Posts by author
Katie O’Brien
-
English Is Not Dying, You Elitists
Pop linguist Gretchen McCulloch unpacks the many wrongful assumptions about language behind the idea that emojis will cause the “death” of the English language: No, English is in ruddy good health. In fact, it’s not only not under threat, it’s…
-
The Power of Zines
At The Establishment, Sara Century outlines the social and political power of zines throughout history, the state of the zine in the digital age, and the connection between zines and feminism today: Zines run the gamut in both quality and…
-
On Visibility and Middle-Aged Women
Over at Lit Hub, Dorthe Nors discusses writing about middle aged women who, on the verge of becoming invisible to a society that only values women as mothers or as sex objects, refuse to disappear: The interesting thing is that…
-
The Catch-22 of Representation
Heroine Complex author Sarah Kuhn writes on her impulse as a child to dislike Jubilee, the Marvel superhero she was “supposed” to identify with as an Asian-American woman, and the pressures of creating representative characters for women of color in…
-
On Writing “Chick Lit”
At the New York Times, Jennifer Weiner writes about her experience with the gendered devaluation of popular fiction: Somewhere between my birth and my novel’s publication, I’d gotten the message that there were books that mattered and books that did…
-
The Power of a T-Shirt
In the latest Lenny Letter, Lena Waithe discusses how she learned how to express her identity through fashion in the vintage tee section of a thrift shop: The shirt wasn’t expensive. It wasn’t made in Italy. And unless you were…
-
Bringing Asexuality to YA Fiction
Asexuality is often left out from discussions around queer visibility in pop culture. At Bitch Media, Lucy Mihajlich shares how she was told by an agent that her young adult dystopian trilogy, Interface, could be the next Hunger Games—but that it…
-
The Hell of Personal Writing
When I give lectures to writing students I tell them to not get discouraged if they do not enjoy writing. “I hate writing,” I say, “It’s horrible. It’s hell.” They are shocked every time, but I mean it. I often…
-
Unlikable and Unapologetic
Supposedly “unlikable” female characters are often the most complex, humanly flawed, and interesting ones—yet many readers are perturbed by such representations of women. In an excerpt from her collection The Geek Feminist Revolution, Kameron Hurley muses on the reasons why female…
-
The Important Queerness of Frog and Toad
At the New Yorker, Colin Stokes lauds the classic Frog and Toad’s “amphibious celebration of same-sex love” and discusses the ways in which it may have been inspired by Arnold Lobel’s life experiences: Lobel never publicly discussed a connection between the…
-
Women Shouldn’t Stop Saying ‘Sorry’
At The Establishment, Amelia Shroyer pushes back against the idea that women must self-police their language in order to sound more ‘professional’ (read: like men): Society has always valued the words of men more than those of women, to the…
-
In Favor of Reading the Literary Canon
The canon is what it is, and anyone who wishes to understand how it continues to flow forward needs to learn to swim around in it. Responding to Yale students’ protesting the English department’s course requirements, Slate’s Katy Waldman argues…