Before we met, I had spent a lifetime devoted to Wittgenstein’s idea that the inexpressible is contained – inexpressibly! – in the expressed. This idea gets less air time than his more reverential Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent, but it is, I think, the deeper idea. Its paradox is, quite literally, why I write, or how I feel able to keep writing.

For it doesn’t feed or exalt any angst one may feel about the incapacity to express, in words, that which eludes them. It doesn’t punish what can be said for what, by definition, it cannot be. Nor does it ham it up by miming a constricted throat: Lo, what I would say, were words good enough. Words are good enough.

It is this, I think, which demonstrates the power of Nelson’s writing. The Argonauts is not straightforward memoir, it is intellectual argument illuminated by personal experience and supported by academic rigour: embedded quotations from the likes of Judith Butler, Sara Ahmed and Luce Irigaray appear throughout the book. Nelson is also comfortable expressing her insecurities and allowing the reader to see her working through her relationship with Dodge.

Your inability to live in your skin was reaching its peak, your neck and back pulsing with pain all day, all night, from your torso (and hence, your lungs) having been constricted for almost thirty years. You tried to stay wrapped even while sleeping, but by morning the floor was always littered with doctored sports bras, strips of dirty fabric – “smashers”, you called them.

 

I just want you to feel free, I said in anger disguised in compassion, compassion disguised as anger.

Don’t you get it yet? you yelled back. I will never feel as free as you do, I will never feel as at home in the world, I will never feel as at home in my own skin. That’s just the way it is, and always will be.

The Argonauts explores love – constructing and maintaining a relationship outside of heteronormativity and maternal love as stepmother and mother (the latter from the point of view of adult child and parent as well as the expectant mother/mother of a young child) – and the body – sex, gender fluidity, pregnancy and birth.

Nelson juxtaposes ideas surrounding these topics with personal anecdotes, shifting seamlessly from one to another, circling around ideas returning to them again and again. She makes the structure appear effortless but this non-chronological weaving is difficult to pull off, but pull it off is exactly what she does, making the book compelling. I did, however, find myself pausing often to think through the points Nelson was making, she packs a significant amount into some of the shortest paragraphs.

Maggie Nelson is one of a number of female writers currently using the essay form in creative ways – Rebecca Solnit, Olivia Laing, Katherine Angel, to name a few – writing interesting, intellectual pieces exploring society/the political through the personal. The Argonauts is a welcome addition to this body of work. Rigorous and fascinating.

 

Thanks to Melville House UK for the review copy.

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, 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: 24th May 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. 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.

The Cannes Film Festival’s been in the spotlight (haha) this week for turning women away from a screening because they were wearing flat shoes. Heels as compulsory footwear for women may or may not (depending which day it is someone asks) be part of their dress policy. Helen O’Hara writes ‘How the 2015 Cannes Film Festival became all about women‘  while Laura Craik asks, ‘Is the tyranny of high heels finally over?‘ both in The Pool. Hadley Freeman wrote, ‘Can’t do heels? Don’t do Cannes‘ in The Guardian, while Elizabeth Semmelhack wrote, ‘Shoes That Put Women in Their Place‘ in The New York Times

The other big feminist story was about ‘wife bonuses’ after Wednesday Martin wrote a piece for the New York Times called, ‘Poor Little Rich Women‘. Amanda Marcotte asked, ‘What’s Wrong With “Wife Bonuses”?‘ in Slate

Awards this week went to the five 2015 Best Young Australian Novelists, three of whom are women, all of whom are women of colour – hurrah for progress. Also in Australia, the shortlist for the Miles Franklin Award was revealed, four of the five shortlisted writers are women. The O. Henry Prize Stories for 2015 were announced. Of the twenty selected, fifteen were by women. You can read those by Dina Nayeri, Molly Antopol and Lynne Sharon Schwartz by clicking on their names.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Bryony Gordon, ‘How to survive Hay Festival‘ in The Telegraph
• Sinclair McKay, ‘Leading Ladies: meet the Queens of Romance‘ in The Telegraph
• Cate Dicharry, ‘Diary of a First-Time Book Tour‘ on Literary Hub
• Kelly Link, ‘Subversive Pleasure‘ (on Angela Carter) in the New York Times
• Katy Waldman, ‘It’s Time to Stop Praising Authors for Being “Good at the Internet”‘ on Slate
• Laurie Uttich, ‘In Defense of ‘Depressing’ Books‘ on the Huffington Post
• Emily M. Keeler, ‘Friends don’t let friends review their friend’s books… do they?‘ in the National Post
• Susanna Rustin, ‘Literary festivals are getting too big for their books‘ in The Guardian
• Various, ‘Take a book holiday with some of our favourite authors!‘ on One Book Lane
• Abie Longstaff, ‘A history of human rights abuses in fairytales‘ in The Guardian
• Jonathan Clarke, ‘Six Possibly True Observations About Renata Adler‘ on The Millions
• Eleanor Morgan, ‘What the Hell Is a Hot Feminist?’ on Vice
• Samantha Langsdale, ‘Simon Pegg is wrong – comics aren’t an escape from reality, they help us deal with it‘ in The Guardian
• Claire Landsbaum, ‘How the Success of Marvel’s Female Superheroes Heralds a More Inclusive Age of Comics‘ on Vulture
• Felix Kent, ‘How To Tell If You Are In An ’80s Biography Of A Famous Woman‘ in The Toast
• Meytal Radzinski , ‘WITMonth 2015 Intro Post: FAQs and helpful references‘ on Biblibio
• Lizi Gilad Silver, ‘Please Come with Me on the Yellow Bus for a Field Trip to the Library Where We Will Find Bean Spasms and Other Rare Treasures‘ on Real Pants
• Sarah Seltzer, ‘Why Do We Re-Read Our Favorite Books as Kids, and Why Do We Stop When We Get Older?‘ on Flavorwire
• Caitriona Lally, ‘on writing Eggshells: from the dole to a debut novel‘ in The Irish Times
• Karen Gordon, ‘Against Type: Unapologetically Sexual‘ on Rewriting Mary Sue
• Jessica Valenti, ‘Feminists don’t care if you like hot pink, eat salads or shave your crotch‘ in The Guardian
• Polly Vernon, ‘The Hot Feminist Manifesto‘ in The Times

