Is there any virtue in Vice’s suicide spread?
The short answer is no. On Monday, as part of a fiction issue on women writers, Vice published a fashion spread depicting the suicides of well-known authors. Doppelganger models portray Sylvia… Read more »
Thanks, NSA: Americans are reading again (or maybe they’re just reading 1984)
Nineteen Eighty-Four first came out 64 years ago this week, and thanks to the NSA, George Orwell’s dystopian novel is doing better than ever. Sales on Amazon have risen by more than… Read more »
Needed: Gender-neutral covers, especially for boys
Shortly after Jane Eyre was first published, a skeptical male critic picked up a copy and started reading. “I found myself unable to put it down. At midnight I was on… Read more »
Silver Linings Chapbook: things looking up for poetry
Last week, indie UK publisher Salt announced it would no longer publish single-author poetry collections, as poetry sales have fallen by 25% this past year. Every few weeks, it seems,… Read more »
Pink unicorns and pastel bling: Maureen Johnson calls out gendered covers
When author Maureen Johnson tweeted on Tuesday, “I do wish I had a dime for every email I get that says, ‘Please put a non-girly cover on your book so I can… Read more »
Madwoman in PW: Claire Messud responds to sexist questions
Women face a deeply double pressure to please, to be likable—to be made of suger, spice, and everything nice. In the world of fiction, that pressure falls on their characters.… Read more »
Wikipedia: male novelists are “novelists,” female novelists are “women novelists”
Oh, Wikipedia! You encyclopedic embodiment of the male gaze, look what you’ve done now. The category “American Novelists” includes virtually no women. Attempting to contain the expanding category, Wikipedia editors recently created… Read more »
The Guardian wants you
The Guardian wants you. This week the newspaper launched Witness, an app that turns ordinary readers like you and me into valiant citizen journalists by soliciting original content in response… Read more »
Coming soon: new Moby-Dick adaptation (sort of)
Whales are big this spring—they’ve already been seen entrancing underwater paparazzi and invading the American Museum of Natural History. The BBC is also hooked: last week they announced plans for a new drama called… Read more »
The reemergence of Zelda Fitzgerald
93 years ago last week, the newlywed Fitzgeralds were thrown out of The Commodore Hotel, having already been booted from The Biltmore. The charge? Raucous drunkenness on the occasion of… Read more »