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: October 2016, Part One

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

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

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

Photograph by Kate Neil

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

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

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

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

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

Personal essays/memoir:

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

Feminism:

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

Society and Politics:

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

The interviews/profiles:

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

The regular columnists:

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

In the Media: 26th April 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.

This week’s been all about friendship. The Cut declared it Friends Forever Week and ran a series of articles including, ‘The Friend Who Showed Me the Life I Could Have Had‘ by Nell Freudenberger; Emily Gould wrote, ‘Envy Nearly Wrecked My Best Friendship‘; Carina Chocano, ‘9 Friends Who Made Me Who I Am‘; Heather Havrilesky, ‘The Friend I’ve Been Fighting With for 20 Years‘; ‘Clique-Stalking: Instagram’s Greatest Social Pleasure‘ by Maureen O’Connor, and ‘25 Famous Women on Female Friendship‘. While Megan O’Grady wrote ‘This Spring’s Literary Subject May Have You Calling Your Pals‘ in Vogue; Lauren Laverne says ‘It’s time to rehabilitate matchmaking‘ in The Pool, Sulagna Misra writes ‘How Captain America Helped Me Make Friends in the Real World‘ on Hello Giggles and Leesa Cross-Smith writes, ‘Broken Friendships & Knowing All Too Well‘ on Real Pants.

If you’re still to discover it, one of my favourite blogs Something Rhymed covers friendships between female writers and is run by two female writers who are also best friends, Emma Claire Sweeney and Emily Midorikawa. On the site this week, ‘Crying Tears of Laughter: Irenosen Okojie and Yvette Edwards‘.

And then there’s the Amy Schumer sketch with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Patricia Arquette and Tina Fey celebrating Louis-Dreyfus’ ‘Last Fuckable Day’. If you haven’t seen it yet, you must watch it RIGHT NOW! And when you’ve done that you can read Eleanor Margolis, ‘This Inside Amy Schumer sketch about the media’s treatment of “older” women is perfect‘ in the New Statesman and/or Lynn Enright, ‘Hollywood actresses skewer sexism and ageism brilliantly‘ in The Pool.

Unfortunately, it’s also been about Twitter trolls: Soraya Chemaly wrote in Time, ‘Twitter’s Safety and Free Speech Tightrope‘; Fiona Martin wrote ‘Women are silenced online, just as in real life. It will take more than Twitter to change that‘ in The Guardian; Sali Hughes wrote, ‘Trolls triumph by shutting down women’s voices‘ in The Pool

Congratulations to Yiyun Li who became the first woman to win the Sunday Times short story award and to Emily Bitto who won The Stella Prize this week.

In this week’s Harper Lee news, ‘Reese Witherspoon set to record Harper Lee’s new novel‘ reports Alison Flood in The Guardian.

And the woman with the most publicity this week is Kate Bolick, author of Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own, who writes ‘How Writers Can Grow by Pretending to Be Other People‘ in The Atlantic, and is interviewed on Slate, in Cosmopolitan and on Longreads. While Stephanie Gorton Murphy writes, ‘The Uneasy Woman: Meghan Daum, Kate Bolick, and the Legacy of Ida Tarbell‘ on The Millions.

The best of the rest:

On or about books/writers/language:

• Doireann Ní Ghríofa, ‘on writing Clasp and what became of Airt Uí Laoghaire’s horse‘ in The Irish Times
• Ali Smith, ‘on Public Libraries‘ in The Independent
• Anne Milano Appel, ‘Skirting the Juniper Brambles: A Translator Narrowly Misses Getting Trapped in the Copyright Thicket‘ on Publishing Perspectives
• Anne Boyd Rioux, ‘Creating the Literary World of the Future: A Response to VIDA’s Recommendations‘ on The Millions
• ‘“Can You Think About Rising?” A year after the firings of two top women editors, four journalism leaders discuss the challenges of editing while female‘ in Politico
• Sage Stossel, ‘Writers who are also mothers‘ in The Boston Globe
• Lindsay Merbaum, ‘Not a Real Writer: How Self-Doubt Holds Me Back‘ on Electric Literature
• Caitlin White, ‘J.K. Rowling’s New Robert Galbraith Novel Is Coming, and Her Announcement Proves Again Why She’s the Queen of Twitter‘ on Bustle
• Moira Redmond, ‘The Girl on the Train – and other express encounters in literature‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah Winman, ‘What it means to be a reader‘ on Waterstones’ blog
• Elizabeth Andre, ‘Now Writing Is for Extroverts Too‘ on The Rumpus
• Ann Patchett, ‘Owning a bookstore means you always get to tell people what to read‘ in The Washington Post
• Norah Vincent, ‘On the Subject of My Suicide‘ on Literary Hub
• Rosy Edwards, ‘Why You Should Never Read Your Reviews, and it’s Not the Reason You Think‘ on the Huffington Post
• James Parker, ‘Renata Adler: Troll or Treasure?‘ in The Atlantic
• Alice Stephens, ‘Behind in the Count‘ in the Washington Independent Review of Books
• Elif Shafak, ‘Books were my crazy, wise companions in a conservative world‘ in The Pool
• Leslie Wilson, ‘Writing Last Train from Kummersdorf – A Little Bit of My Soul‘ on The History Girls blog
• A Celebration of Reading, by Outside the Box: Women Writing Women on Jane Davis’ website
• Concepta Cassar, ‘Food For Thought: What Montaigne Can Teach Us About Ultraprocessed Foods‘ on Litro
• Robin Black, ‘What’s So Great About Young Writers?‘ in The New York Times
• Sulagna Misra, ‘The Everyday Matters of Superheroes, Part I: Civil War, Marvel Nine Nine, and Dwayne McDuffie‘ and ‘The Everyday Matters of Superheroes, Part II: Jane Austen, AUs, and Pacific Rim‘ in The Toast
• Amanda Holmes, ‘Reading Wuthering Heights with Juvenile Offenders‘ on Women Writers, Women’s Books
• Melissa Harrison, ‘How to get down to grips with writing a book? Take a walk on the wild side‘ in The Guardian
• Sunili, ‘Reading as Revolution: Why I’m still banging on about People of Colour and Literature‘ on Medium
• Kelly Jensen, ‘A Conversation About Girls’ Stories with Laurie Halse Anderson and Courtney Summers‘ on Bookriot

