(no subject)

[electricland]

As seen on both bookslut and bitch_phd:

There are still publishers with integrity and courage, but they are under massive pressure. You may not feel immediate sympathy for them, but if you care about short stories, or poems, or novels outwith the mass-produced mainstream that don't rely on lists of trivia or dissecting spelling mistakes, then you do need publishers to be there and free to do their job - which is to provide you with books you didn't know you wanted, books which are not clones of those you read last year, books which may be risky, or offensive, or unsuccessful, or shocking, or delightful, or the one thing that kept you going during the worst month of your life.

Which brings me to the heart of what I find so offensive about the Women's Writing juggernaut - it's about telling people what to think. Possibly you approve of that, but I have to say it gives me a fucking pain.

- A.L. Kennedy, whose work I now must read, explains why sweeping generalizations about Women's Writing are a crock

(Also, a far more eloquent way of saying what I was trying to say last week.)

Comments

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Definitely read her! She writes beautifully, and without mercy.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

I already put in a hold request for her latest book. ;)

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

I only know A.L. Kennedy from her co-author credits on the Dice mini-series.

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

...and right now I want to slap just about everybody mentioned in the article with a copy of Joanna Russ's How To Suppress Women's Writing. (Wish I had a hardcover for this express purpose.)


Why make this sex-specific?

'Your trouble is you don't think enough. You take too much for granted without thinking about the politics.' -- Dora Russell

[electricland.livejournal.com]

:D I really have to read that one of these days.

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

...additionally, you might be interested in this article.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Very interesting -- a lot of it resonated more than I wish it had! Thanks for the link. I'm requesting the book at the library.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

I don't know this mini-series at all -- book? TV show? was it good?

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

It's a TV mini-series, co-produced by Canada and the UK: TV Tome info; Showcase info.

It was pretty good. Kind of contrived and ludicrous, in a stylish way, but enjoyable, and worth watching if only because it starred Callum Keith Rennie, Aidan Gillen, Martin Cummings and Gina McKee. I taped it when Showcase aired it.

On Kennedy's website it says that she's been writing Dice II, but that was in 2002, so I guess nothing came of it.