• Rebecca Falkoff, ‘To Translate Is to Betray: On the Elena Ferrante Phenomenon in Italy and the US‘ on Public Books
• Alison Flood, ‘Agatha Christie’s ‘forgotten’ Syrian memoir gets new lease of life‘ in The Guardian
• Natalie Haynes, ‘March of the megabooks: it’s all Donna Tartt’s fault‘ in The Guardian
• Alice Jones, ‘If this is the year of the mega-novel, it’s going to be a very long 12 months‘ in The Independent
• Philip Graham, ‘Trouble Using Light: The Complications of Art in the Fiction of Christine Sneed‘ on The Millions
• Joanna Cannon, ‘The Story Behind Goats and Sheep‘ on her blog
• Sara Nović, ‘What it’s like to be a deaf novelist‘ in The Guardian
• Whitney Phillips, ‘Laugh It Off?‘ on Slate
• Rebecca Mascull, ‘The difficult second novel‘ on Just Write
• Diane Hurlburt, ‘“Bee Theres”: The Mormon YA of My Youth‘ in The Toast
• Lauren Alwan, ‘A Brief History of the Colloquial Title‘ on The Millions
• Iona Grey, ‘The things we should’ve asked‘ on Gransnet
• Kelly Jensen, ‘Depression Has No Straight Lines, Only Lies‘ on Disability in Kidlit
• Ruth Ware, ‘“When I was about thirteen or fourteen, I fell in love”‘ (on Josephine Tay) on the Penguin Blog
• Julia Donaldson, ‘Why hearing children should find out about signing‘ in The Guardian
• Madeline Thein, ‘Why Hong Kong is clamping down on creative writing‘ in The Guardian
• Jami Attenberg, ‘How 15 Minutes Of Internet Fame Did Nothing For My Books‘ on Buzzfeed
• Jessica Anya Blau, ‘My Favorite Women Writers of the 1950s‘ on Read Her Like an Open Book
• Leesa Cross-Smith, ‘Writing Some Stuff & Keeping On Keeping On‘ on Real Pants
• Helen Grant, ‘My inspiration: The Lost World‘ in The Guardian
• Kirsty Logan, ‘Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell: A Fairytale Education‘ on Vintage Books
• Jessica Valenti, ‘You might not think you’re sexist – until you take a look at your bookshelf‘ in The Guardian
• Susan Lannigan, ‘We need to talk about…Day jobs and money‘ on her blog
• Christine Sneed, ‘on The Pleasure of Influence‘ on Read Her Like an Open Book

Personal essays/memoir:

• Rebecca Wait, ‘One woman’s experience of cults‘ in The Pool
• Sali Hughes, ‘What do brilliant, extravagant presents actually mean?‘ in The Pool
• Lauren Laverne, ‘Why everyone needs a list of Cheering-Up Things‘ in The Pool
• Suzanne Moore, ‘In a far corner of the school field, we would defy gravity‘ in the New Statesman
• Clare Archibald, ‘Sweet Sixteen Saturdays‘ on TYCI
• Clare Archibald, ‘Meandering Route of the Muscle Memories‘ on Scottish Book Trust
• Eva Holland, ‘Unclimbable‘ in SB Nation
• Susie Cage, ‘What Is A Woman’s Wardrobe Worth?‘ on Buzzfeed
• Eryn Loeb, ‘Return Trip, OBX‘ in Vela
• Martha Stortz, ‘How I Gave Myself Permission To Be Gluten-Free‘ on Buzzfeed
• Upasna, ‘A Girl Without a Country‘ on Rookie
• Maureen O’Connor, ‘De-Cluttering Is the New Juice Cleanse (and Equally Annoying)‘ in The Cut
• Stephanie Butzer, ‘Heat‘ on The Fem
• Alysia Abbott, ‘Fairyland: Memories of a Singular San Francisco Girlhood‘ on Longreads
• Trisha Low, ‘On Being-Hated: Conceptualism, the Mongrel Coalition, the House That Built Me‘ on San Fransisco MOMA
• Storm Persephone Tara-Meiying Liu, ‘How Losing My Sight Helped Me Express My Gender Identity‘ on Vice
• Catherine Santino, ‘Dear college graduates: it’s OK not to know‘ on Hello Giggles
• Rebecca Riley, ‘How I Learned the Meaning of Ableism‘ on The Fem
• Sadie Stein, ‘Bus Pass‘ on The Paris Review Blog
• Ella Wilson, ‘The Therapist Who Saved My Life‘ on Literary Hub
• Sarah Maria Medina, ‘Iced Cake Frosting‘ in Midnight Breakfast
• Sousan Hammad, ‘A Map of Jerusalem‘ in Words Without Borders
• DeLaynna Corley, ‘Motel 6‘ in New Mexico Review
• Alexis Paige, ‘Not a Place on Any Map‘ in New Mexico Review
• Melissa Grunow, ‘Out of Ash‘ in New Mexico Review
• Erika Anderson, ‘Never Write From a Place of Despair‘ in Midnight Breakfast
• Elena Dunkle, ‘The Cost of My Teenage Years as an Unrecovered Anorexic‘ on the Huffington Post
• Wendy C. Ortiz, ‘What is Sacred‘ in Midnight Breakfast
• Amanda Parrish Morgan, ‘O Martyr My Martyr!‘ on The Rumpus
• Seyward Darby, ‘I was on Amtrak train 188. Afterward, I saw the crash through my fiance’s eyes‘ in The Washington Post
• Jochebed Smith, ‘Swearing Off the Modern Man‘ in The New York Times
• Suzanne Clores, ‘When You Dream Your Husband Is Trying to Kill You‘ on The Rumpus

Feminism:

• Eve Barlow, ‘The horrible proof that sexism in the workplace still exists‘ in The Pool
• Isabelle O’Carroll, ‘A comprehensive guide to the sexist world of beer adverts‘ in The Pool
• Caroline Criado-Perez, ‘Five Fearless Women Who Have Inspired Me To Be A Proud Feminist‘ in Marie Claire
• Mac McClelland, ‘We Learned Together: A Nice Afternoon With The Women Of New Orleans’ Trans Veterans Support Group‘ on Buzzfeed
• Jill Lepore, ‘To Have and To Hold‘ in The New Yorker
• Sharon H. Chang, ‘This Mocha-Caramel-Honey Post-Racial Fantasy Is Making Me Sick‘ on Buzzfeed
• Syreeta McFadden, ‘Revelations About Being Brown In A World Of White Beauty‘ on Buzzfeed
• Paula Cocozza, ‘Actors: go ahead, lie about your age – look how Maggie Gyllenhaal was treated‘ in The Guardian
• Glosswitch, ‘The feminist history of surrogacy: should pregnancy give a woman rights over a baby?‘ in the New Statesman
• Mika Brzezinski, ‘Working Your Value‘ on Medium
• Jessica Roake, ‘I Am a Good Mother‘ on Slate
• Sammy Nickalls, ‘I don’t know if I want to have kids, and that’s OK‘ on Hello Giggles
• Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, ‘Bring back self-defence classes for women – it’s the feminist thing to do‘ in The Guardian
• Meredith Talusan, ‘Women’s colleges should reinvent themselves as havens for trans women‘ in The Guardian
• Tracy King, ‘No, Mad Max: Fury Road is not a feminist masterpiece (but that’s OK)‘ in the New Statesman
• Eva Wiseman, ‘Which body should I try on next?‘ in The Observer
• Heather Havrilesky, ‘With Amal Clooney, We Finally Have the Consummate Feminist Superhero. Let’s Not Ruin It‘ in The Cut
• Nicole Nolan, ‘Boobs, Money, and Plastic Surgery‘ in The Toast
• Talat Yaqoob, ‘29% is Equality‘ on the Huffington Post

Society and Politics:

• Suzanne Moore, ‘Why is it so hard to say sorry?‘ in The Pool
• Sophie Heawood, ‘Call me naive, politicians, but how about saying what you really think?‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah Hagi, ‘Those Who Leave Somalia Need Remittance Too‘ on Buzzfeed
• Hon Lai Chui, ‘I Just Want To See The Sea‘ (tr. Henry Wei Leung with Louise Law) in The Offing
• Jaimie Lauren Keiles, ‘How To Be Spiritual (If You’re Not)‘ on The Awl
• Amy Maxmen, ‘Frontline health workers were sidelined in $3.3bn fight against Ebola‘ in Newsweek
• Diana Kapp, ‘Why Are Palo Alto’s Kids Killing Themselves?‘ in San Francisco Magazine
• Lisa Miller, ‘Can Racism Be Stopped in the Third Grade?‘ in New York Magazine
• Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, ‘A Woman’s Worth‘ in Granta
• Alexis Coe, ‘By Reason of Insanity‘ in Lapham’s Quarterly
• Anonymous, ‘Confucius say what? Whitewashed by the colorblind‘ on Empathize This
• Lindsey Newhall, ‘Fighting for Identity: The Life of a Transgender Kickboxer in Rural Thailand‘ on Vice
• Katie Roiphe, ‘Why Professors Should Never Have Affairs With Their Students‘ on Slate
• Eleanor Margolis, ‘The Breakfast in Bed Café is a desperate cry for help – Ikea should stick to meatballs and sofas‘ in the New Statesman
• Elyssa Goodman, ‘Riding with the Oldest All-Gay, All-Male, All-Riding Motorcycle Club‘ on Vice
• Neda Tehrani, ‘It’s Time To Talk About ‘British Values’‘ on Media Diversified

Film, Television, Music and Fashion:

• Hadley Freeman, ‘My Dirty confession‘ in The Jewish Chronicle
• Karen Krizanovich, ‘Mad Max: Fury Road is a brilliant celebration of women’s power‘ in The Pool
• Bim Adewunmi, ‘The Curious Conformity Of YouTube’s Beauty Tutorials‘ on Buzzfeed
• Emily Yahr, ‘From guilty pleasure to Emmy Awards: The delightfully weird history of Lifetime movies‘ in The Washington Post
• Deborah Cohen, ‘How Indie Rock Changed the World‘ in The Atlantic
• Kathleen E. Kennedy, ‘What Sansa Stark’s Rape Tells Us About Our Culture‘ on Vice
• Anna Leszkiewicz, ‘Amy Schumer’s coarse, playful comedy explores how women are complicit in their oppression (And forgives them for it.)‘ in the New Statesman
• Kate Aurthur, ‘All 90 Episodes Of “Mad Men” Ranked, From Good To Perfect‘ on Buzzfeed

The interviews:

• Marian Keyes in The Pool (or the 40 minute Director’s Cut)
• Rachel Trezise on London Short Story Festival
• Judy Blume in The Guardian and The New York Times
• Mary Costello on Bloom
• Jodi Picoult on Bustle
• Melissa Harrison on Tania Hershman’s Blog
• Taiye Selasi on Essence
• Hanya Yanagihara on Electric Literature
• Sophia Jansson on Bookanista
• Edna O’Brien in The New York Times
• Anne Enright on The Millions
• S.D. Sykes on Rebecca Mascull’s blog
• Rainbow Rowell on Buzzfeed
• Honorée Jeffers on The Rumpus
• Kate Atkinson on Our Book Reviews Online
• Sunetra Gupta on Medium
• Kirsty Logan, Vesna Goldsworthy and Anne Enright on Vintage Books Podcast
• Randa Abdel-Fattah on Words Without Borders
• Elenor Kopka on Okey-Panky
• Naomi Novik on Publishers Weekly Podcast
• Keller Easterling in Guernica
• Vivian Gornick on Longreads and in The Observer
• Maggie Nelson on Jezebel
• Alison Layland on Thriller Books Journal
• Dasha Kelly on The Rumpus
• Lynda Barry in The Guardian
• Meera Syal in The Times
• Ashley Ford on IndyStar
• Elaine Feeney in the Honest Ulsterman

If you want some fiction to read:

• The first five chapters of The Woman Who Stole My Life by Marion Keyes in The Pool
• ‘The Edge‘ by Barbara Mhangami-Ruwende in Guernica
• ‘The Biscuit‘ by Jette Harris on The Fem
• ‘Come Make Love With Us‘ by Cari Luna in Midnight Breakfast
• An extract from Uprooted by Naomi Novik on Pan Macmillan
• An extract from Coming Up Roses by Rachel Lucas on Pan Macmillan
• An extract from The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan on The Awl
• ‘Star Bellies‘ by Evelyn Alfred in Literary Orphans
• ‘Survival of the High-Riding Bitch‘ by June Frances Coleman in Literary Orphans
• ‘Fade‘ by Morgan Jerkins in Literary Orphans
• ‘Passive-Aggressive‘ by Naadeyah Haseeb in Literary Orphans
• ‘A Warm Winter‘ by Molly McArdle in Midnight Breakfast
• ‘The Necklace‘ by Claire Fuller on her blog
• ‘Your Baby‘ by Asmaa Alghoul (tr. Kareem James Abu-Zeid) on Words Without Borders
• ‘What Wolves Dream‘ by Olya Stoyanova (tr. Angela Rodel) in Words Without Borders
• ‘Scumbag‘ by Gabrielle Moss in Midnight Breakfast
• ‘The Freezer Chest‘ by Dorthe Nors in The New Yorker and she discusses the story here
• ‘The Murder Stone‘ by Jo Mazelis on Litro

Photograph by Kwesi Abbensetts

If you want some poetry to read:

• ‘My Tits Are More Feminist Than Your Tits‘ by Salena Godden on This Is My Jam (or watch it on Youtube (images of tits, obviously))
• ‘A Numbered Graph That Shows How Each Part of the Body Would Fit Into A Chair‘ by Mary Jo Bang in Granta
• ‘No Soft Pink Hands‘ by Helena Chung in Pank
• ‘All They Want Is My Money My Pussy My Blood‘ by Morgan Parker on Literary Hub
• ‘Travel Anatomy‘ by Corinne Gaston in Literary Orphans
• ‘Art | is | Sometimes They Call Me “T”‘ by Teré Fowler-Chapman in Literary Orphans
• ‘The Body on the Interstate‘ by Paige Sullivan in New Mexico Review
• ‘Sharks in Albuquerque‘ by Janna Layton in New Mexico Review
• ‘The haunting of the Oatman Hotel‘ by Leah Angstman in New Mexico Review
• ‘Ways to Divide‘ by Meghan McClure in New Mexico Review
• ‘The Answers That Were Sewn‘ by Jacqueline Markowski in Up the Staircase Quarterly
• ‘After Marvin Bell’s Dead Man poems‘ by Tamra Hays in Up the Staircase Quarterly
• ‘Lovesick Woman Spends Week in KFC‘ by Laryssa Wirstuk in Up the Staircase Quarterly
• ‘Tree‘ by Jennifer Martelli in Up the Staircase Quarterly
• ‘interstellar‘ by Orooj-e-Zafar in Up the Staircase Quarterly
• ‘Final Purification‘ by Kelly Andrews in Up the Staircase Quarterly
• Two Poems by Lauren Gordon in Up the Staircase Quarterly
• ‘Shipwreck Survivor Refuses to Speak to CNN‘ by Janeen Pergrin Rastall in Up the Staircase Quarterly
• ‘As It Is‘ by Lauren Camp in Up the Staircase Quarterly
• ‘This is the Healing Part, it Looks Like Setting a Broken Bone‘ by Bri Lopez Donovan in Burn Something
• ‘Force‘ by Irna Landrum
• ‘Women’s Poetry‘ by Daisy Fried in Berfrois
• Three Miley Cyrus Poems by Talin Tahajian in Blunderbuss
• ‘I’m a Young Cowboy and Know I’ve Done Wrong‘ by Catherine Pond in the Boston Review
• ‘For the Officer Who Put the 8-Year-Old Boy in Handcuffs‘ by Katy Richey in The Offing
• ‘No System for Grief‘ by Kimberly Grey on Linebreak
• ‘You Probably Think This Poem Is About You‘ by Tovah Leah Green on Cahoodaloodaling
• ‘How Mike Weston Died‘ by Janet Hagelgans in Thrush