• Mallory Ortberg, ‘How To Tell If You Are In A Shirley Jackson Story‘ in The Toast
• Arifa Akbar, ‘A foreign language can make sex scenes read better‘ in The Independent
• Rene Denfeld, ‘Books Saved Me‘ on Waterstones’ blog
• Michelle Dean, ‘Race, wit and mansplaining: female authors debate at Los Angeles books festival‘ in The Guardian
• Genevieve Cogman, ‘Women in SF&F Month‘ on Fantasy Cafe
• Taylor Sperry, ‘Readers may binge, but they do not purge‘ on Melville House
• Jessamyn West, ‘Kind of a Big Deal: What it’s like to be a famous librarian‘ on Medium
• Kamila Shamsie, ‘How I Began to Read‘ on Yahoo News India
• Harriet Mallinson, ‘Is romantic fiction a dangerous passion?‘ in The Guardian
• Courtney Maum, ‘Why Being A Debut Author Isn’t Exactly A Dream Come True‘ on Buzzfeed
• Joanna Walsh, ‘Kathy Acker’s pioneering adventures in the internet’s erogenous zone‘ in The Guardian
• Danielle Lazarin, ‘Where Are the Female Lit Mag Editors? Here.‘ on The Review Review
• Caitlin Moran, ‘What Have They Done to My Library?‘ on Nosy Crow
• Emily Beber, ‘Passed over to a broken machine: on Claire Potter’s Mental Furniture‘ in 3AM: Magazine
• ‘Glamorous and Bold: The Story of the First Black Female Cartoonist‘ on Black Then
• Bronte siblings bicentenary plans announced on the BBC
• Alissa Wilkinson, ‘The Power of Confession‘ in Pacific Standard
• Jonathan Shia, ‘Alison Bechdel: The Bechdel Test “Has Been a Very Strange Turn in My Life”‘ on Vulture
• Kaitlyn Greenidge, ‘The Riotous Power of Toni Morrison‘ in VQR
• Melissa Moorer, ‘This Writer is on Fire: Cathy Linh Che‘ in The Butter
• Alyssa Cole, ‘History in Color: A Black American Romance Roundtable‘ in The Toast
• Paul Kerschen, ‘Sour, Salty, Bitter, Spicy, Sweet: On Can Xue and Five Spice Street‘ in Music & Literature
• Alexander Chee, ‘From Potter to Tartt To Ferrante: How We Came to Love the Multi-Volume Novel‘ on Literary Hub
• Rachel Joyce, ‘In my head, books are always competing with real life‘ in The Telegraph
• Anna James, ‘Slew of second novels set for this summer‘ in The Bookseller
• Alison Flood, ‘Report finds UK books world has marginalised and pigeonholed ethnic minorities‘ in The Guardian

Personal essays/memoir:

• Hayley Webster, ‘I love cemeteries and memorial gardens…I need to see the evidence someone existed‘ on her website
• Ashley C. Ford, ‘I Moved to New York on Crutches’ on Femsplain
• Jo Hogan, ‘Heartbeats and Heartbreak‘ on her blog
• Lisa Grunwald, ‘The Art of Being Apart‘ in the New York Times
• Anna Feintuck, ‘Making sense of the city‘ on Scottish Book Trust
• Edwidge Danticat, ‘Without Her‘ in The New York Times
• Cal Flyn, ‘How do you acknowledge a shameful heritage?‘ in The Pool
• Sadie Stein, ‘Shying‘ in The Paris Review
• Abby Kloppenberg, ‘Small Talk: Intimacy Doesn’t Require Two People, Does It?‘ on Medium
• Heidi Julavits, ‘Turning Clutter Into Joy‘ in The New York Times
• Robyn Wilder, ‘How motherhood messes with your identity‘ in The Pool
• Leah Reich, ‘The Princess Who Learned To Lock Her Heart Away‘ on Medium
• Madhurima Chakraborty, ‘By Any Other Name‘ on The Hairpin
• Nicole Soojung Callaghan, ‘First Steps: Searching for My Birth Family‘ in The Toast
• Anastasia Selby, ‘The Day Before Thanksgiving I Got an Abortion‘ on Weird Sister
• Bridget Foley, ‘“I am not supposed to be alone. I am one of a pair”‘ on Salon
• Kelly Davio, ‘The Waiting Room: There Was That One Time‘ in The Butter
• Alexandra Neuman, ‘Tampon‘ on The Fem
• Pia Ehrhardt, ‘Inpatient, Outpatient‘ in The Butter
• Jess Bergman, ‘Letters to Anita: On My Grandmother’s Legacy‘ in The Toast
• Dini Karasik, ‘A Country Called My Mother‘ in The Butter
• Claire Greaves, ‘How Am I? Honestly!‘ on the Huffington Post
• Laura Turner, ‘The Claustrophobia of Fear‘ on Medium

Feminism:

• Caitlin Moran, ‘on Getting Her Legs Out‘ on The Pool
• Maanvi Singh, ‘See Priya Cook: Gender Bias Pervades Textbooks Worldwide‘ on NPR
• Margaret Corvid, ‘Moving on from the “happy hooker”: why I love my job as a sex worker‘ in the New Statesman
• Adeline Ginn, ‘Why Do Fewer Women Vote?‘ on the Huffington Post
• Anonymous, ‘I had an abortion because of extreme morning sickness. Spare others that pain‘ in The Guardian
• Camille Beredjick, ‘When A Queer Woman Counts Calories‘ on Buzzfeed
• Jetta Rae, ‘The Incidental Activism Of My Going Outside‘ on Ravishly
• Nilanjana S Roy & Radhaben Garva, ‘Painting the Women’s Movement‘ in Granta
• Jane C. Hu, ‘Gal Science: What Is Female Brain?‘ in The Toast
• Jamie Lauren Keiles, ‘Acceptable Catcalls‘ on The Awl
• Suzanne Moore, ‘Wanting to be liked won’t earn you respect‘ in The Pool
• Imogen Fox, ‘Sideburns for women: get in the loop‘ in The Guardian
• June Carbone and Naomi Cahn, ‘The Marriage Calculus‘ in Aeon
• Polly Neate, ‘Domestic Abuse Can Deny Women Their Vote – Here’s How‘ on the Huffington Post
• Alexandra Heminsley, ‘Paula Radcliffe’s final marathon‘ in The Pool

Society and Politics:

