In the Media, April 2017, 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.

Photograph by Pari Dukovic

The Handmaid’s Tale is having a moment due to the television serial airing this coming week and the current political situation in America (and beyond).

• Madeleine Davies, ‘The Misogynist Future of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale Feels Terrifyingly Within Reach‘ on Jezebel
• Rebecca Mead, ‘Margaret Atwood, the Prophet of Dystopia‘ in The New Yorker
• Rebecca Mead, ‘Margaret Atwood’s Grimly Relevant Additions to “The Handmaid’s Tale” Audiobook‘ in The New Yorker
• Katrina Onstad, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale: A Newly Resonant Dystopia Comes to TV‘ in The New York Times
• Willa Paskin reviews the show on Slate
• Anne Helen Peterson, ‘The Radical Feminist Aesthetic Of “The Handmaid’s Tale”‘ on Buzzfeed
• Emily Temple, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale Adapts More than the Novel: Here Is America‘ on Literary Hub

As one series begins, another ended this week:

• Emma Gannon, ‘It’s time to move on from ‘Girls’…but I’ll always love Lena‘ in Glamour
• Sophie Gilbert, ‘What Was Missing From the Girls Finale‘ on The Atlantic
• Erica Jong, ‘Why Do Female Characters Have to Be “Likeable”‘ on the BBC
• Anna Leszkiewicz, ‘The final episode of Girls revealed Hannah Horvath’s two most important relationships‘ in the New Statesman
• Halima Marcus, ‘The Very Best Episodes of Girls Are Perfect Short Stories‘ on Electric Literature
• Jia Tolentino, ‘On Finally Watching “Girls”, A Different and Better Show than I’d Been Led to Imagine‘ in The New Yorker
• Elizabeth Wurtzel, ‘Of course ‘Girls’ spoke to my life. Its brilliance is that it could speak to everyone’s‘ in The Washington Post

And in women win prizes, ‘Heather Rose wins the Stella Prize for a novel that wouldn’t ‘let her go’‘ as reported by The Sydney Morning Herald.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Negar Azimi, ‘The Extravagant Jane Bowles: Always on the Edge of Something‘ in The New York Times
• Megan Mayhew Bergman, ‘The Feminine Heroic‘ on The Paris Review
• Joanna Cannon, ‘Breaking and Mending‘ on her blog
• Sarah Churchwell, ‘Sylvia Plath, a voice that can’t be silenced‘ in The Guardian
• Paula Cocozza, ‘21st-century fox: how nature’s favourite outsider seduced the suburbs‘ in The Guardian
• Deidre Coyle, ‘Men Recommend David Foster Wallace to Me‘ on Electric literature
• Meghan Daum, ‘The Quality of Life Report, 2017‘ on VQR
• Adyita Desi, ‘Woman with Power Is Woman Unchecked: Reading Narratives of Indian Women‘ on The Millions
• Lissa Evans, ‘How my novel about film-making was turned into a film‘ in The Guardian
• Merve Fejzula, ‘Zadie Smith and Multiculturalism after Brexit‘ on Black Perspectives
• Elizabeth Fremantle, ‘“Cringing” Historical Novelists: on Mantel at the Oxford Lit Fest‘ on The History Girls
• Sarah Gerard, ‘Mourning My Grandfather Through The Velveteen Rabbit‘ on Literary Hub
• Louise Glück, ‘On Realism and Fantasy‘ on Literary Hub
• Sophie Hopesmith, ‘Women Who Shock‘ on Dead Ink Books
• Terry Huang, ‘Gender Gap in Non-Professional Writer Submissions‘ on The Black List
• Danielle Jackson, ‘Life in North Memphis, and the Women Who Taught Me to Read‘ on Literary Hub
• Lucy Mangan, ‘This way to the ginger pop shop! The day I stepped into the pages of the Famous Five‘ in The Guardian
• Edie Meidav, ‘Discovering the Power of Storytelling in a Tattered Old Pulp Paperback‘ on Literary Hub
• Jennifer Mills, ‘The beauty regimen of a woman writer‘ on Overland
• Eilis O’Hanlon, ‘“She’s a thief who steals others’ hard-won words” – on the plagiarist who stole her novel‘ in The Irish Independent
• Sarah Paretsky, ‘From Joan of Arc to Little Women, A History of Heroes‘ on Literary Hub
• Pamela Paul, ‘Why You Should Read Books You Hate‘ in The New York Times
• Grace Payley, ‘Of Poetry and Women and the World‘ on FSG Work in Progress
• Ella Risbridger, ‘The letters Sylvia Plath wrote to her therapist are not ours to see‘ on The Pool
• Michèle Roberts, ‘The fallen woman: prostitution in literature‘ in The Guardian
• Lucy Scholes, ‘The Sisters Who Are Secretly Evil‘ on the BBC
• Doree Shafrir, ‘Not Everyone Is Meant To Have A Book Club‘ on Buzzfeed
• Kathryn Schultz, ‘Literature’s Arctic Obsession‘ in The New Yorker
• Rebecca Solnit, ‘Get That Life: How I Became a Writer, Historian, and Activist‘ in Cosmopolitan
• Sarah K. Stephens, ‘What Edith Wharton Taught Me about Marriage‘ on The Millions
• Beth Underdown, ‘Not From Around There: finding a place in historical fiction‘ on Northern Soul
• Saskia Vogel, ‘The Swedish Gangster’s Wife’s Bag‘ on The Paris Review
• Kyle Winkler, ‘Gertrude Stein: Unlikely Comp Teacher‘ on The Millions

Personal essays/memoir:

• Pearl Abraham, ‘Dreams of My Mother for One Last Passover‘ on Literary Hub
• Kerri Arsenault, ‘Growing Up in Maine’s “Cancer Valley”‘ on Literary Hub
• Jami Attenberg, ‘How Sicily Cemented an Unlikely Friendship‘ in The New York Times
• DeMisty D. Bellinger, ‘Tell Me Something Good‘ on The Rumpus
• Katie Booth, ‘The Bathrobe: On Quilting and Memory‘ on Catapult
• Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza, ‘The Law of Historical Memory​’ on Catapult
• Elizabeth Crain, ‘On Girls, Trump, and Everyone I Ever Dated Before My Husband‘ on Literary Hub
• Elizabeth Ellen, ‘Messages for a Balloon: On Relocation and Families‘ on Catapult
• Jennifer Epperson, ‘When Good Hair Is Natural Hair‘ on Lenny
• Megan Galbraith, ‘Sin Will Find You Out‘ on Catapult
• Deepti Kapoor, ‘I Come from a Place on Your Bucket List‘ in Granta
• Maris Kreizman, ‘My “Sick” Body‘ on Medium
• Andrea Lauren, ‘Don’t Think Twice and the Power of Improvising Through the Unknown‘ on The Rumpus
• Vivien Lee, ‘The Loneliness Recipe‘ on Hazlitt
• Kimberly Melton, ‘Good Hair‘ on Oregon Humanities
• Grace Prassad, ‘Feathers from Home, and Other Family Heirlooms‘ on Catapult
• Elisabeth Sherman, ‘Am I Asian Enough?‘ on Catapult
• Tasha Kerry Smith, ‘Not Everything Legal is Clean‘ on Catapult
• Madeleine Thien, ‘The Land in Winter‘ on Granta
• Lidia Yuknavitch, ‘Civic Memory, Feminist Future‘ on Electric Literature
• Lidia Yuknavitch, ‘I Will Always Inhabit the Waters‘ on Literary Hub
• Iza Wojciechowska, ‘Family Trees‘ on Vela
• Laura Zera, ‘Waiting to Go Home: On Being a Traveler in Trinidad‘ on Catapult

Feminism:

• Laura Bates, ‘What I have learned from five years of Everyday Sexism‘ in The Guardian
• Sady Doyle, ‘Women Don’t Need to Apologize Less—Men Need to Learn How to Apologize‘ in Elle
• Petula Dvorak, ‘On Easter, Mary Magdalene will be maligned as a prostitute. Except she wasn’t‘ in The Washington Post
• Jean Hannah Edelstein, ‘It feels almost impossible to escape the desire to make my body smaller‘ on The Pool
• Ashley C. Ford, ‘Millennial Women Are Conflicted About Being Breadwinners‘ on Refinery29
• Hadley Freeman, ‘Successful, lairy, scary – what does a vulnerable woman look like?‘ in The Guardian
• Ann Friedman, ‘When Women Pursue Sex, Even Men Don’t Get It‘ on The Cut
• Maya Harris, ‘Equal Pay Day Isn’t a Holiday. It’s a Call to Fight.‘ on Lenny
• Maddie Holden, ‘Why the Sentiment Behind Cosmopolitan’s Appalling Diet Tweet Is Not Unusual‘ on HighSnobiety
• Rachel Holmes, ‘A new feminist statue is a great idea. Shame they picked the wrong feminist‘ in The Guardian
• Brionne Janae, ‘No One Looks for Black Girls‘ on Bitch Media
• Jennifer McShane, ‘Why We’re Done With The Idea Of “Likeable” Women‘ on Image
• Vonny Moyes, ‘Why sex for rent is not a deal like any other‘ in The National
• Leslie Nguyen-Okwu, ‘The Forgotten Language that Only Women Once Knew‘ on Ozy
• Emer O’Toole, ‘The Sisters of Charity presided over abuse. They must not run a maternity hospital‘ in The Guardian
• Kate Ristow, ‘Why Didn’t I Get Help for Postpartum Depression Sooner?‘ on The Cut
• Sophie Walker, ‘Brexit will be disastrous for women unless we fight the rollback of our rights‘ in The Guardian