If you want some non-fiction to read:

• An extract from Ballad of the Black and Blue Mind by Anne Roiphe on Literary Hub

The lists:

• Female Literarti Pick Summer’s Best Books in Harper’s Bazaar
• 22 Thrilling, Imaginative, and Twisted Genre Books By Women on Flavorwire
• 8 Books To Read Over A Long Holiday Weekend on The Huffington Post
• Kirsty Logan’s Born This Way: 10 great LGBT books for teens on Scottish Book Trust
• SD Sykes’ Five Favourite Historical Crime Novels on the Curtis Brown Book Group Blog
• 6 African novels to fuel your wanderlust on Voices of Africa
• Best Books: May Part One on Quadrapheme

In the Media: 10th May 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. 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.

It’s Mother’s Day in 80 countries around the world today. Not surprisingly, there has been a whole range of articles, from a whole range of view points, about mothers and motherhood this week. The Hairpin ran a series including  ‘Mommy Queerest‘ by Sarah Liss; ‘Thoroughly Modern Murdering Mothers; or, Women Who Kill for Their Children‘ by Meredith Haggerty; ‘A Joke, A Story‘ by Naomi Skwarna; ‘Going for the Burn: Revisiting Jane Fonda’s Workouts‘ by Alison Hamm’ ‘Mothers and Moms‘ by Haley Mlotek, and Randi Bergman, ‘The Weirdest Beauty Tips I Learned From My Mom‘.

Tameka Cage-Conley wrote, ‘Motherhood, Art, And Police Brutality‘ on VSB; Amy Shouse wrote ‘My mom never wanted kids‘ on Salon; Anne Enright wrote, ‘When Mother Leaves the Room‘ in The New York Times; Cheryl Strayed wrote, ‘The ‘Painful Personal Toll Lung Cancer Has Taken on My Life’‘ on The Huffington Post; Monica Hessler, ‘The long drive to end a pregnancy‘ in The Washington Post; Mary HK Choi, ‘The Dicks Of Our Lives‘ on Buzzfeed; Mary Elizabeth Williams, ‘Sorry about Mother’s Day, my childfree girlfriends: Moms aren’t any more special (or unselfish) than you‘ on Salon; Edwidge Danticat, ‘A Prayer Before Dying‘ on Literary Hub; Brogan Driscoll, ‘I Refuse to Celebrate ‘Dad Bod’, Until We Appreciate the ‘Mum Bod’ Too‘ on the Huffington Post

Catherine Bennett wrote in The Guardian, ‘It’s dehumanising to be ‘an oven’ for someone else’s baby‘; Jessica Roake wrote, ‘An Ode to the “Mom’s Night Out”‘ on Slate; Rebecca Mead wrote, ‘A Woman’s Place Is on the Internet‘ in The New Yorker; Sophie Heawood wrote, ‘I’ve read all the advice, but I still don’t know – am I raising a serial killer?‘ in The Guardian; Laila K wrote, ‘Up with the kids‘ in The Pool; Dahlia Lithwick, ‘“Bye-Bye, Normal Mommy”‘ on Slate; Christie Watson, ‘The Joy and Pain of Trans-Racial Adoption‘ on Literary Hub; Meagan O’Connell, ‘It’s My First Mother’s Day As a Mom. Now What?‘ in The Cut; Kate Spencer, ‘How I Finally Let Go Of Grief For My Dead Mom‘ on Buzzfeed; Domenica Ruta, ‘Can Having a Child Help Me Get Over My Abusive Mom?‘ in The Cut.

Danah Boyd, ‘I Miss Not Being Scared‘ on Medium; Melissa Duclos, ‘To the Doctor Who Reported Me to Child Protective Services‘ on The Offing; Christopher Frizzelle, ‘The Day Virginia Woolf Brought Her Mom Back to Life‘ on Literary Hub; Lauren Laverne, ‘“Mum” as a diss‘ in The Pool.

And if you’d rather read a book instead, Literary Hub suggests, ‘Five Intense Books for Mother’s Day‘ and the Huffington Post recommends, ‘Mother’s Day Reads: Eight Great Mother Characters in Literature‘.

Photograph by Idil Sukan

In the UK, there was a general election. 3AM Magazine ran a whole series of reactions including, Lauren Elkin, ‘an open letter to mark-francis vandelli‘; Juliet Jacques, ‘london – 2015‘; Eley Williams, ‘rosette manufacture: a catalogue and spotters’ guide‘, and Rachel Genn, ‘you wouldn’t like me when i’m disappointed‘. Other reactions included: Laurie Penny, ‘Don’t give in: an angry population is hard to govern; a depressed population is easy‘ in the New Statesman; Joan Smith, ‘Almost a third of all MPs are now women – a milestone has been reached‘ in The Guardian; Janice Turner, ‘Why the north is in revolt against Labour‘ in The Times; Beluah Maud Devaney, ‘Unfriending Tories on Facebook Is Not the Answer‘ on the Huffington Post

And there were a few pieces written prior to the result that I still think are worth reading: Sam Baker, ‘When voting doesn’t make you feel good‘ in The Pool; Suzanne Moore, ‘By Friday we’ll be reduced to bystanders at a revoltingly macho political stare-off‘ in The Guardian; Concepta Cassar, ‘Food For Thought: Hazlitt, Malthus and the Tragedy of Food Banks‘ in Litro; Katy Guest, ‘Sandi Toksvig’s Women’s Equality Party is a movement for which time has come‘ in The Independent; Salena Godden, ‘Colour-blind: What colour are you?‘ on her blog, and Isabel Rogers’ poem ‘The truth about political correctness‘ on her blog.

I promised myself I wouldn’t mention it but there have been a few good pieces written about the birth of THAT baby: Sian Norris, ‘She’s not like other girls…‘ on Sian and Crooked Rib; Heather Havrilesky, ‘Royal Baby Girl Fated to Lead International Mob of Fake Princesses?‘ in The Cut, and Viv Groskop, ‘She’s a tiny baby, not a Kardashian‘ in The Pool.