• Bim Adewunmi, ‘An Article About Black Women Shouldn’t Have To Come With A Warning Label‘ on Buzzfeed
• Rachel Munroe, ‘Have You Ever Thought About Killing Someone?‘ on Medium
• Kim Brooks, ‘The Struggle To Reclaim Parenting‘ on Buzzfeed
• Sarah Stillman, ‘Where Are the Children?‘ in The New Yorker
• Amanda Ripley, ‘The Upwardly Mobile Barista‘ in The Atlantic
• Tyler Wetherall, ‘Female distillers prove women know their alcohol – and always have‘ in The Guardian
• Amy Merrick, ‘Designing for Disability‘ in The New Yorker
• Paula Cocozza, ‘Unlike Matilda Kahl, I enjoy making decisions on what to wear every morning‘ in The Guardian
• Beejoli Shah, ‘My Bindi Is Not Your Bindi‘ on The Frisky
• Zakia Uddin, ‘What It’s Like Speaking A Different Language From Your Parents‘ on Buzzfeed
• Elizabeth Minkel, ‘From Nate Silver to #Milifans: welcome to the age of political fandom‘ in the New Statesman
• Sophie Heawood, ‘How hard can it be to cancel a mobile phone or satellite TV contract?‘ in The Guardian
• Lo Kwai Mei-en, ‘Reports from the Field– Speak Test: The Silencing of the Racialized Body‘ on VIDA
• Chimene Suleyman, ‘From Boyle to May, Immigration, as it turns out, has done rather well on providing jobs‘ on Media Diversified
• Eleanor Margolis, ‘No more “gal pals”: why do we assume lesbians are confused, attention-seeking, or man-boycotting straight women?‘ in the New Statesman
• Kristina Kay Robinson, ‘What’s Old Is New Again‘ in Guernica
• Morgan Meaker, ‘How has Britain’s most deprived community fared under the coalition?‘ in the New Statesman
• Marcia Rigg, ‘I Am Tired of Reports and Recommendations – What We Need Is a Culture Change in Attitudes Towards Mental Health‘ on the Huffington Post
• Natalie Bennett, ‘It’s Time for the UK to Stand Up for Migrants‘ on the Huffington Post
• Natasha Devon, ‘I’m a size 14 to 16, and Jamelia doesn’t think I should be able to shop for clothes that fit me – is she ok?‘ in The Independent
• Caroline Criado Perez, ‘Why don’t you care who made your clothes?‘ in the New Statesman
• Rachel Shabi, ‘Britain must help stop the human tragedy in the Mediterranean‘ in the Evening Standard
• Jameela Jamil, ‘Thank God I’m Not Jamelia‘ on the Huffington Post
• Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, ‘Hooray for the Milifans. They can change the world for the better‘ in The Guardian
• Lauren Smiley, ‘What Strippers Can Teach Uber‘ on Medium
• Angela Flournoy, ‘When Black Neighbourhoods Disappear‘ on Literary Hub
• Joanna Biggs, ‘Keep smiling if you want a job in 2015‘ in The Guardian
• Zoe Williams, ‘Demanding more: on where democracy lives in the 21st century‘ on the Penguin blog
• Deborah Orr, ‘Why the hysteria over Nicola Sturgeon?‘ in The Guardian
• Bryony Gordon, ‘Katie Hopkins is a monster of our own making‘ in The Telegraph
• Hannah Pool, ‘Jourdan Dunn draws attention to fashion’s problem with black hair‘ in The Pool
• Laurie Penny, ‘There may be nothing to vote for — but there’s plenty to vote against‘ in the New Statesman
• Zoe Williams, ‘Katie Hopkins calling migrants vermin recalls the darkest events of history‘ in The Guardian
• Jane Rawson, ‘Don’t Mention the War‘ in Overland
• Sarah Ditum, ‘What Katie Hopkins wrote was monstrous. But save your anger for the politicians who decided to let migrants drown‘ in the New Statesman

Music, Film and Television:

• Rawiya Kameir, ‘Your Fave Is Problematic, And That’s Okay For You, But They Still Need To Apologize‘ in Fader
• Tracy Ann Oberman, ‘Here’s to you, Anne Bancroft‘ in The Pool
• Jeanette Leach, ‘Say What You Can‘ on [post-rock]
• Lauren Barton, ‘Patti Smith: punk’s poet laureate heads back on the road for her sins‘ in The Guardian

The interviews:

• Toni Morrison in The Guardian and on NPR
• Nicky Beer on The Rumpus
• Kirsty Logan on the Penguin Blog
• Charlotte Gordon in the Wall Street Journal
• Sabaa Tahir on Publishers Weekly podcast
• Yumi Sakugawa on Okey Panky
• Heidi Julavits on Electric Literature and Lit Up
• Meredith Talusan in The Toast
• Emily Schultz in Vol. 1 Brooklyn
• Lora Mathis on The Fem
• Jillian Tamaki in The Guardian
• Laila Lalami on the Los Angeles Review of Books Podcast
• Monica Byrne on The Rumpus
• Jan Morris in The Guardian
• Paula Hawkins on The Daily Beast and in The Guardian
• Mary Costello on Electric Literature
• Attica Locke on Kirkus and NPR
• Renée Knight on The Gymkhana Club
• Liz Fenwick on One Book Lane
• Helen Skelton in The Guardian
• P.P. Wong in The Strait Times
• Elizabeth Alexander on Salon
• Iona Grey on Rebecca Mascull’s blog
• Claire Potter on Very Small Kitchen
• Liza Klaussman in The Pool
• Andrea Gillies on Novelicious

If you want some fiction to read:

• ‘The Penis Problem‘ by Suzanne Schafer on her website
• ‘Last Chapter on Hotel Stationery‘ by Ursula Villarreal-Moura in The Butter
• ‘The Rental Heart‘ by Kirsty Logan on Storychord
• ‘Last Night & Yesterday‘ by Joslyn Sklar in The Offing
• An extract from Adult Onset by Anne-Marie MacDonald on Literary Hub
• ‘Maps‘ by Kate Sparks on Whiskeypaper
• ‘The Beacon‘ by Claire Fuller on her blog
• ‘Bird Song‘ by Nadia Hassan on Rewriting Mary Sue
• ‘Far Beyond the Brilliant Sky: 9‘ by Rebecca Burns on The Word Runs Through It
• An extract from Amy Wild: Amazon Summer by Helen Skelton
• An extract from The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld on Orion Books
• The opening of Mental Furniture by Claire Potter on Very Small Kitchen
• ‘Letters to a Mostly Imagined Correspondent‘ by Katherine Riegal in The Offing
• The first five chapters of Villa America by Liza Klaussman
• ‘You Are a Sacred Space‘, by Yumi Sakugawa in Okey Panky
• ‘Inkubation‘ by Jacqui Pack on Litro

If you want some poetry to read:

• ‘Elegie of a Diaspora‘ by Ally Ang on Vagabond City
• Five poems by Elizabeth T. Gray Jr. in Drunken Boat
• ‘All My Creys‘ by Cynthia Arrieu-King in Drunken Boat
• ‘Pathology‘ by Kenzie Allen on Litragger
• Three Poems by MRB Chelko on Blunderbuss
• ‘Dorothy Parker Swipes Left‘ by Heather Alexander in The Toast

If you want some non-fiction to read:

• An extract from Angry in Piraeus by Maureen Freely in The New York Review of Books
• ‘Small Stories #11‘ by Madeline Witt on The Rumpus
• An extract from The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert
• An extract from Hammer Head by Nina MacLaughlin on Literary Hub

The lists:

• The Spinster Hall of Fame: Cut-out Dolls of Five Pioneering Women Writers on Literary Hub
• 11 Novels That Expectant Parents Should Read Instead of Parenting Books on Electric Literature
• LGBTQ* Poets You Should Know: Highlighting Women of Color on The Fem
• 11 Books To Give Your Future Daughter Throughout Her Life on Bustle
• 31 Contemporary Poets You Need To Read on Buzzfeed

(Harper Lee) In the Media: 8th February 2015

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

You would have had to be living somewhere with no media access since Tuesday not to know that after 55 years, Harper Lee has a ‘new’ novel coming out. Go Set a Watchman is the prequel/sequel/first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird, discovered in a bank deposit box and set to be published on both sides of the Atlantic in July. There’s probably already been as many words written about the book as there are in it. Harper Lee’s/Go Set a Watchman‘s week in the media went something like this:

On Tuesday, The Bookseller broke the news, then ‘About that new Harper Lee novel…‘ was published on the Lawyers, Guns & Money blog. Vulture published, ‘Read Harper Lee’s 5 Amazing Nonfiction Pieces‘ with links to them all before Jezebel ran ‘Be Suspicious of the New Harper Lee Novel‘ and The Guardian ended the day with ‘Harper Lee to publish new novel, 55 years after To Kill a Mockingbird‘.