Photograph by Adrienne Mathiowetz

Society and Politics:

• Eula Biss, ‘Murder Mystery‘ in The TLS
• Caren Chesler, ‘The Blood of the Crab‘ on Popular Mechanics
• Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, ‘My generation has to choose between a child or a career. We can’t afford both‘ in The Guardian
• Caitlin Flanagan, ‘How Late-Night Comedy Fueled the Rise of Trump‘ on The Atlantic
• Elisa Gabbert, ‘Earth Is Not Vengeful—It’s Just Indifferent‘ on Pacific Standard
• Erika Hayasaki, ‘How a Single Gene Could Become a Volume Knob for Human Suffering‘ on Wired
• Gaby Hinsliff, ‘The viral image of Saffiyah Khan is an antidote to an era of escalating male rage‘ on The Pool
• Kate Imbach, ‘Fairytale Prisoner by Choice: The Photographic Eye of Melania Trump‘ on Medium
• Sarah Kendzior, ‘Trump craves praise. We praise him for bombings. What possibly could go wrong?‘ in The Globe and the Mail
• Sarah Lyall, ‘Will London Fall?‘ in The New York Times
• Eimear McBride, ‘in the West Bank: “All that is human in me recoils from this”‘ in The Irish Times
• Rachel Monroe, ‘#Vanlife, the Bohemian Social-Media Movement‘ in The New Yorker
• Suzanne Moore, ‘In dark times, this image has a glorious message – resistance is not futile‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah Nicole Prickett, ‘Free the Roses‘ on Hazlitt
• Jana G. Pruden, ‘A Radical Grief‘ in The Globe and the Mail
• Sarah Scholes, ‘Brain-Altering Science and the Search for a New Normal‘ on Pacific Standard
• Elif Shafak, ‘Turkey could be about to leap from division to despotism‘ in The Guardian
• Sonia Weiser, ‘Do Women Actually Wear Men’s Dress Shirts After Sex?‘ on Racked

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

• Sarah Barker, ‘The Brutality of the Barkley Marathons‘ on Deadspin
• Angelica Jade Bastíen, ‘What the Debate Around Black American and British Actors Gets Wrong‘ on Vulture
• Francine Prose, ‘“Sex and the City” in Hell‘ in The New York Review of Books
• Fariha Róisín, ‘Kids Like Us‘ on Hazlitt
• Donna Seaman, ‘Surrealist Gertrude Abercrombie, Queen of the Bohemian Artists‘ on Literary Hub

The interviews/profiles:

• Sara Ahmed on Literary Hub
• Diana Athill on Lenny Letter
• Jennifer Finney Boylan on Vice
• Durga Chew-Bose in The Guardian and on Literary Hub
• Patty Yumi Cottrell in The Paris Review and on Electric Literature
• Jessa Crispin in The Observer and on Vox
• Rachel Dolezal (interviewed by Ijeoma Oluo) on The Stranger
• Sarah Gerard on Electric Literature
• Zoe Gilbert on The Word Factory
• Camilla Grudova on Minor Literature[s]
• Paula Hawkins on Northern Soul
• L.S. Hilton on The Pool
• Donna Leon in The Guardian
• Deborah Levy in The TLS
• Alia Malek in Gurenica
• Helen McClory on The Skinny
• Lisa McInerney in The Guardian and on TSS Publishing
• Dorthe Nors on The Man Booker Prize and Words Without Borders
• Hanna Nowinski on Teen Vogue
• Sarah Perry in The Radio Times
• Claudia Rankine in The Paris Review
• Emma Ramadan on Conversational Reading
• Samantha Schweblin on Words Without Borders
• Shanthi Sekaran on The Rumpus
• Olivia Sudjic on Flavorwire
• Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan on The Rumpus
• Angie Thomas on The Rumpus
• Mónica de la Torre on Literary Hub
• Laura Waddell on Nothing in the Rule Book
• Joanna Walsh on Review 31
• Lidia Yuknavitch on Electric Literature

The regular columnists:

• Ijeoma Oluo on The Establishment
• Lucy Mangan in Stylist
• Roxane Gay in The Guardian US
• Caitlin Moran in The Times
• Ella Risbridger in The Pool
• Sali Hughes in The Pool
• Bim Adewunmi in The Guardian
• Sophie Heawood in The Guardian
• Eva Wiseman in The Observer
• Tracey Thorn in The New Statesman
• Chimene Suleyman and Maya Goodfellow on Media Diversified
• Josie Pickens on Ebony
• Lizzy Kremer on Publishing for Humans
• Juno Dawson in Glamour
• Louise O’Neill in the Irish Examiner
• Jendella Benson on Media Diversified
• Lola Okolosie in The Guardian
• Sarah Gerard, ‘Mouthful‘ on Hazlitt
• Books by Women We’d Love to See in English on Literary Hub

In the Media, 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

In the Media, February 2017

In the media is a fortnightly round-up of features written by, about or containing female writers that have appeared during the previous fortnight and I think are insightful, interesting and/or thought provoking. Linking to them is not necessarily a sign that I agree with everything that’s said but it’s definitely an indication that they’ve made me think. I’m using the term ‘media’ to include social media, so links to blog posts as well as as traditional media are likely and the categories used are a guide, not definitives.

I’ve been a bit lax at compiling these while I’ve focused on my own work. It means this month’s is huge and I haven’t honed in on any topic in particular as the news moves so fast at that moment it feels like an impossible task. Back to fortnightly after this which hopefully will make it slightly easier to digest.

 

On or about books/writers/language:

• Helen Dunmore, ‘Facing mortality and what we leave behind‘ in The Guardian
• Rosalind Jana, ‘Making Space: A Brief History of Literary Salons, Past and Present‘ on Constellation
• George Saunders, ‘Grace Paley, the Saint of Seeing‘ in The New Yorker
• Peternelle van Arsdale, ‘How I Learned to Stop Worrying About the Market and Just Write‘ on Literary Hub
• Lauren Elkin, ‘Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London‘ on Longreads
• Varaidzo, ‘From school books to publishing, black girls deserve better representation‘ in the New Statesman
• Ruth Gilligan, ‘Write Like a Girl‘ on Read it Forward
• Francesca Simon, ‘Why I’m writing for World Book Day’ in The Guardian
• Lily Dunn and Zoe Gilbert, ‘We’re given only a handful of these kinds of friendships‘ on Something Rhymed
• Karolina Ramqvist, ‘Writer as Public Figure Vs. The Writer Who Actually Writes‘ on Literary Hub
• Catherine Mayer, ‘on Writing Attack of the Fifty Foot Women‘ on Waterstones Blog
• Yoojin Grace Wuertz, ‘Failure and Patience: Lessons from the Garden for Writers‘ on Literary Hub
• Claudia Roth Pierpoint, ‘Elizabeth Bishop’s Art of Losing‘ in The New Yorker
• Thomas Arnow, ‘Who was Harriette Arnow?‘ on the Penguin Blog
• Anjali Enjeti, ‘The Life and Legacy of Bharati Mukherjee‘ on Literary Hub
• Wei Ming Kam, ‘On the Carnegie, Bookshops and Melinda Lo’s Ash‘ on Gal-dem
• Kerry Clare, ‘Rereading Fear of Flying: On Not Being Pregnant in Mid-Air With Isadora Wing‘ in The Toronto Review of Books
• Susan Hill, ‘Can I be a serious writer, keeping such casual hours?’ in The Guardian
• Nell Zink, ‘Writing for Rejection, And reading Doris Lessing‘ on n+1
• Craig Hubert, ‘On the Many Film Adaptations of the “Unfilmable” Wuthering Heights‘ on Literary Hub
• Ilana Masad, ‘Queer children’s books have a long history that’s only now being told‘ in The Guardian
• Heather O’Neill, ‘Leaving It All on the Page‘ on The Walrus
• Cameron Glover, ‘A Soulful Novel and Me: On Zora Neale Hurston‘ on Catapult
• Maggie Harcourt, ‘Pages in Common‘ on Waterstones Blog
• Rebecca Traister, ‘Rereading The Handmaid’s Tale, One Month Into the Trump Era‘ in The Cut
• Julie Buntin, ‘On Making Things Up: Some True Stories About Writing My Novel‘ on Catapult
• Sarah Perry, ‘In praise of readability‘ in The TLS
• Joanna Cannon, ‘The Story Behind The Trouble with Goats and Sheep‘ on WHSmith Blog
• Lionel Shriver, ‘Dystopia in the next room‘ in The TLS
• Rafia Zakaria, ‘Carson McCullers at 100: a century of American suffering‘ in The Guardian
• Jo Hogan, ‘The Carnegie Medal: Time for a Review‘ on her blog
• Salamisha Tillet, ‘Free Is and Free Ain’t‘ on Public Books
• Morgan Jerkins, ‘The Forgotten Work of Jessie Redmond Fauset‘ in The New Yorker
• Emma Garman, ‘Trilby, the Novel That Gave Us ‘Svengali’‘ on Longreads
• Emily Cooke, ‘Pay to Play: A chronicle of wealth and class in the literary world‘ on Book Forum
• Aminatta Forna, ‘We must take back our stories and reverse the gaze‘ in The Guardian
• Sam Jones, ‘Retrieving an untold story: voices of Spanish female artists finally heard‘ in The Guardian
• Ulka Anjaria, ‘The Goddess of Loss‘ on Boston Review
• Dr. Florence Hazrat, ‘From The Taming of the Shrew to 10 Things I Hate About you: Taming Wild Women in European Culture‘ on Women Are Boring
• Laura Pritchett, ‘The Middle Ages‘ on Bloom
• Fiona Cummins, ‘How I went from Ms Showbiz reporting on celebrity parties to writing a chilling crime thriller‘ in the Daily Mirror
• Katy Waldman, ‘Is My Novel Offensive?‘ on Slate
• Tracy Chevalier, ‘There’s a febrile debate in Trump’s rustbelt. I want to be part of it‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah Ladipo Manyika, ‘What Virginia Woolf Forgot To Say‘ on Thrive Global
• Georgia Hunter, ‘We Were The Lucky Ones‘ on Waterstones Blog
• Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, ‘A Dyslexic’s Guide to Infinity‘ on The Rumpus
• Maria Russo, ‘Finding America, Both Red and Blue, in the ‘Little House’ Books‘ in The New York Times
• Miranda Emmerson, ‘Mixed-up thinking‘ on Bookanista
• Marta Bausells, ‘Warsan Shire and Beyoncé: Superheroes for Our Time‘ on Literary Hub
• Lisa Williamson, ‘Writing NON-romantic Love for Teens‘ on Foyles
• Alex Clark, ‘I’m no pussy when it comes to swearing‘ in The Guardian
• Rahawa Haile, ‘How Black Books Lit My Way Along The Appalachian Trail‘ on Buzzfeed
• Kate Mosse, ‘It’s never been more important to champion women’s voices‘ on The Pool
• Eva Dolan, ‘The Hierarchy of Victims in Crime Writing‘ on Foyles
• Roxane Gay, ‘The Full Text of ‘Bad Feminist’ Author Roxane Gay’s WI12 Speech‘ on Publishers Weekly
• Claire Fuller, ‘on the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset‘ on The Literary Sofa
• Scott Eposito, ‘Understanding America Through Marilynne Robinson‘ on Literary Hub
• Edwidge Danticat, ‘Poetry in a Time of Protest‘ in The New Yorker
• Laura Pritchett, ‘The Great West Has More Than One Story to Tell‘ on Literary Hub
• Sarah Churchwell, ‘‘It will be called Americanism’: the US writers who imagined a fascist future‘ in The Guardian
• Lucinda Rosenfeld, ‘What Was Chick Lit? A Brief History from the Inside‘ on Literary Hub
• Ela Bittencourt, ‘Poetry Thieves: Translating Hanna Krall and Ewa Lipska‘ on Words Without Borders