Congratulations to Gill Lewis who won the Little Rebels children’s book award with Scarlet Ibis this week; to Emily St. John Mandel who won the Authur C Clarke award, and to Alice Notley who won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Foundation Prize. A gender balanced shortlist was announced for the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2015 and a female dominated one for the Branford Boase Award 2015. The ALS Longlist and NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Shortlists were also announced.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Katy Derbyshire, some stats about Women in Translation on Women in Translation
• Voula Grand, ‘on The next Gone Girl (The spells stories cast – or don’t)’ on Isabel Costello’s Literary Sofa
• Lois Leveen, ‘All the Years Ahead: On Committing Literary Suicide‘ on The Millions
• Joanna Biggs, ‘My hero: Shulamith Firestone‘ in The Guardian
• Various, ‘‘Get your head out of that book!’ – the children’s stories that inspired leading writers‘ in The Guardian
• Anne Enright, ‘A return to the western shore: on yielding to the Irish tradition‘ in The Guardian]
• Jill Kronstadt, ‘A God in Ruins: Kate Atkinson After Kate Atkinson‘ on Bloom
• Diane Watt, ‘Rethinking the Medieval Canon‘ on The University of Surrey: Women’s Literary Culture and the Medieval Canon
• Jeanette Winterson, ‘Ruth Rendell: memories of a friend who stood by me‘ in The Guardian
• Alison Flood, ‘Archive find shows medieval mystic Margery Kempe’s autobiography ‘doesn’t lie’‘ in The Guardian
• Jordan Kinsley, ‘Rewriting Fairy Tales‘ on Rewriting Mary Sue
• ‘Like Madame Bovary blasted by lightning’: By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept on the 4th Estate Blog
• Jill Lepore, ‘Looking at Female Superheroes with 10-year-old Boys‘ in The New Yorker
• Vanessa Lafaye, ‘The Breath of Creativity‘ on Random Things Through My Letterbox
• Josephine Livingstone, ‘Ban Men from Literary Readings‘ in the Gawker Review of Books
• Aminatta Forna, ‘Where Are the West’s Political Novelists?‘ on Literary Hub
• Emma Claire Sweeney, ‘Elizabeth Bishop and Marianne Moore‘ on Something Rhymed
• Kirsty Logan, ‘Made-up worlds (and a worldie maid)‘ on Bookanista
• Robert McCrum, ‘The 100 best novels: No 85 – The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (1966)‘ in The Guardian
• Lori Lansens, ‘Living with authoritis‘ on Bookanista
• Lizzy Kremer, ‘Living Life Through Metaphor: the Necessity of Fiction‘ on Publishing for Humans
• Sarah Seltzer, ‘Why We Should All Be Spinsters: Writers Take on a New Feminine Mystique‘ on Flavorwire
• Jason McBride, ‘Losing Control of the Language‘ (on Kathy Acker) on Slate
• Marsha Lederman, ‘Breaking up the Canadian theatre boys’ club: New plays fight the gender gap with all-female casts‘ in The Globe and The Mail
• Caroline Criado-Perez, ‘We deserve to know about the women who show us what can be done and how to do it’ in The Observer
• Jo Walton, ‘A Great Castle Made of Sea: Why Hasn’t Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Been More Influential?‘ on Tor
• M. J. Carter, ‘on Edgar Allan Poe‘ on Raven Crime Reads
• Marie Phillips, ‘In defence of Amy March‘ in The Pool
• Katherine May, ‘Happily Never After‘ on Aeon
• Jamie Fisher, ‘High Style and Desperate Love: On the Life and Work of Eileen Chang‘ on The Millions
• Mallory Ortberg, ‘Dirtbag Tess Of The D’Urbervilles‘ in The Toast
• Leah Ferguson, ‘It’s Like Having An Alter Ego, But Harder‘ on Women Writers, Women’s Books
• Alex Clark, ‘25 years of the Encore award: a cure for second-novel syndrome‘ in The Observer
• Kate Taylor, ‘We need to speak up about sexism in the arts‘ in The Globe and The Mail

Personal essays/memoir:

• Lucy Grealy, ‘Autobiography of a Body‘ on Nerve
• Masooma Hussain, ‘Symmetry in Our Misshapenness‘ in The Butter
• Sharisse T. Smith, ‘Hair Trajectory‘ in The Los Angeles Review
• Jenny Zhang, ‘Far Away from Me‘ in Rookie
• Tovah Burnstein, ‘A Woman Like Water‘ in The Butter
• Clarissa Wei, ‘Why I Will Always Love My Ex-Boyfriends‘ on XOJane
• Suzanne Joinson, ‘Dirty Talk and Dostoyevsky on the Night Shift‘ in The New York Times
• Leah Reich, ‘The Tin Woodman‘ on Medium
• Vickie Vertiz, ‘Kissing‘ in The Offing
• Anupa Mistry, ‘That Home Feeling‘ on Hazlitt
• Sali Hughes, ‘Proud to be a prude‘ in The Pool
• Melissa Hughes, ‘Starting Over at 35‘ on Medium
• Jenny Diski, ‘In Gratitude‘ in the London Review of Books (£)
• Jennifer S. Cheng, ‘Hikikomori: Salt Constellations‘ on LIterary Hub
• Mary J. Breen, ‘Childhood: Dollhouses, Solitude, and the Souls in Purgatory‘ in The Toast
• Amelia Gray, ‘Tsujita LA Artisan Noodle‘ on The Morning News
• Sonya Lee, ‘Daisy Duke and the Manosphere‘ on The Rumpus
• Mackenzie Mays, ‘Your Dad is Still Your Dad: On Family and Alcoholism‘ in The Toast
• Thea Goodman, ‘The Elevator Ride‘ on The Rumpus
• Abhilasha Kumar, ‘A Capital Affair‘ in Kindle
• Steph, ‘In celebration of discovering feminism, Caitlin Moran, and chips with curry sauce‘ on Reimagining My Reality
• Leesa Cross-Smith, ‘Kentucky Decadent & Derby Depraved‘ on Real Pants
• Sarah Lepiciger, ‘How do you cure homesickness?‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah Franklin, ‘How could I not guess that my son would love football?‘ in The Guardian

Feminism:

• Ann Friedman, ‘Let’s do this. Let’s talk about periods‘ in The Pool
• Rebecca Carroll, ‘The Police Hit Black Women With Both Racism and Sexism At Once‘ in The Guardian
• Guilaine Kinouani, ‘The language of distress: Black women’s mental health and invisibility‘ on Media Diversified
• Juniper Fitzgerald, ‘The Price of Knowledge: Discrimination Against Sex Workers In Academia‘ on Tits and Sass
• Katy Waldman, ‘Bitch, I’ll Tell You Why This Sentence Construction Is So Effective‘ on Slate
• Meg Zulch, ‘Why Calling Someone A “Tomboy” Is Hugely Problematic And Reifies Unnecessary Gender Roles‘ on Bustle
• Sayan Bhattacharya, ‘A Room of Her Own‘ in Kindle
• Koli Mitra, ‘Fault(y) Lines‘ in Kindle
• Deepa Bhasthi, ‘The Pakoda-Frying Feminist‘ in Kindle
• Tracy Moore, ‘The Best Time I Left a Used Tampon in a Dude’s Shower‘ in Jezebel
• Maxine Builder, ‘How The Lack Of Asian Models In The Fashion Industry Created A Divide Between My Racial Identity And My Body‘ on Bustle
• Megan Nolan, ‘Why is it so hard to get away from the powerful-man-loves-sweet-young-woman dynamic?‘ in The Pool