Wednesday began with Vulture publishing an interview with Lee’s editor which Mallory Ortberg responded to in The Toast with ‘Questions I Have About the Harper Lee Editor Interview‘. Judith Claire Mitchell wrote about her dream date with Atticus Finch on the 4th Estate website. The Atlantic published, ‘Harper Lee: The Sadness of a Sequel‘ while The Guardian said, ‘Harper Lee is excited about new book, says agent after sceptics raise doubts‘. Electric Literature came in with ‘Should We Hold the Horses on the Harper Lee Celebration?‘; Buzzfeed gave us ‘12 Beautifully Profound Quotes From “To Kill A Mockingbird”‘, while The Huffington Post ended the day with ‘12 Women On What Harper Lee’s Work Has Meant To Them‘.

By Thursday morning, Hadley Freeman in The Guardian was telling us ‘Let’s not assume Harper Lee is being exploited. Atticus Finch wouldn’t‘ and then a new statement arrived and was reported in The Bookseller, ‘Harper Lee ‘happy as hell’ with book reaction‘. The Guardian reacted to the statement with, ‘Harper Lee’s ‘lost’ novel was intended to complete a trilogy, says agent‘. Then Lincoln Michel came in with ‘Harper Lee And Exploitation In The Name Of Literature‘ on Buzzfeed, while The Telegraph asked ‘Could there be a third Harper Lee novel?‘; the Times Literary Supplement ran a piece titled ‘Harper Lee: happy as hell‘ and cartoonist Emily Flake drew ‘What Harper Lee’s Really Been Up To All These Years‘ for The New Yorker

The Huffington Post began Friday by asking ‘Is The New Harper Lee Novel A Mistake?: Author Idolatry And “Go Set a Watchman”‘, followed by Sarah Churchwell in The Guardian telling us ‘Why To Kill a Mockingbird Is Overrated‘. The Guardian also ran, ‘Harper Lee book news leaves home town surprised, bemused and sceptical‘ before Slate stated, ‘Don’t Publish Harper Lee’s New Novel, HarperCollins‘. Flavorwire went for ‘Harper Lee’s New Book: The Case for Optimism‘ and Salon started speculating on the content of the novel, ‘“Scout is a lesbian”: Some modest theories on what Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” follow-up will hold‘. The Guardian finished the day with, ‘Harper Lee and the vexed question of who owns an author’s work‘; Yahoo interviewed one of Lee’s friends, ‘Harper Lee was fine the day before sequel announced‘ and the Wall Street Journal wrapped it up with ‘Harper Lee Bombshell: How News of Book Unfolded‘.

The only news since then came on Saturday when the cover of Go Set a Watchman was revealed. Here’s Bookriot on it.

The other person to have a bit of a week in the limelight is Kelly Link whose latest short story collection Get in Trouble was published in America this week (it’s out in the UK next month). She’s interviewed on Electric Literature, Publishers Weekly and NPR Books. You can read ‘The Summer People‘ from Get in Trouble via Random House or ‘Stone Animals‘ from Magic for Beginners on Electric Literature

Elsewhere, there’s been a reoccurring theme of friendship (thanks to Longreads for pointing this out): Anne Helen Peterson wrote ‘The Genius of Taylor Swift’s Girlfriend Collection‘ on Buzzfeed; Claire Comstock-Gay wrote the story ‘I Knew I Loved You‘ published in Midnight Breakfast; Jennifer Weiner wrote ‘Mean Girls in the Retirement Home‘ in The New York Times; Meghan O’Connell wrote ‘Trying to Make Mom Friends Is the Worst‘ in The Cut; Nicole Soojung Callaghan wrote ‘Friendship and Race and Knowing Your Place‘ in The Toast; Freddie Moore wrote, ‘Is Every Unhappy Friendship Unhappy In Its Own Way? On Emily Gould’s Friendship and Lindsay Hunter’s Ugly Girls‘ on Electric Literature

The best of the rest articles/essays:

• Eva Wiseman, ‘Why are creative women dismissed as ‘quirky’?‘ in The Observer
• Caitlin Moran, ‘Why page 3 should go‘ in The Times
• Emma Dabiri, ‘Afrofuturism: An invitation to dance, or a provocation to insurgency?‘ on Media Diversified
• Diane Watt, ‘#mylgbtbooks 1-7 February‘ on Storify
• Emma Healey, ‘By 16, I had already made several plans to end my life‘ in The Sunday Times
• Roxane Gay on The Sacrifice by Joyce Carol Oates and writing difference in The New York Times
• Caitlin Moran, ‘Caitlin Takes New York‘ in The Times
• Anne Enright, ‘How the World Reads Irish Writers‘ in The Irish Times
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, ‘Lights Out in Nigeria‘ in The New York Times
• Stephanie Merritt, ‘Colleen McCullough’s obituary shows looks aren’t everything. Unless you’re a woman‘ in The Guardian
• Jillian Dunham, ‘The Real Reason Women Freeze Their Eggs‘ in The Cut
• Emma Claire Sweeney and Emily Midorikawa, ‘Nancy Hamilton and Helen Kellor‘ on Something Rhymed
• Maria Konnikova, ‘Is Bilingualism Really an Advantage?‘ in The New Yorker
• Laura Macdougall, ‘The Struggle for Equality Goes On‘ in Standard Issue
• Helen Brocklebank, ‘The Jilly Cooper Cure‘ on Mrs Trefusis Takes a Taxi
• Ruth F. Hunt, ‘Disability in Fiction: Would YOU Dare to be Different?‘ on The Single Feather
• Barbara Taylor, ‘My Asylum‘ in Guernica
• Alison Flood, ‘Jane Austen family letters offer ‘deeply personal’ insight into author’s world‘ in The Guardian
• Lauren Van Den Berg, ‘Flight‘ in The Butter
• Ron Rosenbaum, ‘The Other Tolstoy and the Book of Night‘ on Slate
• Alison Herman, ‘Jill Soloway Will Never Be a Perfect Voice for Trans People — So Why Are We Expecting Her to Be?‘ on Flavorwire
• Meghan O’Rourke, ‘Seeing Is Not Believing‘ (On Rachel Cusk) on Slate
• Laura Sook Duncombe, ‘Literary Ladies Cage Fight: American Gladiators‘ in The Butter
• Suzanne Ushie, ‘Lipstick, Eyeliner & Everything in Between‘ on Brittle Paper
• Amanda Miska, ‘Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend’s Girlfriend on Facebook‘ in Hippocampus
• Lindy West, ‘What happened when I confronted my cruellest troll‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah Seltzer, ‘We Need Diverse Books: Can Children’s Authors End Publishing Industry Prejudice — and Change the Way America Reads?‘ on Flavorwire
• Kathryn Harrison, ‘The Rise of Joan of Arc‘ on Longreads
• Ann Friedman, ‘The Problem With Those ‘Feminist’ Super Bowl Ads‘ in The Cut
• Henriette Lazaridis, ‘Honey, Would You Read My Book‘ on The Millions
• Kathryn Schulz, ‘On Wintery Mix‘ in The New Yorker
• Laura Tanenbaum, ‘What Does ‘Slut’ Mean, Anyway?‘ on The Huffington Post
• Elizabeth Alexander, ‘Lottery Tickets‘ in The New Yorker
• Lois Leveen, ‘Appropriating (F)Acts In Feminist Fiction: Excavating the Life of Mary Bowser‘ on For Books’ Sake
• Gaby Hinsliff, ‘Can Theresa May make it to the top‘ in The Guardian
• S.M. Hulse, ‘Is The Western Genre Still Relevant Today?‘ on Huffington Post
• Sarah Smarsh, ‘Beyond the Churn‘ in Aeon
• VIDA Roundtable on Misogynist Content and Editorial Responsibility
• Libby Purves, ‘Alice in Wonderland: 150 years on, we still adore her marvellous adventure‘ in The Telegraph
• Roxane Gay, ‘Actually Usher Baby, Shawty Does Mind‘ in The Butter