Personal essays/memoir:

• Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, ‘How Postcards from My Mother Helped Me Survive My Childhood‘ on Literary Hub
• Leah Carroll, ‘My Mother’s Murder‘ on The Cut
• Melissa Febos, ‘When Pursuing True Love Means Breaking Up With Your Best Friend‘ on Refinery29
• Catherine LaSota, ‘Changing Body, Changing Perceptions‘ on Catapult
• Anne Kniggendorf, ‘Gracie Allen and John Denver in Boot Camp‘ on Electric Literature
• Christine Hyung-Oak Lee, ‘Saving Chickens, Saving Myself‘ on Catapult
• Arianna Rebolini, ‘Learning to Cook After Relearning to Eat‘ on Catapult
• Gwen Werner, ‘Daddy Issues‘ on The Rumpus
• Clover Stroud, ‘Travelling alone as a woman was a way of owning my trauma‘ on The Pool
• Lynn Enright, ‘I don’t always know who I am – but that’s OK ‘ on The Pool
• Karen Brown, ‘From Imbibing Spirits to Spiritualist Mediums‘ on Literary Hub
• Erin Corber, ‘Vocabulary Lessons in Bucharest‘ on The Rumpus
• Elisa Gabbert ‘My Grandmother’s Little Room and the Unreality of Memory‘ on Pacific Standard
• Kaitlyn Greenidge, ‘Sacred Space: On visiting the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and facing the present‘ on Lenny
• Claire Handscombe, ‘Dance: On Ballet and Impossible Love‘ on Catapult
• Melissa Febos, ‘Reconciliation‘ on Lenny
• Sara Yasin, ‘Muslims Shouldn’t Have To Be “Good” To Be Granted Human Rights‘ on Buzzfeed
• Jowita Bydlowska, ‘Nobody Died‘ on Lenny
• Cass Cross, ‘The Men in My Office‘ on Catapult
• Sophie Warnes, ‘On the unbearableness of existence‘ on Medium
• Megan Margulis, ‘My Daughter’s Suburban Childhood Looks Nothing Like My Urban One‘ on The Cut
• Jessica Grose, ‘The Wait‘ on Lenny
• Marie Phillips, ‘One woman’s attempt to learn the language of love‘ on The Pool
• Allison Grimaldi-Donahue, ‘Translation Beyond Metaphor‘ on Electric Literature
• Sara Noviç, ‘When Good Christian Girls Need Planned Parenthood‘ on The Cut
• Rachel Klein, ‘Losing My Voice and Finding It‘ on Catapult
• Amna Saleem, ‘This Is What I Learned From My Father’s Depression‘ on Buzzfeed
• Lara Williams, ‘Talk to Me Baby‘ on Some Such Stories
• Eleanor Margolis, ‘From unnerving normality to toilet humour: the stages of my mum’s cancer diagnosis‘ in the New Statesman
• Rebecca Varkoe, ‘Let’s Talk About The Immense Privilege (And Struggle) Of Doing What You Love‘ on Junkee
• Patricia Lockwood, ‘A Childhood in the Pro-Life Movement‘ in The New Yorker
• Lorraine Berry, ‘Walking in Memphis‘ on Catapult
• Kathryn Schultz, ‘When Things Go Missing‘ in The New Yorker
• Irina Dumitrescu, ‘Swan, Late‘ on Longreads
• So Sad Today, ‘What if I Never Live My Best Life?‘ on Vice
• Lacy M. Johnson, ‘Trigger‘ in Guernica
• Candice Norwood, ‘When ‘Good Hair’ Hurts‘ in The Atlantic
• Lisa Mecham, ‘Under the Stars: Remaking a Family‘ on Catapult
• Christine Hyung-Oak Lee, ‘What It’s Like to Lose Your Short-Term Memory‘ on Longreads
• Andie Park, ‘Lessons‘ on Medium
• Laine Bruzek, ‘What Happens When Nothing Happens‘ on West Magazine
• Elle Nash, ‘Grief Lozenge‘ on The Fanzine
• Kim Schultz, ‘I fell in love with a refugee – here’s what I learned when the world didn’t love him too‘ on the New Statesman
• Rebecca Schuman, ‘Hello, Lenin? (Berlin, 1997)‘ on Longreads
• Alana Massey, ‘The Rotten, Precious Land‘ on Hazlitt
• Jonatha Kottler, ‘Fat in Every Language‘ in The Cut
• Alexandra Burt, ‘What Remains When Your First Language Fades Away‘ on Literary Hub
• Jen Gann, ‘I Love My Ugly Old Hands‘ on The Cut
• Melissa Febos, ‘Wunderkammer‘ in Vogue
• Bonnie Nadzam, ‘Experts in the Field‘ on Tin House
• Imbolo Mbue, ‘‘With every inch, the challenge multiplies’: me and my afro‘ in The Guardian
• Yemisi Aribisala, ‘People try to squeeze Nigerian food into an all-encompassing African label‘ in The Guardian
• Eileen Myles, ‘Aging Is Feminizing Me and I Hate It‘ in The Cut
• Stacey Dugid, ‘The skirt that gave me back my mojo‘ on The Pool
• Laurie Frankel, ‘When my son became my daughter, the transition was more routine than dramatic‘ in The Sydney Morning Herald
• Jaya Saxena, ‘Explaining My Multiracial Identity (So Others Don’t Do It For Me)‘ on Catapult
• Catherine LaSota, ‘Becoming an Artist and a Parent in NYC‘ on Catapult
• Cat Marnell, ‘How to Murder Your Life‘ on The Cut
• Kayla Rae Whitaker, ‘How I Learned To Date After Drinking‘ on Buzzfeed
• Jia Tolentino, ‘The Most American Thing‘ in The New Yorker
• Kuba Shand Baptiste, ‘It took me 17 years to fall in love with my black hair. Why?‘ on The Pool
• Eva Tenuto, ‘Feeling Unsafe at Every Size‘ on Longreads
• Lori Jakiela, ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Bingo Worker‘ on Electric Literature
• Patricia Bosworth, ‘The Men in My Life‘ on Literary Hub
• Meghan Tear Plummer, ‘Real Life: My Sister, My Brother‘ in Glamour
• Tracy O’Neill, ‘A Scar Is Not a Story‘ on Catapult
• Laila Lalami, ‘Love and Betrayal in America‘ in The New Yorker

Feminism:

• Dayna Tortorici, ‘While the Iron Is Hot‘ in n+1
• Michelle Darmody, ‘From the heart: One woman’s experience of abortion‘ in the Irish Examiner
• Riyan Fergins, ‘Follow the Oil Trail and You’ll Find the Girls‘ on Longreads
• Anita Bhagwandas, ‘The true meaning of beauty is to celebrate our imperfections‘ on The Pool
• Tobi Oredin, ‘As a black woman, I’ve had to unlearn what beauty means to me‘ on The Pool
• Jennilie Brewster, ‘Frozen Ground: On Reporting a Statutory Rape Twenty Years Later‘ on Catapult
• Zoe Samudsi, ‘Remy, Nicki, And The White Feminist Optics Of Black Women’s Beefs‘ on Equality for Her
• Katie Booth, ‘People Mountain, People Sea‘ on Vela
• Deborah Orr, ‘Helen Bailey and the lethal darkness behind this ‘middle-aged woman’ myth‘ in The Guardian
• Carmen Maria Machado, ‘The Trash Heap Has Spoken‘ on Guernica
• E.J. Dickson, ‘Why Did Everyone Act Like I Was Crazy When I Decided to Have a Baby in My 20s?‘ in The Cut
• Jendella Benson, ‘Feminist love will save men too‘ on Media Diversified
• Eve Ensler, ‘Female Fighters Series Re-examines Women’s Rage Around the World‘ on Guernica
• Abbie, ‘It’s Time to Trash Body Positivity‘ on Bullshitist
• Nimmi Gowrinathan, ‘Of Monsters & Women‘ on Guernica
• Yas Necati, ‘As a queer woman I will be marching against Donald Trump this weekend – but for my disabled friends it won’t be that easy‘ in The Independent
• Jessica Valenti, ‘Calling pregnant women ‘hosts’? We’re in an anti-choice Republican dystopia‘ in The Guardian
• Suzanne Moore, ‘Women in public life are now being openly bullied. How has this become normal?‘ in The Guardian
• Jessa Crispin, ‘The Failures of Mainstream Feminism‘ on New Republic
• Sara Ahmed, ‘Smile!‘ on Feminist Killjoys
• Shannon Keating, ‘Can Lesbian Identity Survive The Gender Revolution?‘ on Buzzfeed
• Melissa Denes, ‘‘It’s always high drama. It’s somebody’s life at stake’: inside British rape trials‘ in The Guardian
• Megan Nolan, ‘If British abortion providers turn away Irish women, it will be catastrophic‘ in The Pool
• Glosswitch, ‘What Would Happen if the World’s Women Went on Strike?‘ in the New Statesman
• Andrea Penman-Lomeli, ‘Consuming la Malinche, Destroying the Myth‘ on The New Inquiry
• Jia Tolentino, ‘The Case Against Contemporary Feminism‘ in The New Yorker
• Nadine Ajaka, ‘The Casualties of Women’s War on Body Hair‘ in The Atlantic
• Amanda Hess, ‘How a Fractious Women’s Movement Came to Lead the Left‘ in The New York Times
• Naomi Alderman, ‘Utopian thinking: how to build a truly feminist society‘ in The Guardian
• Rebecca Traister, ‘The Future of the Left Is Female‘ in The Cut
• Sadie Hassler, ‘Three abortions‘ on Standard Issue
• Caroline O’Donoghue, ‘I may never be ready to stop saying “dude”‘ on The Pool

Society and Politics:

• Dana Snitzky, ‘The Ban, The Wall, Bearing Witness‘ on Longreads
• Hannah Black, ‘New World Disorder‘ on Art Forum
• Gaby Hinsliff, ‘The government can’t pledge support for mental illness – and then backtrack‘ on The Pool
• Elizabeth Weil, ‘The Curse of the Bahia Emerald‘ on Wired
• Claire Heuchan, ‘The parallels between Scottish nationalism and racism are clear‘ in The Guardian
• Tasbeeh Herwees, ‘Resistance In The Time Of Protest Selfies‘ on Good
• Teow Lim Goh, ‘On Borders and Citizens‘ on Catapult
• Gaby Hinsliff, ‘Labour can’t keep returning to its roots empty handed‘ in The Guardian
• Mehreen Kasana, ‘The Meaning of Allahu Akbar‘ on Hazlitt
• Rumana Ahmed, ‘I Was a Muslim in Trump’s White House‘ on The Atlantic
• Gabrielle Bellot, ‘M*lo Might Be Done, But His Transphobia Lingers‘ on Literary Hub
• Sarah Larson, ‘The Librarian of Congress and the Greatness of Humility‘ in The New Yorker
• Rachel Cusk, ‘The Age of Rudeness‘ in The New York Times
• Gaby Hinsliff, ‘We are overdosing on empathy‘ in The Guardian
• Arifa Akbar, ‘The value we place on romantic love can feel tyrannical – especially if you’re a single woman‘ on The Pool
• Suzanne Moore, ‘It’s liking, not loving, that’s the true challenge in relationships‘ on The Pool
• Diane Abbott, ‘I fought racism and misogyny to become an MP. The fight is getting harder‘ in The Guardian
• Elizabeth Day, ‘What does true love really look like?‘ on The Pool
• Ruth Whippman, ‘Authentic? Try being polite instead‘ in The Guardian
• Deborah Cohen, ‘Before Straight and Gay‘ on The Atlantic
• Lizzie Presser, ‘Below Deck‘ in The California Sunday Magazine
• Tari Ngangura, ‘How Black History Month Reminds Me How Exhausting It Is To Be Black‘ on Vice
• Caitlin L. Chandler, ‘The Other World‘ on Guernica
• Helen Haft, ‘Telling Memories‘ on Aeon
• Andrea Pitzer, ‘Trump Revives a Shameful Tradition: Targeting a Minority Group with Crime Reports‘ on Longreads
• Ijeoma Oluo, ‘White People: I Don’t Want You To Understand Me Better, I Want You To Understand Yourselves‘ on The Establishment
• Lois Parshley, ‘Here Be Dragons: Finding the Blank Spaces in a Well-Mapped World‘ on VQR
• Hina Shamsi, ‘Flying Home From Abroad, a Border Agent Stopped and Questioned Me … About My Work for the ACLU‘ on ACLU
• Tina Nguyen, ‘Trump Grill Could Be the Worst Restaurant in America‘ in Vanity Fair
• Tamara Winfrey Harris, ‘The Real Work of Being an Ally‘ on The Cut
• Nesrine Malik, ‘Suddenly, Muslims are America’s pariahs‘ in The Guardian
• Margaret Simons, ‘The Karen road to Nhill‘ on SBS
• Fariah Roísín, ‘What Makes a Border Be?‘ on Hazlitt

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

• Anna Leszkiewicz, ‘From Hannah Horvath to Rory Gilmore: the problem with women writers on TV‘ in the New Statesman
• Eva Holland, ‘Bird Man‘ on Longreads
• Lynn Enright, ‘Twentysomething women often win Best Actress. Men in their twenties basically never win Best Actor‘ on The Pool
• Brittney Cooper, ‘Why It’s Important to Recognize That “Moonlight” Was Robbed Of Its Moment‘ in Cosmopolitan
• Jia Tolentino, ‘The Awkward Politics of the Oscars‘ in The New Yorker
• Megan Garber, ‘Why Are They ‘Stars’?‘ on The Atlantic
• Jess Goldschmidt, ‘Against La La Land‘ on Guernica
• Ann Powers, ‘The Problem With The Grammys Is Not A Problem We Can Fix‘ on NPR
• Helen O’Hara, ‘TV is better placed to tell love stories than cinema – and its writers have finally realised that‘ on The Pool
• Frances Ryan, ‘I, Daniel Blake is a realistic depiction of life on benefits. Isn’t it?‘ in The Guardian
• Emma Gray, ‘What White Women Can Learn From Adele’s Grammys Speech‘ on the Huffington Post
• Anindita Ghose, ‘What John Berger would say about Beyoncé‘ on Live Mint
• Hadley Freeman, ‘Oh, how I loved you, Johnny Depp. Now I see the purple-tinted truth‘ in The Guardian
• Laura Craik, ‘Why do we judge Victoria Beckham by her husband?‘ on The Pool
• Micha Frazer-Carroll, ‘Why We Should Celebrate Beyoncé’s Pregnancy in the Era of Trump‘ on Gal-Dem
• Danielle Dash, ‘Beyonce, Black Joy & White Women‘ on her website
• Jennifer Keshin Armstrong, ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’s Feminist Struggle‘ on Longreads
• Dayna Evans, ‘Why Would a Woman Want to Play Football?‘ on The Cut
• Véronique Hyland, ‘Why Won’t We Let Madonna Age the Way She Wants To?‘ on The Cut

The interviews/profiles:

• Susan Hill in The Guardian
• Cara Hoffman on Broadly
• Rowan Hisayo Buchanan on Literary Hub
• Kate Zambreno on The Creative Independent
• Yoojin Grace Wuertz on Electric Literature
• Melissa Febos on Guernica
• Masha Gessen on The Millions
• Zeba Talkhani and Laura Waddell on Minor Literature[s]
• Patty Yumi Cottrell in the Los Angeles Review of Books
• Ayòbámi Adébáyò in The Guardian
• Claudia Rankine in The Financial Times
• Claire Fuller in The Chicago Review of Books
• Ethel Rohan on The Millions and on Bustle
• Yiyun Li in The Guardian, on Five Books
• Jane Wong and Aditi Machado on Literary Hub
• Roxane Gay on Brooklyn
• Emily Ruskovich on Electric Literature
• Roshi Fernando on Short Story Award
• Jess Phillips on The Debrief
• Morgan Parker in The Cut
• Liane Moriarty in The Guardian
• Dreda Say Mitchell on Greenacre Writers
• Sara Baume in The Guardian
• Ola Nubi on Ankara Press
• Shappi Khorsandi in The Guardian
• Heather O’Neill on The Millions
• Rachel Cusk in BOMB
• Nina LaCour on The Booklist Reader
• Emma Donoghue on Literary Hub
• Ayelet Waldman in California
• Alice Broadway on Foyles, in The Guardian
• Amanda Owen in The Guardian
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in The Guardian
• Margaret Atwood in The Guardian
• Ali Smith in The New York Times
• Lara Pawson on Rhys Tranter
• Christine Hyung-Oak Lee on NPR
• Jade Sharma in The Rumpus
• Alana Massey on Hello Giggles, Hazlitt
• Khairani Barokka on Disability Arts
• Adrian Shirk on Catapult
• Katie Kitamura on Literary Hub
• Camille Pagán in the Huffington Post
• Adania Shiboli on Literary Hub
• Naomi Jackson on The Rumpus
• Katie Khan on In the Words of
• Kyo Maclear on Mcleans
• Kim Hyesoon on Guernica
• Jessica Valenti on The Rumpus
• Elif Shafak in The Guardian, on Foyles
• Erica Ferencik on Electric Literature
• Eimear McBride on Electric Literature
• Sandra Cisneros on Literary Hub
• Shanthi Sekaran on Bookanista
• Ottessa Moshfegh on Lenny

