After its sponsorship model changed from a single-headline partnership with Baileys, the Women's Prize is enjoying a golden summer of talks, workshops and a booming merchandise line backed by high-profile influencers.
From Sally Rooney to Raven Leilani, female novelists have captured the literary zeitgeist, with more buzz, prizes and bestsellers than men. But is this cultural shift something to celebrate or rectify?
The Nigerian-American author won the Orange Prize in 2007 and her ‘Half of a Yellow Sun' has been voted the best of the Women's Prize's 25 years of winners.
The Women's Prize has issued a statement saying that eligibility for the prize extends to "all women" where a woman is defined as "a cis woman, a transgender woman or anyone who is legally defined as a woman or of the female sex". Read more
Akwaeke Emezi, who became the first non-binary transgender author to be nominated for the Women's prize in 2019, has said that they will not let their future novels be entered for the award after the prize asked them for information on their sex as defined "by law". Read more
The Women's Prize for Fiction recently debuted an upcoming project which will mark the 25th anniversary of the prize: an initiative called "Reclaim Her Name" (#ReclaimHerName) which republishes famous works by twenty-five female authors who published under male nom-de-plumes in the 19th and early 20th centuries, including George Eliot, George Sand, Vernon Lee, and Arnold Petri. Read more
Women's prize sponsor Baileys has apologised for putting an illustration of the wrong black abolitionist on the cover of a book in a series republishing female authors who wrote under male pseudonyms - a project that has received mixed reactions since it launched earlier this week.
Middlemarch is to be published for the first time in almost 150 years under George Eliot's real name, Mary Ann Evans, alongside 24 other historic works by women whose writing has only ever previously been in print under their male pseudonyms.
The Women's Prize Trust is launching Discoveries, a writers' development programme offering aspiring female writers of all ages and backgrounds "encouragement and support" at the beginning of their creative journeys. Read more
The man in the video says there's a simple reason why I'm not rich. "Most people have a scarcity mindset," he explains through a thick Australian accent, addressing the camera like a wise mentor lecturing a student. "Top-tier people-actual movers and shakers that are doing things-have an abundance mindset." Behind him, an ancient sword hangs on the wall. For some reason, he's in a bathrobe.
Unlike English native-speakers, I didn't really encounter gothic novels in the first twenty-or-so years of my life. I grew up in the French-speaking part Switzerland, and my modern and medieval literature studies focused on French authors and their preoccupations. Therefore hearing the concept of ‘gothic' as a formative genre for the English psyche didn't really mean much to me... Read more
'As someone who's on their sixth novel and has had their ups and downs, I'm aware of how privileged and lucky I have been, and what a shock it can be for debut writers - all the reality of that world, and that new voice and when the book doesn't quite take off, it's a shock.
Publisher Spines will charge authors between $1,200 and $5,000 to have their books proofread, designed and distributed with the help of artificial intelligence
The 11th edition of the China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair ended its three-day run on November 17. Post-event statistics from co-organizer BolognaFiere showed that 41,262 attended the fair, including 17,081 professional visitors. A total of 353 professional events, book launches, and reading promotion activities were held. Read more
In These Strange New Minds: How AI Learned to Talk and What It Means (Viking, Mar.), neuroscientist Christopher Summerfield explores how large language models work.
The poet Ted Kooser turned 85 this year, and the Pulitzer Prize winner and former poet laureate of the United States is as productive as ever, with Copper Canyon Press putting out his latest volume, Raft, earlier this fall.
'Writing is not like painting where you add. It is not what you put on the canvas that the reader sees. Writing is more like a sculpture where you remove, you eliminate in order to make the work visible. Even those pages you remove somehow remain.'