• Victoria Beale, ‘“You understand it to the point that it almost tears you to pieces”: Growing Up with Mary Gaitskill‘ in the Los Angeles Review of Books
• Mistress Trinity, ‘Fifty Shades of Meh: A Real Dominatrix Takes On the Bestseller‘ on Huffington Post
• Laura Bates, ‘On Louisa M. Alcott‘ on Great Lives
• Sara Baume, ‘Spill Simmer Falter Wither‘ on her blog
• Sara Baume, A ‘cautionary tale about what it costs to be a writer‘ in The Irish Times
• Jenny Erpenbeck (tr. Susan Bernofsky), ‘Homesick for Sadness: A Childhood in Incompletion‘ in The Hudson Review
• Katy Waldman, ‘How the Paris Review Snagged the First-Ever In-Person Interview With Elena Ferrante‘ on Slate
• Alison Stine, ‘Could Whisky Save Our Water?‘ in The Butter
• Soraya Chemaly, ‘Silicon Valley sexism: why it matters that the internet is made by men, for men‘ in the New Statesman
• Claire Fallon, ‘Why Everyone’s Talking About ‘The Girl On The Train’‘ on Huffington Post
• Juliet Greenwood, ‘The Story That Changed My Life‘ in The People’s Friend
• Laura Dattaro, ‘Bot Looks Like a Lady‘ on Slate
• Sarah Seltzer and Jillian Mapes, ‘Beyoncé Says “Goodbye to All That”‘ on Flavorwire
• Eva Holland, ‘“It’s Yours”: A Short History of the Horde‘ on Longreads
• Shari Goldhagen, ‘Against being “sponsored”: I never wrote less than when my boyfriend supported me‘ on Salon
• Linda Grant, ‘How I Won the Housing Market (Without Really Trying)‘ in The Guardian
• Kaleigh Rogers, ‘Wikipedia’s Gender Problem Has Finally Been Quantified‘ on Motherboard
• Sara Sheridan, ‘Literary Snobbery‘ on Women Writers Women’s Books
• Frances Ryan, ‘Mind the gap: how charities are mopping up after the government’s failure to care‘ in the New Statesman
• Adèle Geras, ‘Quick Reads‘ on Foyles’ blog
• Sarah Ditum, ‘If you think decriminalisation will make prostitution safe, look at Germany’s mega brothels‘ in the New Statesman
• Caroline Moorhead, ‘Place of Terror‘ in the Literary Review
• Shawn Wen, ‘A Closer Joan‘ in The White Review
• Tracey Thorn, ‘The more attention we pay to childish behaviour, the more we get‘ in the New Statesman
• Amber Sparks, ‘The Internet Is a Hard Place to Be Human: Toward a Better Internet Discourse‘ on Real Pants
• Bim Adewunmi, ‘Lusting Out Loud: Women, Social Media, And Desire‘ on Buzzfeed
• Maria Konnikova, ‘You Have No Idea What Happened‘ in The New Yorker
• Deborah Smith, ‘How Korean Is It?‘ on translating Han Kang’s The Vegetarian on English Pen
• Arabelle Sicardi, ‘My Body, The Unwelcome Relative‘ on Buzzfeed
• Remembering Kathy Acker on The Allen Ginsberg Project
• Rob Williams, ‘Laura Ingalls Wilder’s 148th Birthday: Google celebrates ‘Little House on the Prairie’ author‘ in The Independent
• Katharine Norbury, ‘Walking with my daughter, everything starts to flow‘ in The Guardian
• Amy Jenkins, ‘Fifty Shades of Grey: This enters a new terrain of toxicity – and no feminist can think otherwise‘ in The Independent
• Tishani Doshi, ‘In Defence of Literary Dandies and Dandizettes‘ in Open
• Alison Taylor, ‘What happened when I joined Happn‘ in The Independent
• Antonia Honeywell, ‘‘I lurch from one to the other’ on Motherhood and Writing‘ on One Book Lane
• Katharine Norbury, ‘Pleasures of…January‘ on Caught by the River
• M Lynx Qualey ‘‘Immortal’ Algerian Novelist Assia Djebar Dies, 78‘ on Arabic Literature (includes links to work available online)
• Ijeoma Olou, ‘Why Don’t We Talk About Africa?‘ in The Archipelago
• Elizabeth Weil, ‘What Really Happened to Baby Johan?‘ in Matter
• Rebecca Traister, ‘Labor Pains‘ in the New Republic
• Diana Saverin, ‘The Thoreau of the Suburbs‘ in The Atlantic
• Christina Patterson, ‘I’ve found a little bit of heaven for those who’ve been in hell‘ in The Guardian
• Alison Flood, ‘Laura Ingalls Wilder memoir reveals truth behind Little House on the Prairie‘ in The Guardian
• Laura Bogart, ‘The Price I Pay to Write‘ on Salon
• Jennifer Niven, ‘My Inspiration: Virginia Woolf‘ in The Guardian

The interviews:

• Richelle Mead on Publishers Weekly
• M.J. Carter on Publishers Weekly
• Anya Schiffrin in Guernica
• Lucy Ribchester on The GB Bookshop
• Helen Lederer in The Telegraph
• Katherine Heiny on Longreads
• Mary Pilon in Publishers Weekly
• Angela Neville in The Guardian
• Sarah McGrath (US editor of The Girl on the Train) on Publishers Weekly
• Excerpts from interviews with Hilary Mantel, Lydia Davis and Elena Ferrante in The Paris Review
• Anne Tyler in The Daily Mail and the New York Times
• Roxane Gay in Now
• Rilla Askew on Longreads
• Kim Gordon in GQ
• Jacqueline Wilson in The Guardian
• Margaret Atwood on Slate
• Jennifer Clement on We Love This Book
• Ayelet Tsabari on Room
• Amanda Filipacchi on the Huffington Post
• Miranda July in The Observer and on The Book Show on RTE

If you want some fiction/poetry to read:

• The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award longlist was announced last weekend. You can read the longlisted stories, including pieces from Ann Beattie, Louise Doughty, Emily Franklin, Rebecca F. John, Yiyun Li, Elizabeth McCracken, Paula Morris, Mary O’Donoghue, Julianne Pachico, Mona Simpson, Erin Soros, E.J. Swift and Madeline Thien here.
• The New Writing 2015 eBook sampler from Scottish Book Trust includes writing from Orla Broderick, Alison Gray, Ann Elizabeth Mackinnon, Juliette Forrest, Lindsay McKrell, Em Strang and Bridget Kursheed.
• ‘Sweetness‘ by Toni Morrison in The New Yorker
• ‘Co-operative‘ by Sarah Barber in Guernica
• The first three chapters of Touch by Claire North
• Three Prose Poems by Sharmistha Mohanty in Granta
• ‘What Grief Feels Like…‘ by Onomarie Uriri on Brittle Paper
• ‘Calcium Commune‘ by Anna Katharina Hahn (tr. Marshall Yarbrough) on n+1
• An extract from The Hourglass Factory By Lucy Ribchester in The Scotsman
• Poems from Her Father’s Daughter by Nessa O’Mahony
• ‘World Is Your‘ by Rosa Campbell on Litro

Or some non-fiction:

• An extract from Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon in The Guardian

The new edition of The Letters Page was published this week including letters (fiction and non-fiction) from Rosa Campbell, Naomi Alderman, Kim Sherwood, Haisu Huang, Emma Chapman, Evelyn Conlon, Melissa Harrison and Karen McLeod.