The regular columnists:

• Lucy Mangan in Stylist
• Roxane Gay in The Guardian US
• Caitlin Moran in The Times
• Lauren Laverne in The Pool
• Ella Risbridger in The Pool
• Sali Hughes in The Pool
• Bim Adewunmi in The Guardian
• Sophie Heawood in The Guardian
• Eva Wiseman in The Observer
• Tracey Thorn in The New Statesman
• Chimene Suleyman and Maya Goodfellow on Media Diversified
• Josie Pickens on Ebony
• Bridget Christie in The Guardian
• Lizzy Kremer on Publishing for Humans
• Juno Dawson in Glamour
• Kashana Cauley on Catapult
• Louise O’Neill in the Irish Examiner
• Jendella Benson on Media Diversified
• Lola Okolosie in The Guardian
• Sarah Gerard, ‘Mouthful‘ on Hazlitt
• Books by Women We’d Love to See in English on Literary Hub

In the Media: December 2016

In the media is a fortnightly round-up of features written by, about or containing female writers that have appeared during the previous fortnight and I think are insightful, interesting and/or thought provoking. Linking to them is not necessarily a sign that I agree with everything that’s said but it’s definitely an indication that they’ve made me think. I’m using the term ‘media’ to include social media, so links to blog posts as well as as traditional media are likely and the categories used are a guide, not definitives.

Post-election coverage is still top of the tree this fortnight:

• Lauren Duca, ‘Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America‘ in Teen Vogue
• Jennifer Gonnerman, ‘Fighting for the Poor Under Trump‘ in The New Yorker
• Molly Ball, ‘President Trump’s Perpetual Campaign‘ in The Atlantic
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, ‘Now Is the Time to Talk About What We Are Actually Talking About‘ in The New Yorker
• Barbara Robidoux, ‘Walk On‘ on The Rumpus
• Hadley Freeman, ‘“Don’t play identity politics!” The primal scream of the straight white male‘ in The Guardian
• Masha Gessen, ‘Trump: The Choice We Face‘ in The New York Review of Books
• Gabrielle Bellot, ‘Finding Empathy in the Face of Hate‘ on Literary Hub
• Alison Stine, ‘Wolves‘ on The Rumpus

The other big story has been the revelation that Maria Schneider was raped in Last Tango in Paris:

• Sali Hughes, ‘The callous abuse of Maria Schneider, and the impunity of Hollywood men‘ on The Pool
• Suzanne Moore, ‘Last Tango’s abuse reveals the broken promise of the 1970s sexual revolution‘ in The Guardian
• Helen Lewis, ‘Maria Schneider’s story is no surprise – Hollywood has always treated women as commodities‘ in the New Statesman
• Jessica Tovey, ‘Bertolucci’s justification for the Last Tango rape scene is bogus. It’s called ‘acting’ for a reason‘ in The Guardian

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Rave Sashayed, On men writing women on but alas! the creature grows degenerate
• Sarah Perry, ‘One day I found myself reciting the opening of the novel. I knew the crisis had come’ in The Guardian
• Zadie Smith, ‘On Optimism and Despair‘ in The New York Review of Books
• G X Todd, ‘Insecurity, fear, frustration and helplessness‘ in The Bookseller
• Amanda Nadelberg, ‘How Do We Pay the Poets?‘ on Literary Hub
• Jesmyn Ward, ‘This Was The Year America Finally Saw The South‘ on Buzzfeed
• Kelly Faircloth, ‘The Sweet, Savage Sexual Revolution That Set the Romance Novel Free‘ on Jezebel
• Ellena Savage, ‘From Hemingway to Kathy Acker: Making Art from the Outside‘ on Literary Hub
• Amanda Michalopoulou, ‘Divided times: how literature teaches us to understand “the other”‘ in The Guardian
• Lamorna Ash, ‘Never mind the typography‘ in The TLS
• Marcy Dermansky, ‘For Writers who Are Also the Mothers of Small Children‘ on Literary Hub
• Chantal Braganza, ‘A User’s Guide to Zadie Smith‘ on Hazlitt
• Miriam Toews, ‘How Pacifism Can Lead to Violence and Conflict‘ on Literary Hub
• Nicole Jankowski, ‘Ernest Hemingway and Me: Reflections of an Insomniac Writer‘ on Catapult
• Katharine Noel, ‘Where Is All the Sibling Literature for Adults?‘ on Literary Hub
• Michael Denneny, ‘Ntozake Shange: On a Brilliant Balance of Anger and Poetry‘ on Literary Hub
• Rafia Zakaria, ‘A Feminist Thoreau‘ on Literary Hub
• Dan Chiasson, ‘Emily Dickinson’s Singular Scrap Poetry‘ in The New Yorker
• Petina Gappah, ‘I was a lawyer, but I forced myself to write before I went to work’ in The Guardian
• Clare Sestanovich, ‘Storytelling vs. Oversharing in the Age of Snapchat: On the Work of Rachel Cusk, Claire Louise-Bennett, and Eimear McBride‘ on Literary Hub
• Sarah Franklin, ‘Lose yourself in the microworld of the short story‘ on The Pool

 

Personal essays/memoir:

• Courtney Tenz, ‘Integration Class: On Immigrating to Germany‘ on Catapult
• Lisbeth Zornig Andersen, ‘When Denmark Criminalised Kindness‘ in Granta
• Megan Cummins, ‘Plunge‘ on Guernica
• Jacklyn Janeksela, ‘lane-gweedj‘ on [Pank]
• Antonia Honeywell’s Advent Calendar on her blog
• Yemisi Aribsala ‘Kanda for Christmas‘ on The Writes of Woman
• Linda Wells, ‘Spas Aren’t Only About Beauty, Vanity, or Fun. They’re Also About Grief.‘ on The Cut
• Maureen McCauley Evans, ‘A New Light: How My Daughter’s Pregnancy Made Me Rethink Adoption‘ on Catapult
• Amy Beth Wright, ‘A Separate Dream: Faith, Family, and Knowing When to Let Go‘ on Catapult
• Helena Fitzgerald, ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane: On Life in Airports and Coming Home‘ on Catapult
• Jennifer Kabat, ‘The Fairytale‘ on Granta
• Sarah Weinman, ‘The Year in Addition and Subtraction‘ in Hazlitt
• Kim Fu, ‘The Year in Hyphenates‘ in Hazlitt
• Meg Elison, ‘On Decades of Diaries: Intimate, Profane, Honest‘ on Literary Hub
• Christine Sneed, ‘“It’s very easy to marry, but not so easy to unmarry a person”‘ on The Pool
• Various, ‘Conversations with grandma: ‘When are you going to get married?’‘ in The Guardian
• Anonymous, ‘The Discovery‘ on Finally Knowing Me

Feminism:

• Sirin Kale, ‘The Irish Government Is Seizing an Increasing Number of Abortion Pills‘ on Broadly
• Alanna Evans, ‘One Delightfully Clever & Slightly Shakespearean Way to Fight Trolls‘ on Flare
• Soraya Chemaly, ‘How white supremacist hatred drives acts of violence against powerful women‘ on Salon
• Wanu Udobang, ‘Remembering to Scream‘ on Brittle Paper
• Pearl Osibu, ‘The Unwomanly Feminist‘ on Brittle Paper
• Paris Lees, ‘Fears around gender-neutral toilets are all in the mind‘ in The Guardian
• Various, ‘Four female writers assess the feminist credentials of classic Disney princess films‘ in Stylist
• Ashley Weatherford, ‘The Irrational History of Hating Stretch Marks‘ in The Cut
• Margaret Talbot, ‘The Attorney Fighting Revenge Porn‘ in The New Yorker
• Laura Craik, ‘“It’s OK to allow women to look sexy without baring a breast”‘ on The Pool

Society and Politics:

• Rosalind Adams, ‘Intake: Locked On The Psych Ward‘ on Buzzfeed
• Samira Shackle, ‘40 years ago, the “strikers in saris” were smashing the stereotype of submissive Asian women‘ on The Pool
• Samira Shackle, ‘Muslim women are facing discrimination – and broad reports about “integration” won’t help that‘ on The Pool
• Caroline O’Donoghue, ‘Is it OK to have a single-use friendship?‘ on The Pool
• Tele Ogunyemi, ‘We are not “belligerent,” “dark” or “bitter”‘ on Media Diversified
• Marina Hyde, ‘So many lowlights from the life of Zac Goldsmith – so hard to choose‘ in The Guardian
• Erika Hayasaki, ‘Traces of Times Lost‘ in The Atlantic

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

• Leslie Bennetts, ‘Judge Me, Rank Me, Insult Me, Reject Me: The Contradictions, Cruelty and Genius of Joan Rivers‘ on Lenny

The interviews/profiles:

• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in The Cut and The New York Times
• Ali Smith on the Penguin Blog
• Brit Bennett on Electric Literature
• Eileen Myles, Ruth Ozeki, Porochista Khakpour, Anna March and Alexandra Kleeman on Writing the Body on Literary Hub
• Imbolo Mbue on The Rumpus
• Jessie Greengrass on The Writes of Woman
• Val McDermid on Literary Hub
• Eimear McBride in The TLS
• Jia Tolentino on Catapult
• Danielle Dutton on The Millions
• Mary Gaitskill on The Pool
• Zadie Smith in the New Statesman
• Mary Wisniewski on Electric Literature
• Henrietta Rose-Innes on Electric Literature
• Elizabeth Gilbert in The Cut
• Yemisi Aribisala on The Tiger Tales, Chukus and Kitchen Butterfly
• Hao Jingfang in The New York Times
• Erin Wunker on Room
• Heather Phillipson in The Guardian
• Sarah Perry on Waterstones’ 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
• Jendella Benson on Media Diversified
• Lola Okolosie in The Guardian
• Sarah Gerard, ‘Mouthful‘ on Hazlitt
• Books by Women We’d Love to See in English on Literary Hub

In the Media, May 2016, Part Three

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.

