How women conquered the world of fiction

From Sally Rooney to Raven Leilani, female novelists have captured the literary zeitgeist, with more buzz, prizes and bestsellers than men. But is this cultural shift something to celebrate or rectify?In March, Vintage, one of the UK’s largest literary fiction divisions, announced the five debut novelists it would be championing this year: Megan Nolan, Pip Williams, Ailsa McFarlane, Jo Hamya and Vera Kurian.All five of them are women. But you could be forgiven for not noticing it, so commonplace are female-dominated lists in 2021. Over the past 12 months, almost all of the buzz in fiction has been around young women: Patricia Lockwood, Yaa Gyasi, Raven Leilani, Avni Doshi, Lauren Oyler. Ask a novelist of any gender who they are reading and they will almost certainly mention one of Rachel Cusk, Ottessa Moshfegh, Rachel Kushner, Gwendoline Riley, Monique Roffey or Maria Stepanova. Or they will be finding new resonances in Anita Brookner, Zora Neale Hurston, Natalia Ginzburg, Octavia Butler, Ivy Compton-Burnett. The energy, as anyone in the publishing world will tell you, is with women.It’s only relatively recently that fiction written by a woman about intimate subjects like sex has been classed as literary fictionClass is the dirty secret of publishing. Working-class male writers are now expected to answer for a past that isn’t oursMen think that to be allowed a place at the table, they need to have the right views and be these nice guysWhy wasn’t there uproar in the media... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2021-05-16 06:00:48 UTC ]

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Harlan Ellison's The Last Dangerous Visions may finally be published, after five-decade wait

Sci-fi anthology stalled since 1974 will be produced by executor, screenwriter J Michael Straczynski, adding stories by today’s big-name SF writersIt is the great white whale of science fiction: an anthology of stories by some of the genre’s greatest names, collected in the early 1970s by Harlan... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2020-11-16 14:38:59 UTC ]
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Bookshop.org is what the publishing world has been waiting for

Following its its success in the US, the ethical platform Bookshop.org has arrived in the UK, marking an exciting new chapter for independent stores onlineIn publishing we often talk about things that we are “excited” and “delighted” about, so much that sometimes I think the words have lost... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2020-11-05 08:00:40 UTC ]
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Colm Tóibín: How Rules of Craft Inhibit Creativity

Colm Tóibín gives the third installment to the Words Ireland Lecture Series. This modern master discusses the craft of James Joyce—and the idea of craft itself. Is craft a concept more suited to poetry? Could strict ideas around craft actually be a hindrance to novelists and short story writers?... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-04 09:48:28 UTC ]
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Fred Klein, Who Helped Build Bantam Books, Dies at 97

Fred Klein, who helped make Bantam Books a major force in mass market paperback publishing in the 1960s and 1970s, died on October 22. He was described by a former colleague as "the greatest ringmaster the publishing world has ever known.” Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-11-02 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Can a Video Game Express Modernist Values?

AS AN EXPRESSIVE MEDIUM, video games have a strange way of reducing central concepts of modernist art and theory to basic operational elements. The technical specifications of “point of view” that have preoccupied novelists since the turn of the 20th century are crudely literalized within game... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-10-31 17:00:02 UTC ]
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Rachel Cusk’s Outline trilogy is getting the perfect audiobook narrator.

Yes, it’s Kristin Scott Thomas, our most recent Mrs. Danvers and our forever Fiona. Can’t you just imagine her as the narrator of Cusk’s cool-toned autofictions? The best part is, she got the gig because she’s a fan. “Faber heard that I was a Rachel Cusk fan so I was thrilled when they asked me... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-10-29 15:18:37 UTC ]
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Kristin Scott Thomas to narrate Cusk trilogy

Faber is to release new unabridged audio editions of Rachel Cusk's Outline trilogy, which will be narrated by actor Kristin Scott Thomas.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-29 07:17:24 UTC ]
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Crime novelists dish on writing about cops in a moment of reckoning

Writers Rachel Howzell Hall, Attica Locke and Ivy Pochoda talked with Times reporter James Queally for a 2020 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books event. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-10-24 16:06:42 UTC ]
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The Magic of Plot and Catharsis: A Conversation with Smith Henderson and Jon Marc Smith

LET’S DISPENSE WITH the small surprises up front. The latest outing from Smith Henderson, acclaimed author of what others might call literary fiction — his award-winning 2014 debut, Fourth of July Creek — is indeed a thriller. And it’s not a solo endeavor — he’s teamed up with a friend, Jon Marc... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-10-11 12:30:47 UTC ]
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16 Brilliant Bi and Lesbian Literary Fiction Novels to Keep You Thinking

Bi and lesbian books from the last two decades for fans of literary fiction, from haunting collections to atmospheric historical fiction like Miss Timmins’ School for Girls by Nayana Currimbhoy. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2020-10-02 10:38:36 UTC ]
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Scribner scoops 'Covid-Age' Decameron

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[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-02 08:28:47 UTC ]
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Most diverse Booker prize shortlist ever is also almost all American

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[ The Guardian | 2020-09-15 12:21:07 UTC ]
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Indies dominate Booker Prize shortlist as Mantel misses out

Diane Cook, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Avni Doshi, Maaza Mengiste, Douglas Stuart and Brandon Taylor have been shortlisted for this year's Booker Prize, in a selection packed with independent presses but featuring the notable absence of two-time winner Hilary Mantel. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-09-15 08:26:08 UTC ]
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Octavia Butler has finally made the New York Times Best Seller list.

Why aren’t there more Science Fiction Black writers? There aren’t because there aren’t. What we don’t see, we assume can’t be. What a destructive assumption. —Octavia E. Butler, in Octavia E. Butler: Telling My Stories.   A small good thing amid the unrelenting horror: This week, almost fifty... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-09-03 16:37:21 UTC ]
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Bolinda scoops Mennuti comedy about publishing world

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[ The Bookseller | 2020-08-25 02:20:12 UTC ]
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How Yaa Gyasi Found Religion (in Literature)

“There isn’t much literary fiction that deals with evangelicalism. ‘Go Tell It on the Mountain,’ by James Baldwin, was the first book I read that spoke to that part of my life and it moved me so deeply to see faith rendered on the page with such care and brilliance.” Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2020-08-20 09:00:04 UTC ]
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Remember when famous writers used to shill for consumer products?

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[ Literrary Hub | 2020-08-19 17:14:06 UTC ]
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With book tours scrapped, authors are finding new ways to connect with their readers

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[ The Washington Post | 2020-08-19 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Poets and novelists have been writing about life under COVID-19 for more than a century

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[ The Conversation | 2020-08-17 12:24:39 UTC ]
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Carty-Williams, O'Leary and Winterson shortlisted for Comedy Women in Print Prize

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[ The Bookseller | 2020-08-16 13:06:20 UTC ]
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