women writers
-
These Are My Confessions
Many poets—male poets especially—are secretly anxious that someone will call their poetry a frivolous, feminine pursuit. And instead of embracing the potential charge of frivolity—allowing themselves to be free of it or even to toy with it—those same poets draw lines in…
-
Labor of Love
Writing as art can be what economists call a “non-market” activity. The time we spend writing poems or novels, like the time we spend doing laundry, is usually time not spent earning a dollar, even if we hope to see…
-
At the End of All Books
For Lenny Letter, Alexis Coe writes on the gendered politics behind book acknowledgements, including acknowledgment of emotional labor, research, and the expectations behind praise for female and male partners.
-
The Forgotten Women Writers of the 19th Century
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…
-
False Dichotomy
Can women really have it all? Like, all of it? But how could they possibly have multiple things at the same time? How can they even think human thoughts after they’ve subsumed their corporeal selves into an all-encompassing prison of…
-
VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Tania James
Tania James discusses her most recent novel, The Tusk That Did the Damage, the challenges of writing an elephant narrator, and the moment when she knew she could be a writer.
-
Are You the Woman Reader?
It’s not that the books that get someone into the “serious reader” club are all or even mostly by men these days. But the books that get you kicked out of the club are almost exclusively written by women. Hannah…
-
The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Idra Novey
Swati Khurana talks with novelist and translator Idra Novey about the challenges and joys of translation, the idiosyncrasies of language, the inextricable reception of women’s writing and women’s bodies, and much more.
-
Gay Talese: Inspired By Men
Gay Talese, well-known for being a pioneer of the New Journalism along with writers like Hunter S. Thompson and Truman Capote, apparently couldn’t name any woman writer who’d inspired him when asked at a recent Boston University event. Amy Littlefield, a…
-
Women Writers Lost and Found
Henry 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…
-
The Last Book I Loved: The Loss of All Lost Things
I recognize something in the stories… It’s the culture of “I made it” versus the culture of staying behind, the culture of achievement versus the culture of guilt.
-
Women Writers, Whatever That Means
I had considered envying men before—I pretend to envy things like their higher incidence of ungrounded confidence and monomania, but I don’t really envy those things, and I’m not sure I even believe in them… In an excerpt published in…