Books in translation have been having a moment following Han Kang and translator Deborah Smith winning the Man Booker International Prize for The Vegetarian. They wrote, ‘It is fascinating to ponder the possibili­ties of language‘ for The Guardian; Charles Montgomery wrote, ‘The Triumph of Han Kang and the Rise of Women’s Writing in Korea‘ in The Los Angeles Review of Books; Sophie Hughes wrote, ‘On the Joyful Tears of a Translator‘ on Literary Hub. Judith Vonberg writes, ‘Translated fiction is not a genre. Why do bookshops tell us it is?‘ in The New Statesman and Anjali Enjeti asks, ‘Do Americans Hate Foreign Fiction‘ on Literary Hub

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Rose Tremain, ‘Forty Years as a Writer‘ on Waterstones’ Blog
• Francesca Simon, ‘I’m a mixture of both Horrid Henry and Perfect Peter‘ in The Telegraph
• Rebecca Solnit, ‘To Break the Story, You Must Break the Status Quo‘ on Literary Hub
• Rose Courteau, ‘Team Ladislaw: What Henry James (and Everyone Else) Gets Wrong About Middlemarch‘ on The Millions
• Claire Christian, ‘Self-publish and be sneered at?‘ in The Bookseller
• Hannah Engler, ‘Nora Ephron and Literary Moms‘ on Bookriot
• Sarah LeFanu, ‘on Women’s Writing: A Small Bit of Recent History‘ on Something Rhymed
• Sarah Boxer, ‘Reading Proust on My Cellphone‘ on The Atlantic
• Casey Rocheteau, ‘Literary Juneteenth (or Why I Left The Offing)‘ on The Offing
• Julie Feng, ‘The Weight of the World, The Weight of Words‘ on Winter Tangerine
• Amy Watkin, ‘Harper Lee Would Like a Word With You‘ on McSweeney’s
• Rufi Thorpe, ‘Actually, All Writers Steal‘ on Literary Hub
• Julia Rochester, ‘My fiction is preoccupied with belonging and exile‘ in The Guardian
• Nuzaifa, ‘Muslims Represented in YA Fiction‘ on Word Contessa
• Zara Raab, ‘These Molten Flowers: on Lola Ridge, radical poet and activist‘ on Critical Flame
• Soniah Kamal, ‘When My Authentic Is Your Exotic‘ on Literary Hub
• Glosswitch, ‘Re-reading Wide Sargasso Sea‘ on Glosswatch
• Paula Erizanu, ‘Sarah Crossan wins the Irish children’s book of the year‘ in The Guardian
• Elif Shafak, ‘Writing Fiction is an Act of Faith‘ on Waterstones’ Blog
• Bridget Read, ‘Jenny Diski, Down the Final Rabbit Hole‘ on Literary Hub
• Melissa Holbrook Pierson, ‘That’s Inspiration!: Rereading Annie Dillard‘ in The Los Angeles Review of Books
• Enrique Vila-Matas, ‘The Unstoppable Myth of Alejandra Pizarnik‘ on Literary Hub
• Judith Shulevitz, ‘The Brontës’ Secret‘ on The Atlantic
• Alex Clark, ‘‘No drugs on the bus’: Carol Ann Duffy takes a road trip‘ in The Guardian
• Anne Enright, ‘In search of the real Maeve Brennan‘ in The Guardian
• Milena Busquets, ‘Writing my way out of the loneliness of grief‘ on The Pool
• Laura Miller, ‘Introducing My Ántonia‘ on Slate
• Nina Stibbe, ‘Helena Bonham Carter was cast in a TV series about my life – and all I could do was blag a Harry Potter ticket from her,’ in The Telegraph
• Candace Opper, ‘The Suicide Memoir: True Crime, Mystery and Grief‘ on Literary Hub
• Rebecca Smart, ‘Pride not prejudice’ in The Bookseller
• Nicole Brinkley, ‘“Women built this castle”: An in-depth look at sexism in YA.‘ on YA Interrobang
• Samantha Shannon, ‘An abridged Da Vinci Code implies teens need simple books – they don’t‘ in The Guardian
• Lucy Caldwell, ‘On Why Short Stories Matter‘ on Faber & Faber Blog
• Lynn Steger Strong, ‘Topography of a Novel: Hold Still‘ on Blunderbuss
• Robin Wasserman, ‘What Does It Mean When We Call Women Girls‘ on Literary Hub
• Rebecca Wait, ‘Following the Leader‘ on Waterstones’ Blog
• Marianne Tatipo, ‘Young, BAME, and chasing the ‘alternative route into publishing’ dream‘ in The Bookseller
• Chris Power, ‘A brief survey of the short story: Lucia Berlin‘ in The Guardian
• Janice P. Nimura, ‘History Never Ends, It Just Gets Retold‘ on Literary Hub
• Helena Fitzgerald, ‘How Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love Saved Me‘ on Literary Hub
• Laura Smith, ‘House Hunting with Martha Gellhorn‘ on Hazlitt
• Mikita Brottman, ‘Jane Austen’s Ivory Cage‘ in The American Scholar
• Faye Bird, ‘Why I Wanted to Write About Selective Mutism‘ on Scottish Booktrust
• Chris Kraus, ‘I Love Dick happened in real life, but it’s not a memoir‘ in The Guardian

Personal essays/memoir:

• Jess Carroll, ‘Watch Me Bathe‘ on Hazlitt
• Amy Jones, ‘Stuck in the middle — between body positivity and clean eating‘ on Medium
• Carly Rose, ‘My Journey Into the Woods: What Stephen Sondheim Taught Me About Conceiving a Child‘ on Electric Literature
• Joanna Sing, ‘What I Have Learnt from Being (Occasionally) White-Passing‘ on Gal-Dem
• Nicole Cliffe, ‘How God Messed Up My Happy Atheist Life‘ on Christianity Today
• Eva Hagberg Fisher, ‘Vital Signs‘ on Guernica
• Maggie O’Farrell, ‘‘I have three seconds before she draws blood’: life with extreme eczema‘ in The Guardian
• Helena Fitzgerald, ‘The Fierce Triumph of Loneliness‘ on Catapult
• Vanessa Hua, ‘The Sandwich Generation‘ in the San Francisco Chronicle
• Anna March, ‘The Burn‘ on Midnight Breakfast
• Katrina Kenison, ‘Solitude: A Reprieve from the Noise of Doing‘ on On Being
• Sinéad Gleeson, ‘Blue Hills and Chalk Bones‘ on Granta
• Nina Stibbe’s letter to her younger self: ‘Try not to have a weave perm’ in The Guardian
• Rufi Thorpe, ‘Do the Deer‘ on Medium
• Rumaan Alam, ‘What Happened When I Tried to Have It All‘ on The Cut

Feminism:

• Katie J.M. Baker, ‘Ethics and the Eye of the Beholder‘ on Buzzfeed
• Alana Massey, ‘The Clique Imaginary‘ in The New Inquiry
• Lena Dunham, ‘Sorry, Not Sorry: My Apology Addiction‘ on Linkedin
• Emma Garman, ‘A Liberated Woman: The Story of Margaret King‘ on Longreads
• Joanna Walsh, ‘“She wore a USB cord instead of a necklace”: whatever happened to Cyberfeminism?‘ in The New Statesman
• Rebecca Reid, ‘GirLand, Habbo Hotel and me: how I learned to masturbate online‘ in The New Statesman
• Lola Okolosie, ‘“Misogynoir is a very real problem and feminism can no longer ignore it”‘ in Stylist
• Laura Maw, ‘Rhythms of Fear‘ on Hazlitt
• Afak Afgun, ‘Women carry a heavier coffin‘ on Sister-Hood
• Suzanne Moore, ‘Stop telling women they’re doing feminism wrong‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah Menkedick, ‘In Defense of Motherhood as Art‘ on Vela
• Sian Norris, ‘The value of women’s silence‘ on Sian and Crooked Rib
• Lasha, ‘bell hooks vs. Beyoncé: What this feminist scholarly critique gets wrong about “Lemonade” and liberation‘ on Salon
• Sari Botton, ‘Unchain My Heart: On the Emotional Effectiveness – and Lingering Sexism – of Jewish Divorce‘ on Longreads
• Lindy West, ‘Why women need to be bigger: on why we all should be loud and proud‘ in Stylist

