In the media is a fortnightly round-up of features written by, about or containing female writers that have appeared during the previous fortnight and I think are insightful, interesting and/or thought provoking. Linking to them is not necessarily a sign that I agree with everything that’s said but it’s definitely an indication that they’ve made me think. I’m using the term ‘media’ to include social media, so links to blog posts as well as traditional media are likely and the categories used are a guide, not definitives.
January’s been living up to it’s reputation as the most miserable month in the calendar. There’s been the misogynistic and racist response to Sarah Howe’s Young Writer of the Year Award and TS Eliot Award wins. Poet, Katy Evans-Bush responded with ‘TS Eliot prize row: is winner too young, beautiful – and Chinese?‘ in The Guardian.
The deaths of David Bowie and Alan Rickman at least inspired some great writing: Stacey May Fowles, ‘Reconciling David Bowie‘ on Hazlitt and Sali Hughes, ‘I’ve had it up to here with the grief police‘ on The Pool. Gwendolyn Smith, ‘Forget Snape – in concentrating on him, we leave out one of the greatest roles Alan Rickman ever performed‘ in The Independent and Daisy Buchanan, ‘Alan Rickman’s Colonel Brandon taught me an important lesson about love‘ on The Pool
In happier news, there were a number of other prize wins for female writers: Kate Atkinson won the Costa Novel Prize; Anuradha Roy won the 2016 DSC prize for south Asian literature; A.S. Byatt won the Erasmus Prize, and the writers shortlisted for the Costa Short Story Award were revealed, including Annalisa Crawford, Peggy Riley and Erin Soros.
Glamour welcomed a transgender columnist: Juno Dawson will chart her journey in the magazine. I’ll add Juno’s column to the regular columnists list once it has a permanent URL.
The Observer revealed their New Faces of Fiction for 2016 and Joanna Cannon wrote this great piece – The Monster Under the Bed – about her inclusion.
And the woman with the most publicity of late is Amy Liptrot with ‘I swam in the cold ocean and dyed my hair a furious blue… I was moving upwards slowly‘ in The Guardian; interviews in The Independent and The Pool.
The best of the rest:
On or about books/writers/language:
- Morgan Jerkins, ‘Writing While Black: On Cliche, Stereotype and the Struggle to Describe Blackness‘ on Literary Hub
- E.V. de Cleyre, ‘On “the Terrible Efficiency of Gaslighting”‘ on Brevity
- Sarah Weinmann, ‘True-crime stories: a centuries-old craze from Ben Franklin to Making a Murderer‘ in The Guardian
- Zetta Elliott, ‘Nobody’s Cheerleader‘ on her blog
- Lauren Groff, ‘on Writing with Lightness‘ on The Atlantic
- Sian Cain, ‘Why a non-white Nancy Drew could be amazing‘ in The Guardian
- Lenika Cruz, ‘The Promising Case of a Non-White Nancy Drew‘ on The Atlantic
- Catherine Lacey ‘on the Inspiration Behind Nobody is Ever Missing‘ on the WHSMITH blog
- Brigid Delaney, ‘A Little Life: why everyone should read this modern-day classic‘ in The Guardian
- Zoe Heller and Francine Prose, ‘Is the Writer’s Only Responsibility to His Art?‘ in The New York Times
- Gideon Lewis-Kraus, ‘The Trials of Alice Goffman‘ in The New York Times Magazine
- Claire Fuller, ‘The Huge, Unwieldy Beast versus Flash Fiction‘ on Women Writers, Women’s Books
- Adelle Waldman, ‘The Ideal Marriage, According to Novels‘ in The New Yorker
- Ali Smith ‘on Trumpet by Jackie Kay‘ in The Guardian
