I’ve written several posts about gender inequity in the writing profession here at LitDrift. To catch up, read those posts here, here and here.
It’s still hard out there for us ladywriters. Writer-esses? Oi vey.
First we have celebrated (Nobel laureate, ahem) writer, novelist and essayist V.S. Naipaul saying that there is no woman who is his literary equal. I’ll let him do the talking (courtesy of The Guardian piece):
He said: “I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not. I think [it is] unequal to me.” The author, who was born in Trinidad, said this was because of women’s “sentimentality, the narrow view of the world”. “And inevitably for a woman, she is not a complete master of a house, so that comes over in her writing too,” he said.
Then we have the newly-released statistics, courtesy of VIDA, that analyze the gender breakdown of the authors included in the Best American anthologies in poetry, fiction, and essays. I’ll let the numbers do the talking:
In the Best American Essays Series from 1986 through 2010, the numbers look dire across the board. Works by women accounted for only 29% of those published in the anthology. There was only one year in twenty-five that the number of works by women published in the anthology outnumbered the works by men.
Gender equity in publishing is still escaping our grasp, but with the exciting growth of independent presses and publishers cropping up around the country, perhaps this will slowly start to change.
A week or so ago I was reading a review of David Lindsay-Abaire’s new play where the critic basically blamed the crappy ending (in his opinion) on Lindsay-Abaire’s foray into Hollywood:
“…The actors perform skillfully, but Lindsay-Abaire, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his play “Rabbit Hole,” has been spending time in Hollywood, and the industry’s habitual glibness infects the ending of the play, which seems as fraudulent as it is bewildering.”
That “habitual glibness” (which, I think, means a consistent paint-by-numbers approach no matter the film’s subject matter, although it’s such a wide-open phrase that it’s hard to tell) is definitely a part of screenwriting, but what this critic and many critics across the board seem to miss is that unless you’re one of the few high ranking writers known by name, there really isn’t any other way to get a movie made in Hollywood.
So by saying Lindsay-Abaire’s new play was “ruined” by a Hollywood sheen, what the critic is really saying is, “you know that ‘habitual glibness’ [excuse my vague phrase] that’s basically essential to getting a film made and screenwriter paid? I don’t like it. And it makes for terrible endings. And I refuse to get to the root of the problem which is that it’s really, really difficult for a writer to simultaneously make a critic and producer happy [even in theater] – so I’ll just blame it all on the writer. For refusing to be creative.”
Critics and producers are like divorced parents who are so obsessed with their own agenda, they can’t possibly see that they’re tearing their child into pieces with their vastly diverging opinions. Read more »
[Note: this article was written before the airing of the March 8th episode. If the episode tonight is suddenly extremely awesome, this post may be moot. ...But I doubt it]
Glee, you broke my heart.
In the beginning, you made me happy. In the beginning, you made me believe that TV was entering a new realm of sophistication and creativity. Now? You just mostly make me sad. And also a little annoyed.
When you first premiered, Glee, I was one of your biggest fans. As someone who spent two years of her life learning the art of musical theater, I continuously advocated for music and drama to combine on the small screen – it was uncharted territory (okay, not completely, but I think we all want to forget that strange, strange LSD trip that was Cop Rock), territory that had the possibility of reaching millions of people and providing them with an emotional release the way that only music and lyrics can. When you came along, Glee, I finally felt like my prayers had been answered. Not only were you hilarious and fresh, you were also keenly aware of how a well-placed song could move people.
But then…something started to happen. You got…less fresh. Sure, there were – and still are – moments of wip-smart humor, but you also started to come down with a case of cliche-itis. Your drama began to veer down Cheesy Lane and your songs began to feel awkward – and you didn’t seem to care. Read more »
I’m relatively young and relatively hip, and while I know writing those two things down automatically makes one older and more unhip than they were two seconds ago, I categorize myself this way because what I’m about to say might make you assume I’m 70 years old with a permanent sour face and a “Stay Off The GRASS” sign on my sad, unmowed lawn:
I hate the idea of a Kindle.
I will never buy one, and I can’t fathom why anyone else would, either. At least anyone who works 9-12 hours a day on the computer.
Don’t you people want some time away from that damn screen?! (<–as my mom would say)
Books, while sometimes weirdly expensive, are a luxury. Their pages are perfectly aligned. They have a book smell. Thick ones tell the world that you’re intelligent and focused (or at least good at pretending to be) and thinner ones say that you’re a literary bandit. A Rumi or Kahlil Gibran volume on your nightstand assures your relationships that you are, indeed, a deep and romantic thinker. Conversations are started over books being read in coffee shops and on the subway. Books can be lent or borrowed. Books take up space. They’re real. Something to hold onto when you’re lonely or sitting on a park bench. Books are a nerdy kid’s best friend.
Plus, when you lose a book, you can just go out and buy a new one without wondering if your bank account is going to hate you.
No one was ever asked out for coffee based on what was on their Kindle. You can’t see what that hot, mysterious-looking guy is reading on the subway if he has a tiny electric screen shoved in his face. The selling point of a Kindle is that its lightweight; there’s no feeling proud after you finish page 822 of Moby Dick on a Kindle because there’s no last page to turn. Read more »
I seem to be the resident shit-starter here at LitDrift. So today I’ll quickly follow up on the conversation I launched in earlier posts about gender inequity in the writing profession (read the posts here and here).
