Become a Rumpus Member
Join NOW!Over at Lit Hub, Anne Boyd Rioux discusses the literary genius of the 19-century novelist Constance Fenimore Woolson, and the American tradition of “the diminution of women writers” that continues today: Woolson’s literary star faded quickly after her death in 1894, a time of shifting literary tastes. With the advent of literary modernism, her work […]
...moreHenry James found in the stories of Constance Fenimore Woolson “a remarkable minuteness of observation and tenderness of feeling on the part of one who evidently did not glance and pass, but lingered and analyzed.” There’s a roll call of rediscovered and canonical women writers at Salon. From Clarice Lispector and Lucia Berlin, to Zora Neale […]
...moreFirst, poet Christina Stoddard discusses her debut collection, Hive, with Renee Sims in the Saturday Interview. Violence and brutality in the Pacific Northwest is the topic of this sometimes-startling book. Stoddard faces the reality of violence with an unblinking gaze. She proclaims, “These are things we don’t talk about and I’m here to talk about them. […]
...more
Do you really want to have to listen from the grave as students discuss your themes and scholars analyze your syntax and trace your influence?
...moreAnne Boyd Rioux reviews a new biography on the wife of Lord Byron, Anne Isabella Milbanke. In her review, Rioux evaluates the still-too-high standard set for women’s biographies, particularly when those women lived in the shadow of famous men: Insisting that the female relatives of famous men be accomplished players on the world stage in […]
...more
Erasing women writers like Woolson carries immense implications. It creates an environment ripe for the continued marginalization and silencing of women’s voices today.
...moreThis year’s judges of the National Book Award seem to agree that women’s nonfiction writing is abundant and prize-worthy. The 2015 nonfiction longlist includes seven female-authored books, out of 10, the largest percentage of female nominees in the prize’s history. The longlist also contains two books by people of color, compared to last year’s one. […]
...moreThe message sent to women that what they are writing isn’t important or serious enough is not a new one. It is as old as literature itself. And its persistence has everything to do with how women’s literature is treated in college and university classrooms and, in turn, how it is treated in the literary […]
...moreAs the author of a forthcoming nonfiction book, a biography, I have become aware of how male-dominated the field of biography is. But why all of nonfiction? That is the hard question Anne Boyd Rioux tries to answer with her essay on gender inequality in nonfiction literary genre over at The Millions.
...more