The lists:

• 5 Great Books to Read in February on Buzzfeed
• 14 Books to Give As Valentine’s Day Gifts This Year on Bustle
• Kim Gordon’s memoir Girl in a Band: 10 things we learned in The Guardian
• 15 Of February 2015’s Best YA Books To Get You Through The Snowy, Cold Weather on Bustle
• 10 Must-Read Books For February on Flavorwire
• 5 Splendid New Short Story Collections on Huffington Post
• The top 10 novels featuring works of art in The Guardian
• 10 Funny Books by Women on Scottish Book Trust
• 7 Fictional Women Whose Life Stories Inspire Us on the Huffington Post
• 9 Books To Read This February in Red magazine
• Your Must-Read Books of 2015 in Paper
• 10 Reasons to Love Vera Brittain on For Books’ Sake
• Top 5 Literary Heroines Every Young Girl Should Meet in The Big Issue

In the Media: 11th January 2015

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

(Photograph by Pedro Koechlin)

As it’s the first In the Media of the year, I’m going to begin by looking back at 2014 for a moment with pieces that appeared between Christmas and New Year. Katherine Angel’s brilliant piece, ‘Gender, blah, blah, blah‘ in The Los Angeles Review of Books; Jessie Burton, ‘Eggshells, Luck, Hope and Thanks‘ on her blog reflects on what a year it’s been for The Miniaturist; Emma Claire Sweeney and Emily Midorikawa ‘A Year of Hidden Friendships‘ on Something Rhymed; Rebecca Solnit, ‘Listen up, women are telling their story now‘ in The Guardian; Jia Tolentino, ‘The Promise in Elena Ferrante‘ on Jezebel; Charles Finch, also on Elena Ferrante for ‘A Year in Reading‘ for The Millions;  Ali Colluccio covers ‘The Best of Women in Comics 2014‘ on Panels, and  Elena Adler on ‘Why #ReadWomen 2014 has changed things, and why #ReadWomen matters‘ on her blog.

Looking forwards, there’s been a spotlight on diversity again this week with Celeste Ng writing about a male professor telling her there were few Asian-American women writers. There’s a fantastic list of writers at the bottom of the article. Nalo Hopkinson wrote ‘To anthology editors‘ on how to go about creating anthologies with a diversity of voices on her website; Alexis Teyie wrote this great piece, ‘Invoking the women in early African writing‘ on This Is Africa, while Lyn Gardner declared ‘Diversity is key to Creativity – and British Theatre’s Challenge for 2015‘ in The Guardian and Stella Duffy wrote, ‘Making Arts for All for ALL‘ on her blog.

While The White Review has kicked off the year with an all translation issue. You can read online pieces by Herta Müller (tr. Philip Boehm); poetry by Alejandra Pizarnik (tr. Yvette Seigert) and Angélica Freitas (tr. Hilary Kaplan); a short story by Tove Jansson (tr.  Thomas Teal); extracts from novels by Minae Mizumuru (tr. Juliet Winters Carpenter) and Han Kang (tr. Deborah Smith), and an interview with Magdalena Tulli (tr. Bill Johnston).

(Photograph by Kuba Kolinski)

The best of the rest articles/essays:

• Guilaine Kinouani, “Hatred breeds hatred”: Charlie Hebdo, marginalisation and terrorism on Media Diversified
• Harriet Evans, ‘I was living in a house where babies had been murdered‘ in The Guardian
• Margaret Talbot, ‘The Talking Cure‘ in The New Yorker
• Marta Maretich, ‘Landfill‘ in Boom
• Samantha Ellis, ‘How To Be a New Year Heroine‘ on Vintage Books and ‘Baddies in Books: Bertha Rochester, the madwoman in the attic‘ in The Guardian
• Antonia Honeywell on the writing of The Ship on the Curtis Brown blog
• Jenny Colgan, ‘What Makes Me Happy‘ in The Guardian
• Rivka Galchen and Leslie Jamison, ‘Why Do We Hate Cliché?‘ in The New York Times
• Maev Kennedy, ‘Families in Literature: The Clocks in The Borrowers by Mary Norton‘ in The Guardian
• Lindesay Irvine, ‘Families in Literature: the Tulls in Dinner at the Homesick restaurant by Anne Tyler‘ in The Guardian
• Sarah Crown, ‘Families in Literature: the Bagthorpes in The Bagthorpe Saga by Helen Cresswell‘ in The Guardian
• Meg Wolitzer, ‘My Debt to Sylvia Plath‘ in Time
• Naomi Skwarna, ‘How to Be a Woman: Lorrie Moore as the mother you never had‘ in Hazlitt
• Maureen Younger on why Simone de Beauvoir is still important in Standard Issue
• Shelley Harris, ‘Timey-Wimey: A Letter to My (Former) Self‘ on her blog
• Rebecca Makkai, ‘Second Time’s the Charm‘ on The Ploughshares’ Blog
• Elisa Gabbert, ‘Notes on a Trend‘ on Real Pants
• Hannah Marriott, ‘Joan Didion and Céline: why old age is having a fashion moment‘ in The Guardian
• Kevin Fitzpatrick, ‘Six Women You Didn’t Know Were Members of the Algonquin Round Table‘ on Huffington Post
• Alice Popplewell, “What’s This Issue All About” Five Dials and @ReadWomen2014 on Cloudbanks and Shimbleshanks
• Lizzy Dening, ‘A Year of Reading Women‘ in Grazia
• Jess Connett, ‘Transphobic Parents: The Problem Is You, Not Your Kids‘ on Rife
• Victoria Law, ‘Against Carceral Feminism‘ in Jacobin
• Qaisra Shahraz, ‘Researching a Novel in Morocco‘ on Women Writers, Women’s Books
• Amy Klein, ‘Fertility Fog‘ on Aeon
• Chloe Angyal, ‘The Paradoxical Rise of the Viral Marriage Proposal‘ on Buzzfeed
• Glynnis MacNicol, ‘Growing Up Meant Learning to Wear Red Lipstick‘ on The Cut
• Mallory Ortberg, ‘I’d Love to Help My Wife, But I’m Trapped Under Something Heavy‘ in The Toast
• Van Badham, ‘It’s time to open your eyes, Rusty. Female actors want better roles because none exist‘ in The Guardian
• Sinéad Gleeson, ‘Nollaig na mBan and the (gendered) horror of housework‘ on her blog
• Claire Fuller, ‘Dear Jane: A letter to my husband’s dead first wife‘ on her blog
• Claire Furniss on sick lit in The Guardian and ‘No matter how much research you do, it’s the story that matters‘ on the Waterstone Blog
• Laura Lippman, ‘A Detective and a Mother‘ on Publishers Weekly
• Caitlin Horrocks, ‘Live Demonstrations of Love‘ on AGNI Online
• Fatima Bhutto, ‘My Other Thing‘ in Granta
• Leesa Cross-Smith, ‘Bro Country and Tiny Littles‘ on Real Pants
• Elaine Blair, ‘All Told: Rachel Cusk’s autobiographical fiction‘ in The New Yorker
• Sarah Hughes, ‘The Gone Girl effect sparks year of flawed women behaving badly‘ in The Guardian
• Lucy Ribchester, ‘I vote we honour those brave Scottish suffragettes‘ in The Sunday Times (£)
• Cathy Rentzenbrink, ‘Elizabeth Jane Howard Remembered‘ on BBC Radio 4 Extra
• Lynn Shepherd, ‘Frankenstein: Mystery – Monster – Myth‘ on Wordsworth Trust Blog
• Emma Claire Sweeney, ‘Mary Lamb and Dorothy Wordsworth‘ on Something Rhymed
• Claire King on not being the most anticipated on her blog
• Vanessa Lafaye, ‘The Beast in Residence: Writing After Cancer‘ on her blog
• Yiyun Li, ‘Listening Is Believing‘ in The New Yorker
• Carlina Duan, ‘How an English Major Found Her (Chinese American) Voice on Campus‘ in Mochi Mag
• Jenny Diski, ‘Doris and Me‘ in the LRB
• Tess Vigeland, ‘Authors are now judged by their Twitter followers, and it’s a world gone mad‘ in The Guardian
• Paris Lees, ‘Honour Leelah Alcorn’s memory by banning conversion therapy‘ in Attitude
• Hilary Mantel on Grief in The Guardian