Society and Politics:

• Charlotte Riley, ‘Working class girls don’t threaten our universities, they enrich them‘ in The New Statesman
• Jessica Contrera, ‘13, right now‘ in The Washington Post
• Daisy Hernández, ‘Kiss of Death‘ in Guernica
• Lindy West, ‘My husband isn’t fat, and that enrages people‘ on The Pool
• Holly Root-Gutteridge, ‘The songs of the wolves‘ on Aeon
• Mary Wang, ‘Seeing Through the Fog, Part Two‘ on Guernica
• Tracy O’Neill, ‘The Long Line to Tonight‘ on Catapult
• Ella Wilks-Harper, ‘There’s a Fine Line Between Tokenism and Diversity‘ on Gal-Dem
• Tracie White, ‘The Puzzle Solver‘ on Stanford Medicine
• Katherine Laidlaw, ‘Hold the Fort‘ on The Walrus
• Sonia Faliero, ‘The Long Rescue‘ in Harper’s
• Mallika Rao, ‘From Nina to Lemonade, Why We’re Still So Bad at Talking About Colorism‘ on Slate
• Deborah Halber, ‘192 Days as John Doe’ on Mosaic
• Bridget Minamore, ‘Racism and misogyny explains why there are so few black women in politics‘ on The Pool
• Christine Baumgarthuber, ‘Dinner with Caligula‘ on The New Inquiry
• Anna Furman, ‘Meeting Edward Said‘ on Guernica

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

• Louise Ridley, ‘Celebrity Injunctions Show ‘Moral Abuse’ Of Courts As They Are ‘Almost Entirely Taken Out By Unfaithful Men’ Say Lawyers‘ on The Huffington Post
• Arielle Bernstein, ‘Beyond the “girl power” anthem: Beyoncé, Lana Del Rey and pop’s radical embrace of female vulnerability‘ on Salon
• Elizabeth Daley, ‘Above and Beyoncé‘ on Guernica
• Joanna Sing, ‘Can We Excuse Azealia Banks on Account of Her Bipolar Disorder?‘ on Gal-Dem

The interviews/profiles:

• Miranda Beverly Whittemore on Literary Hub
• Emma Cline on The Bookseller
• Emma Straub in The New York Times
• Mary Gaitskill on Guernica
• Mona Awad on Hazlitt
• Lindy West on Buzzfeed
• Stephanie Danler on Electric Literature, The Paris Review, Vanity Fair and Guernica
• Kit de Waal in The Bookseller
• Rufi Thorpe on Electric Literature
• Fionnuala Kearney on Rebecca Mascull’s blog
• Rebecca Schiff on Electric Literature
• Svetlana Alexievich on The Millions
• Sarah Perry on Foyles
• MariNaomi on The Millions
• Margo Jefferson in The Observer
• Kelly Link on The Masters Review
• Anakana Schofield on The Gloss
• Teow Lim Goh on The Fem
• Elena Ferrante in The New Yorker
• Rivka Galchen on Electric Literature

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, 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

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, February 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 traditional media are likely and the categories used are a guide, not definitives.

On Friday, the death of Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird was announced. Obituaries followed from Ed Pilkington and Matthew Teague in The Guardian; Eric Hamburger also in The Guardian; Casey N. Cep in The New Yorker, and The Irish Times, and appraisals of her work from Michiko Kakutani, ‘In Harper Lee’s Novels, a Loss of Innocence as Children and Again as Adults‘ in the New York Times; Sarah Churchwell, ‘Harper Lee: author battled to reconcile racial justice with a racially unjust society‘ and Elaine Showalter, ‘Harper Lee: an American novelist deserving of serious attention‘ both in The Guardian; Michelle Dean, ‘Did Go Set a Watchman spoil Harper Lee’s literary legacy?‘ in The Guardian; Katy Waldman, ‘What Is Harper Lee’s Legacy After Go Set a Watchman?‘ on Slate, and Alex Clark, ‘Why Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird endures to tell its tale of radical change‘ in The Observer

You might have heard that a fortnight ago Beyoncé released a new song ‘Formation’ which she went on to perform at the SuperBowl. Lots of people had lots to say about it. LaSha wrote, ‘Kendrick Lamar won’t face backlash like Beyoncé: Socially conscious art, sexual expression and the policing of black women’s politics‘, Priscilla Ward wrote, ‘White Beyoncé haters don’t get it: “Formation” isn’t “race-baiting” — but it is unapologetically about race‘ both on Salon; Banseka Kayembe wrote, ‘Beyonce Gets Political: Here’s Why it Matters‘ on the Huffington Post; Shantrelle Lewis wrote, ‘“Formation” Exploits New Orleans’ Trauma‘ on Slate; Nikita Richardson did ‘A Deep Dive into the Important, Unapologetic Blackness of Beyoncé’s ‘Formation’‘ on Hello Giggles; Suzanne Moore said, ‘Black Pride at the Super Bowl? Beyoncé embodies a new political moment‘ in The Guardian; The Pool asked, ‘Four women on what Beyoncé’s Formation means to them‘, and Anna Leszkiewicz said, ‘Beyoncé and #BlackLivesMatter: why “Formation” is her most radical release to date‘ in the New Statesman.

Last weekend was Valentine’s Day; there was plenty of writing around that too. Emma Dowling wrote, ‘Love’s Labour’s Cost: The Political Economy of Intimacy‘ on Verso Books; Eleanor Franzén wrote ‘V Daze‘ on Elle Thinks; Eileen Myles, ‘on the Excruciating Pain of Waiting for Love‘ and Heather Haverilesky, ‘What Romance Really Means After 10 Years of Marriage‘ on The Cut; Marie Phillips wrote, ‘What I learnt from a year of being in love‘ and Emer O’Toole shared, ‘The Rules, and how I fell in love‘ both on The Pool; Lauren Duca asked, ‘Is There Such a Thing As a Feminist Marriage Proposal?‘, Laura June revealed, ‘What I Thought Romance Meant, Age 12–Present‘ and Meaghan O’Connell told us, ‘Getting Married in One Week Was the Most Romantic Thing I Ever Did‘ all in The Cut; Emma Flowers wrote, ‘Finding, Nearly Losing and Finally Building Love Across Two Genders‘ on the Huffington Post; Heidi Julavits on ‘My High-School Boyfriend, the Con Artist‘ in The Cut; Tiffany Yannetta wrote, ‘Lights, Camera, Love‘ on the history of dating shows on Racked, and Alana Massey said, ‘Tinder Is the New Meet-Cute‘ in The Cut.

Congratulations to Ríona Judge McCormack who won the inaugural Galley Beggar Press short story competition with ‘Blackburn‘. And The Stella Prize announced its 12 book longlist for 2016.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Janet Ellis,‘I submitted my book under a pseudonym’ in The Telegraph
• Sarah Pinborough, ‘“The first outline was way more weird than the final novel” – on writing 13 Minutes‘ on One Book Lane
• Katherine Clements, ‘The Real Wicked Lady‘ on The History Girls
• Elen Caldecott, ‘Children’s books: a middle class ghetto?‘ in The Guardian
• Grady Hendrix, ‘Beloved: The Best Horror Novel the Horror Genre Has Never Claimed‘ on Tor.Com
• Laura Malonee, ‘The Subversive Women Who Self-Publish Novels Amid Jihadist War‘ on Wired
• Cathy Retzenbrink, ‘Lucy Kalanithi, a mourning wife on her husband’s brilliant legacy‘ on The Pool
• Susan Burton, ‘The Quietly Subversive Fictions of Dana Spiotta‘ in The New York Times
• Lisa Levy, ‘The Fine Grim Line Between Love and Stalking: On the Crime Fiction of Caroline Kepnes‘ on Literary Hub
• AFP, ‘Love, Rage, Silence: Secret Lives of Afghanistan’s Female Poets‘ in The Express Tribune
• Belinda McKeon, ‘The Night that Sylvia Plath Met Ted Hughes‘ on Literary Hub
• Edan Lepucki, ‘The Anxiety of Influence: Children’s Books and Their Grown-Up Counterparts‘ on The Millions
• Emily Harnett, ‘When Art Cannot Console Us In Death‘ on Literary Hub
• Anna Hope, ‘The inspiration for an asylum set on the Yorkshire Moors‘ on the Penguin blog
• Rosalind Harvey, ‘A Response to “Beyond Bolaño and Beyond”‘ on Full Stop
• Lisa McInerney, ‘Writers on Location: on Cork City‘ on The Literary Sofa
• Melissa Keil, ‘When is YA going to shape up to body diversity?‘ in The Guardian
• Maddie Crum ‘Some Books Just Aren’t Made To Be Adapted For The Screen, And That’s OK‘ on Huffington Post
• Gila Lyons ‘Female Friendships and Online Literary Sexism‘ on The Rumpus
• Polly Vernon, ‘All the attention came from women telling me how stupid my book was‘ in The Guardian
• Kathryn Evans, ‘How writing YA helped me make sense of my childhood‘ on Scottish Book Trust
• Robert McCrum, ‘The 100 best nonfiction books: No 3 – No Logo by Naomi Klein (1999)‘ in The Guardian
• Tracy McVeigh, ‘Ferrante fever sees ‘dangerous’ Naples turn into a tourist hotspot‘ in The Observer
• Valerie Grove, ‘My hero: Margaret Forster‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah Crompton. ‘Girl, uninterrupted: staging Eimear McBride’s chaotic masterpiece‘ in The Guardian
• William Deresiewicz, ‘Where Have You Gone, Annie Dillard?‘ on The Atlantic
• Kavita Das, ‘On Parsing‘ on VIDA
• Emily Sipiora, ‘Françoise Sagan and Luxury Existentialism‘ in The Northwest Review of Books
• Katie Cotton, ‘Women in picture books: are we there yet?‘ on Scottish Book Trust
• Martin Chilton, ‘How Valley of the Dolls went from a reject to a 30-million best-seller‘ in The Telegraph
• Candy Gourlay and Laura Dockrill, ‘Why we love enchantment in children’s books‘ in The Guardian
• Daniel Peña, ‘Octavia Butler’s Notebook Represents All The Anxieties Of Writers Of Color‘ on Ploughshares
• Niina Pollari, ‘The Marvelous Bonfire‘ on Catapult
• Nandini Balial, ‘On Finding Yourself in the Work of Jhumpa Lahiri‘ on Literary Hub
• Siyanda Mohutsiwa, ‘I’m Done With African Immigrant Literature‘ on Okay Africa
• Andrew Harrison, ‘Framed! Meet the creators shaking up modern comics‘ in The Guardian
• Claire Armitstead, ‘Margaret Forster, award-winning author, dies at 77‘ in The Guardian
• Hannah Tennant-Moore, ‘The Best Literary Writing About Sex‘ on Literary Hub
• Catherine Nichols, ‘One Weird Trick That Makes a Novel Addictive‘ on Jezebel
• Eleanor Franzén, ‘On Culture: The Dark Side of Beatrix Potter‘ on Litro
• Máire T Robinson, ‘Sheela-na-gigs and writing what you don’t know‘ in The Irish Times
• Chibundu Onuzo, ‘Yes, I’m black. But an ethnic minority? Forget it‘ in The Guardian
• Anne Boyd Rioux, ‘Eight Classic Female Bildungsromane You Should Know About If You Don’t Already‘ in The Toast
• Esther Kuforiji, ‘Stories of Blackness — Chapter 4: Literary Festivals‘ on Medium
• Julia Eccleshare, ‘Gillian Avery obituary‘ in The Guardian