Yesterday, Anne Hays wrote a letter to The New Yorker complaining of a gender imbalance in the magazine’s issues and demanding a refund:
I am writing to express my alarm that this is now the second issue of the NYer in a row where only two (tiny) pieces out of your 76 page magazine are written by women. The January 3rd, 2011 issue features only a Shouts & Murmurs (Patricia Marx) and a poem (Kimberly Johnson). Every other major piece—the fiction, the profile, and all the main nonfiction pieces—is written by a man. Every single critic is a male writer.
[Let me preface this article by saying that usually, I can take criticism, and I can take it well. I took it in college. I took it (in bushels) in graduate school. I took it from studios and producers who later ended up not giving a shit. Hell, I even take it at my job...every day. And usually, I take it with a smile. Or at least a half-hidden grimace. Because most of the time criticism helps more than it hurts and is an essential part of being a writer. Okay. Now that we're clear...]
For most of my writing career, I’ve entered contests. While some of them are designed to take your money and nothing more, a lot of writing contests – espescially the ones that include feedback – are a good way to actively let the world know who you are and what you do. They can be great resume boosters, and sometimes even lead to contacts.
These days, I still enter the occasional contest, but have also started to work for a few, providing the oh-so-important feedback. So I know how it works. I know that sometimes readers get slammed with entries and have to juggle their judging along with their own work. I know that sometimes, most of what they have to wade through is awful. I know they often do it for so little pay it’s laughable. But I also know that they freely sign up for all of it.
Which is why I was so pissed when I received coverage on a script of mine from a certain contest that shall remain unnamed. Actually, pissed is an understatement. Slamming-cupboards-looking-for-nothing-in-particular-kind-of-angry is more like it. Read more »
It was a Sunday night. I was exhausted and on my second glass of wine and that’s probably why I didn’t protest when someone suggested putting on a movie starring Gerald Butler, Jamie Fox and the worst plot ever imagined.
I knew this film would suck. I could just tell by looking at the DVD cover. Also, I remembered critics panning it months back. Two strikes. But like I said: wine and exhaustion. So someone slipped it into the TV and we all sat back to watch what turned out to be exactly the kind of lame, violent, stupidly plotted movie I thought it would.
What frustrated me about this film wasn’t the acting, or the surprise violence (I’d like to be warned before a bullet makes a person’s head explode, thank you very much), it was the fact that it even got made in the first place.
As freshly minted writers, every opportunity that comes our way is always packaged in a “this is your one chance so don’t screw it up” kind of way. We work our asses off writing, rewriting, swallowing mind-numbing critique and even giving up scenes we’d practically date if given the chance. We run mental triathlons because, well, our art has to be perfect – or no one’s going to give it a second thought.
So we beat ourselves up to create this expressive masterpiece, and then someone brings over a DVD that’s so full of every writing Don’t it makes our mouths hang open in disbelief. How the hell does something like this get made?! It’s awful. Don’t tell me this was someone’s magnum opus. It’s impossible. The only way this makes sense is if a bunch of big execs came up with it in the back of a party van on the way to a strip club. Read more »
I don’t know if this is a universal experience, but back when I was in the early years of high school I remember having to dismantle various fragments of literature and scrounge in their remnants for “literary elements.” This term was a loose euphemism for things like metaphors, similes, etc. – basically any concept that could be easily defined and tested on the state Regent exam. As ‘teach explained it, if the selected passage we were given employed enough of these syntactical devices, it must be considered advanced literature. I mean, come on, just look at that enjambment!
I don’t know though. I mean, what if you brought this exercise to bear on something other than fragments of Macbeth? How about, oh, Nas’s seminal rap album Illmatic (1994). Would it past the test? Is it “literature”?
I just taught creative writing for a summer session to a group of very bright and talented 11th and 12th graders. It was a very intensive program, a five-day-a-week gig for three weeks, in which the students studied and wrote poetry, short fiction, dramatic scenes, and long prose (both fiction and nonfiction).
It was very rewarding but also absolutely exhausting.
I got to teach the students a variety of forms, which reminded me that I need not pigeonhole myself only as a nonfiction writer (I started a short story yesterday!). I also got young writers excited by new genres and authors (they loved the idea of prose poetry!). That was totally gratifying.
I would love to teach creative writing at the high school or university level as a career in the future. However, this teaching position took up all my time even though I was only teaching for about an hour a day. My personal projects got pushed to the backburner. I was tired after leading class and trying to remain energetic all the time and then prepping for the next session each afternoon.
This got me thinking about the future again. Since I’m going to need a day job after I finish graduate school (no $200,000 book deals in my future), why not teach creative writing and do journalism to keep my mind involved in writing-related tasks and exercise my writing muscle? Read more »
The last post I wrote about gender 
It was a Sunday night. I was exhausted and on my second glass of wine and that’s probably why I didn’t protest when someone suggested putting on a movie starring Gerald Butler, Jamie Fox and the worst plot ever imagined.
I just taught creative writing for a summer session to a group of very bright and talented 11th and 12th graders. It was a very intensive program, a five-day-a-week gig for three weeks, in which the students studied and wrote poetry, short fiction, dramatic scenes, and long prose (both fiction and nonfiction).