Society and Politics:

• Eva Wiseman, ‘Where have all the ghosts gone?‘ in The Observer
• Sarah Maslin, ‘The Price of Nice Nails‘ in The New York Times
• Kate Fagan, ‘Split Image‘ on ESPN
• Sarah Miller, ‘Death to the Maxi Dress: A Manifesto‘ on Jezebel
• Jessica Pressler, ‘Bullsh*t. The art of the sell, a half century after Mad Men‘ in New York Magazine
• Kera Bolonik, ‘America’s ugly whitesplaining epidemic: Baltimore, Freddie Gray and the media’s utter cluelessness‘ on Salon
• Aamina Shakur, ‘Who Are the Rightful Owners of Artifacts of Oppression?‘ on Hyperallergic
• Elisa Veini, ‘Doing Nothing Is an Art‘ in Berfrois
• Megan Garber, ‘Aisle Be Seeing You: The Rise of the Totally Transparent Bridal Gown‘ in The Atlantic
• Viv Groskop, ‘You’re never going to retire‘ in The Pool
• Keiko Lane, ‘Intersections, on the Anniversary of the Rodney King Rebellion‘ on The Rumpus
• Jamilah King, ‘#blacklivesmatter: How three friends turned a spontaneous Facebook post into a global phenomenon‘ in The California Sunday Magazine
• Noor Alnaqeeb, ‘My Middle East: ‘We should go out there and represent ourselves’‘ on Media Diversified
• Leslie Berlin, ‘Silicon Valley Then and Now: To Invent the Future, You Must Understand the Past‘ on Medium
• Stacia L. Brown, ‘Looking While Black‘ in The New Republic

The interviews:

• Mary Talbot on Escape Books
• Caroline Criado-Perez in The Pool and in The Observer
• Alice Notely on The Poetry Foundation
• Kate Mosse on One Book Lane
• Minette Walters in The Guardian
• Joanna Walsh on The Fem
• Maggie Nelson on Salon on The Rumpus, on Literary Hub, on Tin House
• Toni Morrison at Politics and Prose on Slate and in United Hemispheres Magazine
• Heidi Julavits in The Paris Review
• Deborah Install (and Ben and Tang) on Sitting on a Cornflake
• Joanna Biggs on the Guardian Books’ Podcast
• Lauren Olivier in The Guardian
• Kate Atkinson on Front Row on BBC Radio 4
• Jillian Tamaki on Publishers Weekly
• Catherine Lacey in The White Review
• Claire Fuller on Word Mothers
• Anne Marie Macari on The Rumpus
• Sarah Dessen on Bustle
• Ananda Devi in The Los Angeles Review of Books
• Amelia Gray on Midnight Breakfast
• Leslie Jamison on Salon
• Sara Novic on BookPage
• Sherry Simon on Drunken Boat
• Mia Alvar on Publishers Weekly
• Collier Nogues on Drunken Boat
• Zoe Pilger on PEN American Centre
• Tasha Kavanagh in The Independent
• Elisa Albert on For Books’ Sake
• Alison Sampson on Broken Frontier
• Lauren Beukes and Joelle Taylor on the For Books’ Sake Podcast
• Lindsay Parnell on Linen Press
• Abi Hynes on The Fem
• Anne Enright on Open Book, BBC Radio 4
• Mona Eltahawy in The Observer
• Mary Norris in The Observer
• Katherine Clements on Rebecca Mascull’s Blog
• Lydia Syson on Rebecca Mascull’s Blog

If you want some fiction to read:

• ‘The Boy Is Dead‘ by Kathryn Mockler in The Butter
• ‘Hyperbolics‘ an excerpt from The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli in BOMB Magazine
• ‘Infinite Cortex‘ by Clare Archibald in Visual Verse
• An extract from From a Distance by Raffaella Barker on Bloomsbury Publishing
• ‘The Creature‘ by Edna O’Brien on Literary Hub
• ‘From the Paint Stains‘ by Rachel Charlene Lewis in Plenitude
• ‘odds & evens‘ by Candy Sue Ellison in 3:AM Magazine
• Extracts from all the shortlisted novels for the Bailey’s Fiction Prize for Women on We Love This Book
• An extract from Sphinx by Anne Garréta in The Believer
• ‘Bad Sex‘ by Jowita Bydlowska on Numero Cinq
• ‘Mother Wit‘ by Nitasha Kaul in Kindle
• ‘My Life Is a Joke‘ by Sheila Heti in The New Yorker
• ‘CONTINUE? Y/N‘ by Kendra Fortmeyer in The Toast
• ‘Amazing‘ by Erin Fitzgerald in Okey-Panky
• An extract from Girl at War by Sara Novic on Literary Hub
• ‘I’ll Die and Be Right There‘ by Anna Mateeva (tr. Ellen Litman) on Guernica

If you want some poetry to read:

• ‘Glass, Ceiling‘ by C.E. Hyun in The Offing
• Three Micros by Caits Meissner in The Offing
• ‘The Mission‘ by Rita Ann Higgins on Poethead
• ‘The Cake‘ by Krystin Gollihue on Blunderbuss
• ‘The Door‘ by Nomi Stone on Guernica
• ‘Selling His Soul‘ by Sophie Hannah in The Guardian
• ‘Dear Dorothy‘ by Suzi F. Garcia in The Offing
• Two Poems by Lauren Gordon on Up the Staircase
• ‘This Was Ugly‘ by Lauren Gordon in Hermeneutic Staircase

If you want some non-fiction to read:

• ‘Scratching Out the City‘ from City Spaces: Filling in Berlin’s Gaps by Annett Groeschner (tr. Katy Derbyshire) in The Offing
• An extract from Between You and Me – Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris in The Observer

Photograph by Cybele Knowles

The lists:

• 19 Great Mysteries for Summer (with 19 Great Plot Twists) on The Oyster Review
• PW Picks: Books of the Week, May 11, 2015 on Publishers Weekly
• 32 Essential Asian-American Writers You Need To Be Reading on Buzzfeed
• 7 Moving, Must-Read Memoirs Coming Out This Year on the Huffington Post
• The Best Graphic Novels I’ve Ever Read on Electric Literature
• 5 Books to Take on Vacation in the Huffington Post
• Here’s the Non-Trashy Summer Books You Need to Be Reading This Year on The Debrief
• 10 (insane) things I learned about the world reading Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” on Salon
• 18 Brilliant Books You Won’t Want To Miss This Summer on the Huffington Post
• The 22 Best F-Bombs From Female Authors in the Huffington Post

In the Media: 22nd March 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.

The big news this week is that Kath Viner became the first woman appointed to the role of editor-in-chief at The Guardian in its 194 year history. The first woman to edit a UK broadsheet and only the second EIC of The Guardian to have attended a (selective) state school.

