RIASS stuff:
An interview with author Maggie Dana, who wants to know where all the middle-aged women in fiction are'There are some wonderful points in here about women, invisibility, and cultural expectations.
Book Review: Lily's Ghosts by Laura Ruby'Rating: 
Book Review: 1.4 by Mike Lancaster'Rating: 
Giveaway: The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer (open to all)
Other bookish stuff:
Readings Foundation 2013 Grants are now open
The Age Short Story Competition is open to submissions
How Junot Diaz wrote a sexist character, but not a sexist book'The author looks at the contrast between character'Yunior de Las Casas descriptions of women (Miss Lora was too skinny. Had no hips whatsoever. No breasts, either, no ass, even her hair failed to make the grade.) and the emotional ambivalence he experiences as he slowly continues on a road towards gender enlightenment. Diaz says that he wrote the book to address the unacknowledged but entrenched sexism in western culture. The issue, of course, is to present sexist characters in a way that doesnt too closely reveal his own personal beliefs: and in doing so he risks being tagged as sexist himself.'I love this quote:'Rarely do I get dudes who want to talk gender. Thats the strange thing about privilege.
A rejection letter of a rejection letter. Funnily enough, this is one of many of these little satirical tidbits that Ive seen. Id probably have rejected it because its not fresh
Lawrence Norfolk on writing'Theyre all imperfect. You never finish a book, you just abandon it. Donna Tartt said: Im the sort of person whos quite happy to push a semi-colon around a sentence for an afternoon. Im not quite like that, but there are a couple of sentences in'Lempriere'I still go back to and rearrange in my head. Im not unhappy with the big things.
Is this bad or is it just me? The anatomy of book reviews'An interesting breakdown of the book review: basically, an initial reaction, a summary, and an appraisal of the book in terms of writing quality and its context. One key point is the reviewers'decision whether to like a book, and what this means. What was behind their not liking it? Something big? Something tangential that just seemed big to them? I found this line about online reviews interesting: these reviews consist entirely of the initial response and a subsequent explanation, and no self-reflection about whether there might be more to the book ' and to the reviewer's response ' than that initial, emotional decision.
A Q&A with author Toni Jordan'After I finished'Fall Girl, I had no idea whatsoever. Nothing. Unlike many writers I know, I find ideas the hardest part of the process. Jordan also talks about the danger of pretending to have read something you havent. Once I started, Id never be able to stop. The holes in my reading life are gaping.
Jonathon Green: dictionaries are not democratic'Collins is taking a crowd-sourced approach to lexicography. Does this mean that dictionaries are going to suffer from self-reportage and from additions that are fleeting rather than from an objective examination of how words are actually (and how widely) being used? But if reference is to remain useful then it cannot become amateur hour. The public can be informers, and we are duly grateful. But if we dont want to be told that fuck comes from fornicate under command of the king, or crap from Thomas Crapper then the experts, willy-nilly, still have to be the cops.
Nicholson Baker isnt a fan of sex scenes'Sometimes I think there are no good sex novels. When you're not in the mood, there's nothing worse than a sex scene. Words fail. (Agreed over here. Im happy to let my imagination do the work rather than giggling over sheaths and swords and mounds and things)
7 famous female authors who used male pseudonyms'George Eliot, James Tiptree Junior, JD Robb, JK Rowling, and the Brontes (who apparently count as one) just to name a few.
And how about 30 authors inspired by cats?'Maybe I should buy a cat. Even better:'Miriam Darlingtons top 10 literary otters.
Research shows that more than half of all YA books bought by adults'And no, theyre not necessarily buying for other readersthe majority of these books are bought for themselves. Nor are they only buying blockbuster books like The Hunger Games or Twilight. And yes, I am one of them.
Follow us on Blog Lovin'