Personal essays/memoir:

• Liz Dashwood, ‘Grown-ups are allowed to have meltdowns, too‘ on The Pool
• Joyce Maynard, ‘What Luck Means Now‘ in The New York Times
• Erin Lee Carr, ‘Still Rendering‘ on Medium
• Danielle Bacher, ‘My Autistic Brother’s Quest for Love‘ in Esquire
• Bruna Dantas Labato, ‘Notes on Record-Keeping‘ on Ploughshares
• Joanna Horton, ‘Hard Luck: On Motherlessness‘ in The Toast
• Edan Lepuki, ‘The Secret, Magical Underwear That Only Moms Know About‘ in The Cut
• Kim Pittaway, ‘After‘ on Hazlitt
• Jennifer Hanks, ‘Somewhere Across The Sea‘ in Lumen
• Nicolette Loizou, ‘Travelling in Fiji‘ on Litro
• Esther Schor, ‘My Last JDate‘ in Tablet
• Antonia Honeywell, ‘I was driven out of my beloved church by homophobia‘ in The Telegraph
• Marian Keyes , ‘on the Agony of Small Goodbyes‘ on The Pool
• Susan Shapiro, ‘Both Sides Now‘ on Tablet
• Carmen Maria Machado, ‘The Moon Over the River Lethe‘ on Catapult
• Sarai Walker, ‘Yes, I’m Fat. It’s O.K. I Said It.‘ in The New York Times
• Miriam Foley, ‘Remembering Román‘ on Litro
• Susan Daitch, ‘Treasure Hunters‘ on Guernica
• Farah Róisín, ‘Why Them?‘ on Hazlitt

Feminism:

• Anna James, ‘What’s behind the lack of female pilots?‘ on The Pool
• Jia Tolentino, ‘What Should We Say About David Bowie and Lori Maddox?‘ on Jezebel
• Laura Munoz, ‘To Men I Love, About Men Who Scare Me‘ on Medium
• Dolly Alderton, ‘Hey, spurious polls. This is the *perfect* woman‘ on The Pool
• Emma Lindsay, ‘What I Learned From Dating Women Who Have Been Raped‘ on Medium
• Caroline O’Donoghue, ‘On the sad inevitability of the grown man and the teenage girl‘ on The Pool
• Caroline Criado-Perez, ‘Companies are to publish their gender pay gaps – but will this lead to financial equality?‘ on the New Statesman
• Louise O’Neill, ‘I wonder if my ex-boyfriends thought female sexuality was something to be laughed at‘ in the Irish Examiner
• Sandra Newman, ‘Woman Facts‘ on McSweeney’s
• Robyn Wilder, ‘Why is the P-word so cringingly awful?‘ on The Pool
• Rebecca Solnit, ‘The Case of the Missing Perpetrator‘ on Literary Hub
• Sophie Mayer, ‘The Legend of Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp‘ on Berfrois
• Sady Doyle, ‘Progressive‘ on her Tumblr
• Aricka Foreman and Mimi Wong, ‘Except, All Of Us: Women & the Myth of Safety‘ on The Offing
• Laura June ‘When You’re Pregnant, Nothing Seems in Your Control‘ on The Cut

Society and Politics:

• Kyla Marshell, ‘The Other World Where Everyone Lives‘ in The Blueshift Journal
• Elspeth Reeve, ‘The Secret Lives of Tumblr Teens‘ on New Republic
• Michelle Goldberg, ‘Is a Surrogate a Mother?‘ on Slate
• Alana Massey, ‘Checking Your Date’s Instagram Isn’t ‘Stalking,’ It’s Research‘ on The Cut
• Meena Kandasamy, ‘“I Am An Anti-National…Count Me Out”‘ on Outlook
• Aaminah Khan, ‘I Don’t Need White Progressives Telling Me, A Queer Muslim, About Homophobia In Islam‘ on Harlott
• Lisa Rab, ‘Poverty in Charlotte: ‘It Was Never Okay’‘ in Charlotte Magazine
• Beulah Maud Devaney, ‘Which Cities Would Be Most Likely to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse?‘ on City Metric
• Jihan Crowther ‘What Dating Abroad Taught Me About Stateside Racism‘ on Jezebel
• Jaya Saxena, ‘Some Unorganized Mixed Race Thoughts‘ in The Toast
• Lineal Ajello, ‘More and More War Stories‘ on Guernica
• Susan Gillman, ‘Remembering Slavery, Again‘ in The Los Angeles Review of Books
• Eleanor Margolis, ‘The new young fogeys‘ in The New Statesman
• Emiko Jozuka, ‘The Woman Who Makes Prosthetic Pinkies for Ex-Yakuza Members‘ on Motherboard

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

• Joy Resmovits, ‘The UCLA gymnast who became a viral sensation by just being herself on the floor‘ in the LA Times
• Elizabeth Day, ‘Happy Valley’s women: flawed, funny and completely brilliant‘ on The Pool
• Elizabeth Sankey, ‘In praise of Ab Fab, female friendship and not caring what other people think‘ on The Pool
• Lorrie Moore, ‘The Shame of Wisconsin‘ in The New York Review of Books
• Caroline O’Donoghue, ‘Superheroes have to deal with the same problems the rest of us do‘ on The Pool
• Alexandra Molotkow, ‘The Uncomfortable Power of Pop-Music Cruelty‘ on The Cut
• Hannah Giorgia, ‘Why Do Black Women In Movies Have To Choose Between A Weave And A Relationship?‘ on Buzzfeed
• Cali Hughes, ‘Red is so much more than a colour. It’s a state of mind.’ on the 4th Estate blog
• Lisa Owens, ‘Does Don’t Tell The Bride actually contain the secrets to a happy life?‘ on The Pool
• Lisa Hix, ‘Out of the Shadow of Aunt Jemima: The Real Black Chefs Who Taught Americans to Cook‘ on Collectors Weekly
• Jamie Lauren Keiles, ‘I’m a Hat Person Now‘ on The Cut

The interviews:

• Elizabeth Strout in The Guardian
• Kelly Link on The Millions
• Elena Ferrante in The Gentlewoman
• Idra Novey on Hazlitt, Electric Literature, Weird Sister and Literary Hub
• Janet Ellis in The Bookseller
• Hilary Spiers on Greenacre Writers
• Ann Neuman and Sheri Fink in Guernica
• Marie Annhearte Baker in Room
• Marjorie Liu in Guernica
• Jhumpa Lahiri on Slate, the Wall Street Journal and  Literary Hub, Parts One and Two
• Belinda McKeon on Electric Literature
• Lucy Kalanithi in The Guardian
• Sara Majka on Electric Literature
• Salena Godden on The Woven Tale Press
• Marina Warner on The Literateur
• Ann Goldstein on NPR
• Antonia Honeywell on Greenacre Writers
• Angela Flournoy on The Rumpus
• Sarah Perry on Radio Praha
• Meg Rosoff in The Guardian
• Han Kang on Literary Hub
• Joanna Walsh in Tank
• Alida Nugent on The Rumpus
• Natasha Wimmey on Broadly
• Caroline Bergvall on Asymptote
• Jo Bloom in Psychologies
• Elizabeth McKenzie on Literary Hub
• Sharon Guskin in The Bookseller
• Cate Kennedy on Paul McVeigh’s website
• Sara Gruen and Sarah McCoy on Salon
• Gillian Slovo in The Observer
• Melissa Green in the Los Angeles Review of Books

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

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