February 8, 2009
The dearth of female names
7 February 2009
Dear ***, Editor, **** Magazine
This letter is not intended for publication, and no doubt it will read as such, being neither particularly witty or erudite, or especially timely. But I do think it is fair to write to you and explain why I will not be renewing my subscription to **** after three years.
It has been nearly a year since I began counting the number of women writers amongst your contributors. Initially the dearth of female names was more peculiar than troubling. I was unsure of how a general interest/current affairs magazine could be very general or current while (very nearly) only publishing pieces written by men. But when each subsequent issue appeared, usually with less women than the one before it (and when the women did appear, it was rarely for any feature of significant length), I began to be disturbed.
Either you’re not interested in commissioning women writers, or you haven’t noticed the imbalance in your issues, and I’m really not sure which of these possibilities is the worst.
Do know that I’m not counting for counting’s sake. I am not convinced that there is such a thing as “women’s writing”, but I am sure that the lack of women’s voices in your pages has made your magazine less interesting. I used to make a point of reading every issue in its entirety, regardless of my interest, because the writing was good, and there was always something for me to learn. But lately this has felt like a chore, and I don’t feel I get the payoff.
Please take a look at even your cover designs over the past year, take a look at your features. I am sure the lack of diversity amongst your contributors is the reason **** has come to resemble a Men’s Magazine proper. And I know this is the reason that I, as a female subscriber, no longer feel like it’s a magazine for me. I must not be the only one.
Thank you for your time,
Kerry Clare
February 5, 2009
Babies and reading
A few weeks back I was happy to discover that Kate Christensen has a new novel coming out in early June. I’ll be reading it, naturally, though when, I cannot say. If I do happen to be 41 weeks pregnant in early June, then perhaps a good book will be welcome company, though it’s just as likely I’ll be a brand new mother with just a week’s experience, so I probably won’t be reading much of anything.
There are mothers who read, of course– mothers of babies and mothers of toddlers. I know this mostly because I read their blogs, and these mothers provide me with a great deal of reassurance. That having my baby won’t require handing my brain in (or if it does, at least I get it back in a little while). I’ve been planning my summer rereading project already, as I always do, and it’s mainly consisting of easy, well-loved novels that won’t require a great deal of concentration– I’m thinking Good in Bed, Saturday, Happy All the Time, and, if I’m feeling brave, A Novel About My Wife. It would be nice to read maybe one a week? (At the moment I read about three, but then I also work full time.)
I was going to cancel my subscription to The London Review of Books, but I’ve since decided otherwise. I hope motherhood won’t be an excuse to just give up being challenged, and I certainly won’t have to read the whole of every issue. But the articles that interest me are just so interesting, and I learn so much from them. I will be cutting down on the number of periodicals that come into our house though, which probably would be a good idea anyway.
Anyone who has ever had a baby is probably by now hysterical with laughter at my naivete, but let me tell you that whenever I’m told something isn’t possible, I tend to get it done. My mother says that babies sleep a lot. If I remember correctly, Alice Munro has said something much the same, so I believe it. I am also determined to master nursing and reading, which can’t be impossible as I’ve already taught myself to floss and read, and knit and read, so this is just another challenge. But I will try to keep an open mind and my expectations only moderately high.
If by the end of the summer, I’ve read Kate Christensen’s new novel at all, I’ll consider myself not too far off track.
September 18, 2008
Indeed walrusy
“I spend a lot of my time thinking about it and a lot of time counting, counting how many men are mentioned, say, on the front page of a newspaper as against how many women, counting men in photographs of some new committee, counting members of Parliament. We all know that the number of women has slipped downward. So I seem to be bean counting all the time. It’s a great burden. It’s an irritation. I wish I didn’t have to do it, but I’m too conscious of it not to think about it.” –Carol Shields interviewed by Eleanor Wachtel in “Ideas of Goodness” from Random Illuminations: Conversations with Carol Shields
I quote because there is not one woman contributor listed in The Walrus’ table of contents for October/November. Which has happened before (when Heather Mallick was “struck by the Aspergian social inadequacy of this indeed walrusy magazine.”) As a subscriber, as well as someone who’s recommended this magazine to others, I am becoming disappointed and embarrassed. And bothered, that the best spin I can put on this is just that perhaps they haven’t noticed. The worst being their content criteria is excellence only, and perhaps women writers are excluded from that? But I don’t believe it.
I’ve found the magazine suffering lately from its dearth of women writers, not just in principle but in content. I maintain that women and men write differently, that literature and letters are richer for that, but The Walrus seems to have forgotten. A magazine in which I read every article every month, even what doesn’t interest me, because I suppose that I will learn something, that the piece is there for a reason. But lately I’m not so sure that I should bother. Because if the women aren’t there because no one has noticed, perhaps there’s not so much reason after all. Because if the women aren’t there and nobody cares, this isn’t the magazine for me.
Though I do fear becoming one of those frenzied “Canceling My Subscription” people. Must not do that.
July 14, 2008
Summer Fiction
One of my favourite events of summer: The Atlantic Fiction Issue is now out and about.
June 26, 2008
Worthwhile
You’ll have to buy the magazine, but do check out Guy Gavriel Kay’s “Summertime When the Visigoths Go Pillaging” in the July/August issue of The Walrus. I’d quote the whole thing, it’s that lovely, but I’ll settle for, “…I suspect we all have inward links between some books and where we were when we escaped into them. Everyone knows the memory links to scents or the pop songs of teenage summers, but I suspect if we reach back and in, we’ll find many of the books of our lives to be vividly time and place specific too.” Indeed.