- Sarah Crompton, ‘Sexism on the stage – meet the women tearing up the script‘ in The Guardian
- Maria Turtschaninoff, ‘Why is feminist fantasy important?‘ in The Bookseller
- Catherine Hokin, ‘The Challenges of Writing Historical Fiction‘ on Helen MacKinven’s blog
- Deborah Smith, ‘On Translating Human Acts by Han Kang‘ on Asymptote
- Alison Glock Cooper and T Cooper, ‘Transgender: identity is never one single thing so tick the box that says ‘other’‘ in The Guardian
- Ann Mah, ‘Elena Ferrante’s Naples, Then and Now‘ in The New York Times
- Chloe Angyal, ‘I Decided Not To Read Books By White Authors For A Year. Conservatives Lost Their Damn Minds‘ on The Huffington Post
- Carmiel Banasky, ‘Topography of a Novel: The Suicide of Claire Bishop‘ on Blunderbuss
- Laura Miller, ‘Ladies of Leisure: The resurgence of the housewife novel‘ on Slate
- Martha Tennent and Maruxa Relaño, ‘How a Mother-Daughter Translation Team Makes it Work‘ on Literary Hub
- Peter Bebegal, ‘Cracking the Codes of Leena Krohn‘ in The New Yorker
- Sarah Lyall, ‘The Author Elizabeth Strout on ‘Lucy Barton’ and How Her Characters Come Into Being‘ in The New York Times
- Isabel Rogers, ‘on What a Poet can teach a Novelist‘ on Isabel Costello’s Literary Sofa
- Vidhu Aggarwal, ‘“I’m nothing, if not”: An Anecdote of a Jar‘ on VIDA
- Dawn Finch, ‘Why are we still talking about diversity and inclusion?‘ on An Awfully Big Blog Adventure
- Samantha Hunt’s Literary Mixtape: how to be a deranged cult leader in The Guardian
- Emma Claire Sweeney, ‘on the power of poetry and fiction‘ on Legend Press
- Joanna Biggs, ‘Work is where we make friends, exert power, fall in love‘ in The Guardian
- Non Pratt, ‘No taboo should be off limits when writing for teenagers‘ in The Guardian
- Brittany K. Allen, ‘I Wrote the Accent: A Black Writer Considers “Urban Romance”‘ in The Toast
- Laura Miller, ‘Why Fates and Furies was this year’s most talked-about novel‘ in The Guardian
- Cynthia Ozick, ‘The Novel’s Evil Tongue‘ in The New York Times
Personal essays/memoir:
- Alana Massey, ‘Marriage and Two Kids: A Most Scandalous Fantasy‘ in The Cut
- Lydia Kiesling, ‘Death and Heirs: A View from the San Francisco Housing Market‘ on The Millions
- Saigowri Kuruvada, ‘How I Learned To Accept My Self-Harm Scars‘ on Buzzfeed
- Isabel Murray, ‘I’m a Disgusting Sleeper‘ on The Awl
- Rowan Whiteside, ‘Uninvited‘ in Standard Issue
- Jane Campbell, ‘The Long Run‘ on Hazlitt
- Yurina Ko, ‘Little Big Eater Girl‘ on The New Inquiry
- Fleur Smithwick, ‘A response from my mother to the weird kid blog‘ on her blog
- Jen Gann, ‘Why Am I So Sad About Having a Boy?‘ in The Cut
- Monica Sok, ‘On Fear, Fearlessness, and Intergenerational Trauma‘ on VIDA
- Jenny Diski, ‘The Island of lost words‘ on her blog
- Lyz Lenz, ‘Growing Up With White Paranoia: Persecution vs. Privilege‘ on Pacific Standard
- Ellabel Risbridger, ‘#BREAKFREE From Likes: ‘I’ve Grown Up On The Internet’‘ in Marie Claire
- Cris Mazza, ‘A Finished Brain‘ on The Rumpus
- Julianne Smolinski, ‘The Funny Thing About Abusive Relationships‘ on The Cut
- Jean Hannah Edelstein, ‘I’m a Previvor‘ on Catapult
- Nicole Chung, ‘What Goes Through Your Mind: On Nice Parties and Casual Racism‘ in The Toast
- Lauren McKeon, ‘As Women Scorned‘ on Hazlitt
- Kim Brooks, ‘I’m Having a Friendship Affair‘ in The Cut
- Claire Jimenez, ‘Spanish Lessons: On Language Loss and Recovery‘ in The Toast
Feminism:
- Amy Swales, ‘A Story of a Fuck Off Fund‘ on Medium
- Cade Lebron, ‘Liar, Liar: On Writing About Rape Online‘ on Electric Literature
- Jane Marie, ‘On Going Off My Depression Medication During Pregnancy‘ in Cosmopolitan
- Rosamund Urwin, ‘Why do crimes against women always have the same, sad ending?‘ on The Pool
- Kathy Dobie, ‘To Catch a Rapist‘ in The New York Times
- Ann Friedman, ‘The 2015 renaissance of the agony aunt‘ on The Pool
- Nadia Atia, ‘Your fascination with Muslim women’s bodies has a long misogynistic history‘ on Media Diversified
Society and Politics:
- Chimene Suleyman, ‘‘Integration’ or ‘Assimilation’ is a Two-sided Negotiation‘ on Media Diversified
- Afroze Zaidi-Jivraj, ‘What It’s Like Being Muslim In 2016‘ on Media Diversified
- Leena Habiballa, ‘Too Black to be Arab, too Arab to be Black‘ on Media Diversified
- Alicia Eler and Eve Peyser, ‘Tinderization of Feeling‘ on The New Inquiry
- Harriet Alida Lye, ‘The Myth of the Myth of the City of Love‘ on Hazlitt
- Emer O’Toole, ‘How to be a moderately successful person‘ in The Guardian
- Kavita Bhanot, ‘Decolonise, not Diversify‘ on Media Diversified
- Stacia L. Brown, ‘The ugly history of comparing black athletes and animals‘ in The Washington Post
Film, Television, Music, Art and Fashion:
- Lynn Enright, ‘The brilliant feminism of Transparent and Jill Soloway‘ on The Pool
- Jude Rogers, ‘Why we’re wired to love pop music‘ on The Pool
- Hannah McGill, ‘Nora Ephron: queen of hearts‘ on the BFI website
- Michelle Smith, ‘Suffragette reminds us why it’s a lie that feminists need men’s approval‘ in The Guardian
- Sarah Maria Griffin, ‘Girls Explain Star Wars to You‘ on Scannain
- Robin James, ‘Hello From the Same Side‘ in The New Inquiry
The interviews:
- Joyce Carol Oates on Electric Literature and in The Guardian
- Lisa Williamson in The Guardian and on Scottish Book Trust
- Amy Gustine on Electric Literature
- Helen Ellis in The New York Times
- Mira Ptacin on Flavorwire
- Chelsea Hodson in Hobart
- Tara Guha on Chouett
- Elizabeth Evans on Guernica
- Diane Williams in The Los Angeles Review of Books
- Ann Goldstein (Elena Ferrante’s translator) on Guernica
- Chaitali Sen on The Rumpus
- Valerie Martin in The Guardian
- Eileen Myles in The New York Times
- Liz Lochhead in The Guardian
- Margaret Atwood on Electric Literature
- Emma Donoghue on The Pool
- Sandra Cisneros on The Rumpus
- Lidia Yuknavitch and Anakana Schofield on Electric Literature
- Marlene Van Niekerk in The White Review
- Helen McClory on The Skinny
- Caitlin Moran in Stylist
- Roxane Gay on Sky Blue Window
- Tessa Hadley in the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times
- Ayisha Malik in The New Statesman
- Samantha Hunt on The Millions
- Claire Fuller on Sarah Jasmon’s blog
- Claudia Rankine in The Guardian
- Amy Poehler in The Guardian
The regular columnists:
- Laurie Penny in The New Statesman
- Lucy Mangan in Stylist
- Roxane Gay in The Guardian US
- Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in The Independent
- Caitlin Moran in The Times
- Lauren Laverne in The Pool
- Ella Risbridger in The Pool
- Sali Hughes in The Pool
- Bim Adewunmi in The Guardian
- Sophie Heawood in The Guardian
- Eva Wiseman in The Observer
- Tracey Thorn in The New Statesman
- Chimene Suleyman and Maya Goodfellow on Media Diversified
- Josie Pickens on Ebony
- Bridget Christie in The Guardian
- Lizzy Kremer on Publishing for Humans
Photo by Wayne Thomas
The Writes of Womxn 