Unfortunately, the other trend in articles this week have been about the abuse women have suffered from a variety of sources; Heidi Stevens wrote in the Chicago Tribune ‘Hate mail lesson: Uncombed hair threatens the natural order‘; Sarah Xerta wrote ‘The Brick Wall: The Intersection of Patriarchy, Privilege, Anger, and Language‘ on VIDA; Juliet Annan ‘is a Lazy Feminist‘ in publishing on the Penguin Blog; Sara Pascoe wrote ‘The hymen remains an evolutionary mystery – and the focus of the oppression of women’s sexuality‘ in The Guardian; Katie McDonough wrote ‘If you’re shocked by this Penn State frat’s nude photo ring, you’re not paying attention‘ on Salon; Jessie Burton took ‘Speakers’ Corner‘ on Hunger TV; Claire Byrne wrote, ‘One sordid, gross and offensive comment must have been thought up while he sat there scratching himself in his grey fading jocks. I wonder what makes people think it’s acceptable to make comments like that?‘ in the Irish Independent, and Ashley Judd wrote, ‘Forget Your Team: Your Online Violence Toward Girls and Women Is What Can Kiss My Ass‘ on Mic.

And there’s been a number of articles about race; Rebecca Carroll wrote ‘Calling out one racist doesn’t make white people any less complicit in supremacy‘ in The Guardian; Jia Tolentino wrote ‘How to Talk About Race With Your Starbucks Barista: A Guide‘ in Jezebel; Maya Goodfellow wrote, ‘Climate change is easier to ignore because right now it’s people of colour who suffer the most‘ on Media Diversified; Vulture interviewed Claudia Rankine on ‘Serena, Indian Wells, and Race‘ and KCRW’s Bookworm asked her about writing the racial ‘other’.

This week’s Harper Lee news: To Kill a Mockingbird was named #78 on The Guardian list of The 100 Best Novels; Casey N. Cep reported on ‘Harper Lee’s Abandoned True-Crime Novel‘ in The New Yorker, and Jonathon Sturgeon asked ‘Is It Time to Get Hopeful About Harper Lee?‘ on Flavorwire.

And prizes this week went to Louise O’Neill who won the inaugural YA Book Prize and Louise Erdrich won the Library of Congress Award.

The best of the rest articles/essays:

• Mary Chris Escobar, ‘In Defence of Fluff‘ on Women Writers, Women’s Books
• Lizzy Kremer, ‘Let’s All Fall in Love: Reading and Romance‘ on Publishing for Humans
• Margaret Dilloway, ‘on Disobedient and Difficult Female Characters‘ on Read Her Like an Open Book
• Andrea Calabretta, ‘Land of Fire and Ice‘ in Litro
• Bryce R. Covert, ‘When Men Want Kids — and Women Aren’t So Sure‘ in The Cut
• Chika Unigwe, ‘The Transformation of Mama Paulina‘ in Guernica
• Habibe Jafarian, ‘How to Be a Woman in Tehran‘ (tr. Salar Abdoh) in Guernica
• Melissa Harrison, ‘Rivertones 3‘ (two songs to accompany her new novel At Hawthorn Time on Caught By the River
• The Morning News Tournament of Books An Untamed State vs Station Eleven
• Rachel Brownson, ‘The Resurrection of the Body: On Family, Mental Illness, and Grief‘ in The Toast
• Shonda Rhimes at The Human Rights Campaign Gala in Los Angeles, 2015 on Medium
• Sarah Perry, ‘Sherlock’s swansong: the ideal Holmes expedition‘ in The Guardian
• Laura Sook Duncombe, ‘Literary Ladies Cage Fight: Winter of Our Discontent‘ in The Butter
• Sara Alaica, ‘Over the Mountains‘ in Vela
• Andre Gerard, ‘Names, Texts and WWI in To the Lighthouse‘ in Berfois
• Andre Gerard, ‘The Odyssey, The Times and Howard’s End in To the Lighthouse‘ in Berfois
• Andre Gerard, ‘Virgil, Tolstoy and War in To the Lighthouse‘ in Berfois
• Zadie Smith, ‘Yates Lane, NW8‘ in Five Dials
• Lynn Melnick, ‘First Loves‘ on Poetry Foundation
• Rita Dove, ‘Homage to Toni Morrison‘ on Critical Mass
• Brigid Schulte, ‘Why time is a feminist issue‘ on Daily Life
• Emily Drabble, ‘Carnegie medal and Kate Greenaway 2015 shortlists announced‘ in The Guardian
• Catharine Morris, ‘Ali Smith at the Wapping Project‘ on the TLS Blog
• Caroline Criado-Perez, ‘If the UK government doesn’t protect exploited domestic workers, it is complicit in slavery‘ in the New Statesman
• Roopa Farooki, ‘Making Time to Write‘ on the Tinder Press Blog
• Elaine Feeney, ‘Untitled‘ (on what it’s like to die) on The Bogman’s Cannon
• Rafi Schwartz, ‘Male Science-Fiction Authors Discuss The Women Writers Who Influenced Them‘ on Good
• Lorna Bradbury, ‘Picture books are not just for babies‘ in the Telegraph
• Thea Lenarduzzi, ‘When Virginia found her Rachel?‘ on the TLS Blog
• Julie Zeilinger, ‘This Author Is Exposing the Sexist Double Standard in Children’s Literature‘ on Mic
• Emma Hogan, ‘The Sweet Sting of Muriel Spark‘ on Intelligent Life
• Sari Botton, ‘Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep 10 Years Later‘ on Longreads
• Heather Havrilesky, ‘Like a Prayer‘ in Aeon
• Jeanette Winterson, ‘on The Waves‘ on the Penguin Blog
• Elif Shafak, ‘As storytellers, we speak for pluralism and democracy‘ in The Observer