The interviews:

• Emily Woolf in The Guardian
• Seni Glaister on the 4th Estate site
• Megan Mayhew Bergman on Electric Literature and on Bookslut
• In Conversation: Barbara Ras and Matthew Dickman in Granta
• Emma Healey in The Guardian
• Priya Parmar on Huffington Post
• Lindsey Kelk on BBM Live
• Meghan McNamara of Stillhouse Press on Wendi Kaufman on Bloom
• Miranda July in The New York Times
• Edwidge Danticat in Guernica
• Harriet Lane on One Book Lane
• Wendy C. Ortiz on Electric Literature
• Megham Daum in The Los Angeles Review of Books
• Leesa Cross-Smith on Cari Luna’s blog
• Jodi Picoult and Helen Macdonald on Scottish Book Trust’s Book Talk
• Lucy Ribchester on Scottish Book Trust
• Kate Saunders in The Telegraph
• Nell Zink in The Guardian
• Vanessa Lafaye in The Guardian
• Alexandra Heminsley in The Telegraph
• Ann Patchett on The Hairpin
• Katharine Norbury in The Guardian
• Gayatri Spivak on Dawn
• Mary Costello on Annethology
• Carys Bray on Sara Crowley’s blog

If you want some fiction/poetry to read:

• An extract from Wake by Anna Hope
• ‘Sufferance’ and other poems by Rebecca Foust
• Invasive Species by Marie Gethins in Litro
• Orion’s Belt and Who it Fell On by Emily Ilett in Litro
• An extract from The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
• An extract from Five Children on the Western Front by Kate Saunders
• Birdie by Ann DeWitt
• State of the Art Flesh Cleanser by Rahawa Haile
• Betty Came by to Say Goodbye by Claire Fuller
• An extract from Elizabeth Is Missing by Emma Healey
• An extract from Year of the Rat by Clare Furniss
• An excerpt from La signora Rosetta by Tiziana Sferruggia (tr. Mati Colarossi) on Parallel Texts
• A Photograph of Her Showering by Elizabeth Langemak on AGNI Online
• The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by Hilary Mantel is Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime
• An extract from La Femme De Gilles by Madeleine Bourdouxhe (tr. Faith Evans)
• ‘Encounters with a Hare’ and other poems by Aoife Reilly

And the lists:

• The Best Books this Year Are All Written by Women: A Guide for 2015 on Gawker
• The Best 10 Books Shorter Than 150 Pages on Publishers Weekly
• 13 Books to Keep Up Your Post Holiday Spirits, Especially Now That the Cold Weather Has Really Set In on Bustle
• 27 of the Most Exciting Books of 2015 on Buzzfeed
• Keren David’s top 10 books about adopted and fostered children in The Guardian
• Lucy Ribchester’s Top 10 Books About the Suffragettes in The Guardian
• Lynn Kanter’s 30 Women Novelists You Should Know #20 Mary Doris Russell on her blog
• 16 of the Most Anticipated YA Debuts Due Out in the First Half of 2015 on Huffington Post
• The Best New Books of 2015 in Stylist
• 10 Underrated Novels by Women You Should Resolve to Read in 2015 on Bustle
• 10 Must Read Female Writers from the Middle East on The Culture Trip
• The Books to Look Forward to in 2015 in Marie Claire
• The TIA 100 – Best Books, 2010 – 2014 on This Is Africa
• 6 Books We’re Most Looking Forward to Reading in 2015 in Good Housekeeping
• 15 Feminist Books to Read in 2015 to Help You Stay Passionate All Year in Bustle

In the Media: 21st December 2014

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

Lots of end of year round-ups this week, as you might expect. Two great things happened on Twitter: on Saturday morning, the @#ReadWomen2014 account became @#Read_Women and will continue. I say reading books by women is for life, not just for 2014 (I might make that the blog’s subtitle). Proustitute is convening a goodreads group for 2015 and Travelling in the Homeland has begun a list of Indian women writers available in English translation to help you continue and broaden your reading of books by female writers. Secondly, in response to a male dominated piece on hits and misses in the year in publishing in The Guardian, Ursula Doyle, Associate Publisher at Virago started #hitsandmisses which women in publishing then used to respond with their own take on the year. It’s well worth a read to pick up any gems you might have overlooked.

Elsewhere, Electric Literature told us Why 2014 Was the Year of The Essay; The Guardian had The Best Thrillers of 2014; Buzzfeed had The 28 Best Books By Women in 2014; Rabble in Canada had The Best Book Reviews of 2014; The Huffington Post had The Highlights: Best of Fiction 2015 and The Ones to Watch: Best Debut Fiction Coming in 2015 both from Hannah Beckerman; Flavorwire had The Best Non-Fiction Books 2014; Longreads had the Best of 2014: Essay Writing, and The Coast had Top 15 Books of 2014. And more mini-round-ups were published on The Millions. Ones by Rachel Fershleiser, Yiyun Li, Rebecca Makkai, Gina Frangello, Michelle Filgate, Emma Straub, Jean Hanff Korelitz and Tess Malone are particularly interesting in terms of female writers.