My friend Lauren Kirshner has started blogging, and her posts demonstrate her immense talents. (She’s got a book Where We Have to Go being published by McClelland and Stewart in the spring). Kate Sutherland’s post post on Anne of Green Gables at 100 (to the day) is fabulous, quoting from Montgomery’s journal entry the day her book came: “There in my hand lay the material realization of all the dreams and hopes and ambitions and struggles of my whole conscious existence—my first book!” Fine Lines (my favourite diversion) is going to become a book! And a profile of Jhumpa Lahiri.
I also went to the ROM this weekend. Their exhibit “Out from Under: Disability, History, and Things to Remember” is extraordinary (and on until July 13).
June 17, 2008
The whole thing
We went to Ottawa this weekend, which was brilliant all around (cousins, markets, barbeques), but I was particularly appreciative of a good ten hours spent train journeying, which of course makes for good reading. I did Fever and Prodigal Summer, and also CNQ. This is my second issue of the magazine– I raved about Issue 72 back in December. This issue lived right on up to my heightened expections: so much learning in one package seems a miracle. So much to challenge me, whether to understand, to be enlightened, or even to disagree. If you’ve got an interest in Canadian literary matters and you’re not reading CNQ, you’re missing out on something extraordinary. Serves as an example of what a magazine can truly be. It sounds like I’m overstating, but I’m really not. Robyn Sarah’s “Delivered to Chance” and David A. Kent on Margaret Avison were my favourite bits, but really (shhh…) I liked the whole thing.
June 12, 2008
Forgetting to bring a camera
I’ve got a train journey coming up this weekend, and I can’t decide what novels to take. Of course I’ve got a mess of magazines waiting– this week Walrus, London Review of Books, and Canadian Notes and Queries all arrived in the post. I’ll also soon have my mitts upon the New Yorker Summer Fiction Issue. But still, I feel a train trip takes a novel, and that periodicals won’t suffice. Mostly because no journey is complete without a novel irrevocably linked to it.
To and from California in Feb. was Arlington Park and Anagrams. To and from Montreal in Sept. was A Short History of Tractors… and Atonement. The last time I went to Ottawa, I read Sweetness in the Belly. Town House en route to England last June, and Bliss on the way back. Etc. etc. You see what I mean?
It would be like forgetting to bring a camera.
May 14, 2008
Unless
This past weekend has ruined me, and I remain in a coma. Or perhaps I just can’t stop reading Rebecca long enough to focus on anything else. And I have a stack of books-to-be-read up to my elbows, so thankfully this weekend is a long one and I can fill it well.
Last evening I attended the Fiery First Fiction event, and it did not disappoint. I particularly enjoyed hearing Nathan Whitlock read from A Week of This (which I read last month), Shari Lapeña read from her book (which I’ve got upcoming), and then there was Claudia Dey who must have sold her book a thousand times. Personally I’m not sure how I’d live long without it– her reading was unbelievable. Coach House is publishing wonderful books these days; remember Pulpy and Midge? And I also want to read Girls Fall Down by Maggie Helwig.
Read Claudia Dey profiled in The Toronto Star. Watch “the list of books that make the best use of their type” at Baby Got Books. Lorrie Moore’s Collected Stories reviewed. Margaret Drabble is characteristically excellent in “The beginning of life should not be a subject for a crude polemic”.
Today whilst reading The Danforth Review on A Week of This, I was surprised to see my own review referenced. Bryson’s points are interesting, and I found quite illuminating his assertion that novels “are fictional inventions of imagined worlds. They are performances of language, and the references they make to each other– explicitly or implicitly– are of greater interest than a novel’s photo realism.” True enough, perhaps, but then isn’t the novel quite a multitudinous thing? And don’t we all approach it differently?
And like Heather Mallick, I’ve noticed this month’s issue of The Walrus is decidedly short on women writers. “Apparently you can’t have a good magazine unless women are writing it,” writes one of Mallick’s avid readers. But you sort of can’t, actually, in this day and age. Not if you’re writing a general interest/current events magazine, and women are writing practically none of it– is this really surprising? The only pieces written by women are two of four “field notes”, one of four book reviews, a poem by P.K. Page, and one of nine letters to the editor. (Perhaps the whole issue is the answer to Austin Clarke’s story title, “Where Are the Men?”) What all this signifies exactly, I cannot venture to say. But then to me the facts appear as such, I don’t actually need to say anything.
In related news, I’m looking forward to reading Why Women Should Rule the World by Dee Dee Myers. Check out coverage at The Savvy Reader.
April 13, 2008
Dancing about Literature
My short essay “Dancing About Literature” appears in Descant 140: Improvisations, which is in stores now. The piece is about the joys of literary blogging, which I’m so pleased to experience here and elsewhere. The issue also contains work by such notables as P.K. Page, Alberto Manguel, and Anthony De Sa.
April 6, 2008
Chatelaine turns 80
I bought the May issue of Chatelaine, mainly because it was thick, on sale for 1.99, and I wanted to be part of the birthday fete. I don’t buy the magazine usually– women’s magazines tend to overwhelm me with “tips”and “solutions”, rendering me altogether hopeless. Though I do make a point of reading Chatelaine‘s books pages at the grocery store checkout. But I’m pleased I got this issue, and not just because of the fabulous vintage covers. No, I was most of all delighted by the “tea time” feature, with recipes for scones, tiny sandwiches, and ice teas. Accompanied by a gorgeous photo layout, and the obligatory Henry James quote. Will be clipped and kept for life.