• Liz Blocker, ‘Things We Don’t Talk About: On Coming Out to My Family‘ on The Toast
• Jaki McCarrick, ‘The Genesis of Belfast Girls‘ on CloudNine
• Deborah Smith, ‘Writing Against the Grain: Contemporary Korean Women to Watch‘ on For Books’ Sake
• Leslie Jamison, ‘Enough About Me‘ in The Atlantic
• Allison Williams, ‘Women and the Global Imagination: Sweet Time‘ on Prairie Scooner
• Anna Ross, ‘Report from the Field: I Don’t Know How She Does It‘ on VIDA
• Ilana Masad, ‘On Hebrew and Living in Gendered Language‘ in The Toast
• Leesa Cross-Smith, ‘Why A Well-Written Story May Be Rejected, Or, Every Editor Has Their Things‘ on The Review Review
• Leesa Cross-Smith, ‘First Tastes and Endeavors‘ on Real Pants
• Tania James, ‘What Writers Can Gain From Seeing the World Through Different Eyes‘ in The Atlantic
• Kim Phillips-Fein, ‘Why Workers Won’t Unite‘ in The Atlantic
• Anne Hull, ‘For Hardee’s workers, it’s not a parable, it’s a job‘ in The Washington Post
• Ainehi Edoro, ‘Why Zadie Smith Tops Adichie’s List of Women Who Write Well and Dress Well‘ on Brittle Paper
• April Bernard, ‘Laura’s World‘ (on Laura Ingalls Wilder) in the New York Review of Books
• Elizabeth Mills, ‘Liminal Space, or: Depression, Transitioning, and What’s in Between‘ in The Toast
• Ashley Ford, ‘Disrupting Domesticity: Take Care‘ in The Butter
• Aeman Ansari, ‘Origin Story‘ on Hazlitt
• Sophie Gilbert, ‘Why Are Art Heists So Fascinating?‘ in The Atlantic
• Jessie Burton, ‘A Week in the Life of the Novelist‘ in the Wall Street Journal
• Hadley Freeman, ‘I had anorexia – but not because I wanted to look like a fashion model‘ in The Guardian
• Harriet Alida Lye, ‘The New Occupation of Paris‘ in Vice
• Nicole Cliffe, ‘Trapped in the Stairwell: My Birth Story‘ in The Toast
• Felicity Cloake, ‘So hot right now: the peppers that prove there’s a perv in all of us‘ in the New Statesman
• Sady Doyle, ‘Season of the witch: why young women are flocking to the ancient craft‘ in The Guardian
• Alice Hoffman, ‘My inspiration: Mary Poppins‘ in The Guardian
• Tracey Thorn, ‘There’s no magic to raising twins – I just had to find my own brand of baby care‘ in the New Statesman
• Jessica Levine, ‘Living Time, Writing Time: Narrating the Fourth Dimension in Fiction‘ on Bloom
• Susan Pinker, ‘Why face-to-face contact matters in our digital age‘ in The Guardian
• Bianca Stone, ‘The House With Feet: The Dire Importance of Ruth Stone’s Bequest‘ on VIDA
• Jonathon Sturgeon, ‘Zoella’s Clockwork Novels: Fanfiction, Ghostwriters, and the Bizarre, Automated Future of Publishing‘ on Flavorwire
• Rebecca Scherm, ‘New Genres: The Worm in the Apple‘ on Electric Literature
• Alison Flood, ‘How come the romantic novel of the year is a work of Young Adult fiction?‘ in The Guardian
• Gabrielle Glaser, ‘The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous‘ in The Atlantic
• Rebecca Mead, ‘Sole Cycle‘ in The New Yorker
• Kate Garrett, ‘Why We Do Poetry‘ on Pankhearst
• Robin Rinaldi, ‘Then They Took Off Their Clothes and Did That Thing‘ on Book Keeping
• Judith Thurman, ‘Doll’s Play‘ in The New Yorker
• Monique Rivalland and Louise France, ‘i’m a teen, there 4 i tweet‘ in The Times
• Edith Hall, ‘Challenging the Classical Conservatives‘ on Edithorial
• Margaret Atwood, ‘Game of Thrones: “Real people, every murderous one”‘ in The Observer
• Moira Redmond, ‘Judging a book by its title: when books don’t live up to their names‘ in The Guardian
• Rebecca Mascull and Louise Walters, ‘Moon Tiger discussion‘ on Rebecca Mascull’s blog
• Eve Makis, ‘on Cyprus‘ on Isabel Costello’s Literary Sofa
• Judith Shulevitz, ‘In College and Hiding From Scary Ideas‘ in The New York Times
• Sasha Garwood, ‘Trigger warning: in which intent and outcome are so rarely coincident‘ on The F Word

The interviews:

• Maggie Nelson in Guernica
• Laxmi Narayan Tripathi in Guernica
• Caitlin and Caz Moran on The Debrief
• Rachel Cusk on Foxed Quarterly
• Miranda July in The Scotsman
• Laura Munson on Blogcritics
• Kim Gordon in The NME and on It’s Nice That
• Robin Rinaldi on Salon
• Kirsty Gunn and Deborah Levy on the LRB Bookshop Podcast
• Emma Healey in Woman
• Kate Forsyth on New Australian Women Writers Challenge Blog
• Azar Nafisi in the New Humanist
• Lauren Olivier in The Guardian and on the Huffington Post
• Zen Cho and Stephanie Feldman on Electric Literature
• PP Wong on This Is Writing
• Naja Marie Aidt on Maisonneuve
• Eula Bliss and Kate Hamer on The Guardian Books’ Podcast
• Lucy Knisley on Publishers Weekly
• Polly Teale on Northern Soul

If you want some fiction/poetry to read:

• ‘Andromeda‘ by Sam Mills in Litro
• ‘Calypso in Therapy‘ by Louise Palfreyman in Litro
• ‘The Tikbalang‘ by Bethany W. Pope in Litro
• ‘Petrification‘ by Ruth Brandt in Litro
• ‘Fimbulwinter‘ by Francoise Harvey in Litro
• ‘Arcadia, Mars‘ by Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers in Guernica
• ‘Subcortical‘ by Lee Conell in Guernica
• ‘An Optical Illusion‘ by Eimear Ryan on Long Story, Short
• ‘Postal Worker and Housewife‘ by Nellie Hermann on Blunderbuss
• An extract from The Holiday by Nell Osbourne on Goldfish
• ‘Caterpillars‘ by Hallie Bateman on Blunderbuss
• ‘The Slanted Life of Emily Dickinson‘ by Rosanna Bruno
• ‘Erasure Methods‘ by Annie Ostlund on Electric Literature
• ‘The Matter of Seggri‘ by Ursula K. Le Guin on poliscifi
• ‘Initiation‘ by Kamilah Aisha Moon in The Offing
• ‘I looked for you, I called your name‘ by Laura Van Den Berg on Bookanista
• ‘Routine‘ by Arike Oke in Litro
• ‘A-Z of the Death Drive‘ by Deborah Levy in Five Dials
• ‘Talking With the Dead‘ by Claire Fuller on her blog
• ‘Tra le righe/Between the Lines‘ by Mati Colarossi (tr. Mati Colarossi) on Parallel Texts

Or some non-fiction:

• A new introduction to The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf on the Penguin Blog
• An extract from Ghettoside by Jill Leovy
• ‘Escape from New York‘ by Ellen Willis from The Essential Ellen Willis on The Village Voice

The lists:

• 12 Super Short Stories You Can Read in a Flash on the Huffington Post
• Read Her Now: Five Women to Translate in 2015 on All Wrongs Reversed
• Five things we learnt… from Caitlin Moran at WOW on the Southbank Centre
• How Do You Get Over Someone? 15 Books to Get You Through a Breakup With Your Dignity Intact on Bustle
• 3 New Books to Read If You Loved The Girl on the Train in Glamour
• From Zadie Smith To Helen Oyeyemi And Emily Brontë, Bestselling Female Authors Who Nailed Their Biggest Hit Novel Under The Age Of 30 in Stylist
• 7 YA Reads That Will Sweep You Up in Politics on the Huffington Post
• 15+ Top Indian Women Authors Whose Books Should Be On Your Summer Reading List on Polka Cafe
• 10 Best Coming-of-Age Books You’ve Never Read on Publishers Weekly
• 17 Things We Just Learned About Elena Ferrante From Her Paris Review Interview on Vulture
• 10 Poets of Colour we Discovered (or Rediscovered) in 2014 on Media Diversified
• Spring Books Guide: 22 Novels, Memoirs, and Collections We Can’t Wait to Read in Vogue
• Kat Brown’s How to write a dystopian YA novel in 10 easy steps in the Telegraph
• IRL: Nonfiction to Read if You Loved AMERICANAH on BookRiot