The best of the rest articles/essays:

• Ayana Mathis, ‘What Will Happen to All of that Beauty?‘ in Guernica
• Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, ‘Why I Left My Children‘ on Salon
• Hannah Giorgis, ‘From Ferguson to New York, women are leading protests because all #BlackLivesMatter‘ in The Guardian
• Humera Afridi, ‘The Call of the Dervish‘ in Guernica
• Scott Pack on Zoella and Ghostwriting on his blog
• Zoe Pilger, ‘Freud and Eros‘ in The Independent
• Helen Moffett, ‘Banting, women and rage‘ on Books Live
• Vanessa Vitiello Urquart, ‘Lesbian Dilemma: All My Heros Are Men Who Hated Women‘ on Slate
• Bruce E. Levine, ‘One nation under Galt: How Ayn Rand’s toxic philosophy permanently transformed America‘, on Salon
• Alizah Salario, ‘Loosen the Reigns‘ in The Butter
• Lisa Gruenberg, ‘A Beautiful Day‘ in Ploughshares
• Juliet Jacques, ‘One afternoon in Bishkek‘ on The Dissident Blog
• Sasha Kerr, ‘Losing a Baby – things I’ve learned about miscarriage‘ on The Happy Baby Project
• Christiane Craig, ‘In the funnel of infinity: Life Portraits by Hilda Hilst‘ in The Quarterly Conversation
• Elizabeth Wade, ‘Disarmed‘ in The Butter
• Mindy Hung, ‘Bitter Greens‘ in The Butter
• Catherine Butler, ‘Enchanting Places: Readers and Pilgrimage in the Novels of Diana Wynne Jones‘ on Academia.edu
• Marybeth Seitz-Brown, ‘Uptalk is OK‘ on Slate
• Sadie Stein, ‘Half Magic‘ in The Paris Review
• Brittney Cooper, ‘Listen when I talk to you!‘ on Salon
• Bridget Reed, ‘How She Knows‘ on Penelope Fitzgerald in The Paris Review
• Alex Voakes, ‘The One Feminist Text You Should Have Read, Condensed‘ on The Vagenda (It’s the one my blog’s named after.)
• Emma Straub, ‘How to Write About Real People‘ in Rookie Magazine
• Anita Diamant ‘On the Lows (and Highs) of Book Touring‘ on WSJ
• Libby Robin, ‘No Island Is an Island‘ in Aeon
• Kelly Jensen, ‘Women in Fiction Need More Than the Bechdel Test‘ on Bookriot
• Kylie Cardel, ‘How the Diary Became a Public Way of Getting Personal‘ on Huffington Post
• Anjali Joshi, ‘Are You Going to Give Him a White Name?‘ in The New York Times
• Kit Buchan, ‘Families in literature: The Chance and Hazard Twins in Wise Children by Angela Carter‘ in The Guardian
• Rebecca Solnit, ‘Coyote‘ in The New Yorker
• Amy Weldon, ‘The Spinning Self‘ on Bloom
• Alice Sola Kim and Megan McCarron, ‘Double Dare: Point Horror‘ on Electric Literature
• Lucy Mangan, ‘Inexplicable Spouse Rage Is so Normal‘ in Stylist
• Emily St. John Mandel, ‘Don’t Write for Awards‘ in The Atlantic
• Anne Enright, ‘Alexander Fuller’s African Childhood‘ in The Guardian
• Vivian Gornick, ‘Good Feminist‘ in The Boston Review
• Caitlin Moran, ‘Why I’m Giving Up High Heels‘ in The Times (paywall)
• Emer O’Toole, ‘A brain-dead Irish woman’s body is being used as an incubator. Be angry‘ in The Guardian
• Alison Taylor, ‘My Christmas isn’t defined by the fact that I don’t have a husband or boyfriend‘ in The Independent
• Kristiana Kahakauwila, ‘The Writer’s Family Tree: A Tribute to Joyce Carol Oates‘ on Read Her Like an Open Book
• Samantha Lyon, ‘The Evolution of Erotic Fiction‘ on The Infectionist
• Mallory Ortberg, ‘Ayn Rand Reviews Children’s Movies‘ in The New Yorker
• Marian Keyes, ‘Mind your head‘ in The Sunday Times (paywall)
• Jon Snow, ‘Maya Angelou remembered‘ in The Observer
• Richard Coles, ‘PD James remembered‘ in The Observer
• Nicci Gerrard, ‘Sue Townsend remembered‘ in The Observer

The interviews:

• Viv Albertine in Salon
• Elizabeth Wurtzel in Salon
• Emily Gould in The Observer
• Angela Davis in The Guardian
• Sarah Seltzer in The Guardian
• Natasha Wimmer in Granta
• Bae Su-Ah on Three Wise Monkeys
• Danielle Dutton, editor at the Dorothy project on Entropy
• Evelyne Holingue on Kimberly Sullivan’s blog
• Emma Healey in The Globe and The Mail
• Rachel Joyce in The Observer
• Marian Keyes in The Sunday Times (paywall)

If you want some fiction or poetry to read:

• ‘The Gift of the (Da)magi(ng)‘ by Alissa Nutting in Barrelhouse
• ‘Bodies‘ by Miriam Gamble in The Guardian
• Selected Poems by Chi Lingyun in Chinese Literature Today
• ‘God suspected my heart was a geode but he had to make sure‘ by Layla Benitez-James in Guernica
• ‘Terror‘ by Kimiko Hahn in Granta
• ‘Messenger‘ by Robin Beth Schaer in Guernica
• ‘Prayer for Horizon‘ by Gwyneth Lewis in the TLS
• ‘Poems from the Central North States‘ by several women in Persimmon Tree
• ‘Beaten Paths‘ by Paula Reed Nancarrow
• ‘Before Morning‘ by Laura Jean Moore in Pank Magazine
• ‘Lebenslügen‘ by Malerie Willens on Electric Literature
• ‘Permanent Winter‘ by Carrie Etter in Bluestem
• ‘Step 9‘ by Nicole Callihan in Blunderbuss
• ‘The Dreamer‘ by Essie Fox on One Book Lane
• An extract from The Goddess and the Thief by Essie Fox on Soundcloud
• ‘I Can See Right Through You‘ by Kelly Link in McSweeney’s
• ‘The Man in the Moon‘ by Nicola Yoon in The Butter
• ‘The Halifax Slasher‘ by Jac Jemc in The Butter
• An excerpt from Ilona: My Life with the Bard by Jana Juráñová (translated by Julia and Peter Sherwood)
• ‘The Boxing Day Ball‘ by Rachel Joyce in The Observer
• Shabby Doll House’s latest edition ‘The Re-Up‘ is all-female and their biggest edition ever
• And if you’re being nosy on Twitter and reading a conversation between Nicola Barker and Granta editor Max John Porter, you come across sites like Blood Orange Feast, on which Camilla Grudova posts stories.

And the lists:

• Jane Austen in quotes: 30 tips for a successful life in The Guardian
• 50 Books to Cure Heartbreak on Flavorwire
• 21 of the Wisest Things Jane Austen Ever Said on Buzzfeed
• Emma, Cover to Cover in The Paris Review
• Modern Film Adaptations of Jane Austen, Ranked on Huffington Post
• 6 Reasons to Fall in Love with Maggie Stiefvater’s ‘Raven Cycle’ on Buzzfeed

And because it’s Christmas:

• Some of the Best Lit Tweets of Some of the Year on Electric Literature
• A Definitive Ranking of Jane Austen’s Male Hotties on Buzzfeed

In the Media will be taking a two-week break over Christmas and new year. Thank you to everyone who’s read, shared and commented over the last three months.