Women's Writing, Not as Good as Mens...

Wow! An unexpected heatwave. I have to say I'm loving it and I hope, if you're here in the UK, you are too. Suddenly the sun shines and it feels as if anything is possible. The world is brighter, literally and metaphorically, and let's face it we were due some fine weather. So this week, encouraged by the sun, I've been taking a kind of holiday, at home.

I have to confess that I’m not really writing at the moment. I'm not yet engaged in a new project. Ideas that bubbled up before I’d finished, The Silent Women, have so far failed to truly or consistently, inspire me. Thinking about creating the world of the novel, which was the subject of the Linen Press, online event last Wednesday, ( if you were there- thank you so much for joining me - and if you weren't but wanted to be, I'm trying to track down a recording) I realised that both my Linen Press novels had their genesis in a short story. Not that the story itself translated into a novel, but that the place, the context, or a character emerging from that context began the process that sets a novel away. I do have one or two other short stories which have about them the feeling of unfinished business, things that could be explored further, and yet at the moment I’m not persuaded to begin unravelling new strands.

I suspect that I need fallow time, rather like a field that has been exhausted by growing, I need to rest a while and think and more than anything during that time I need to read. It's not always easy to read when you're fully engaged in writing a novel as all your attention is given to your own words and to the world you are creating. Now I have the time, the inclination and the patience, to explore the work of other writers. And it may be this that will lead me in the direction of my next novel.

When I began writing poetry I got seriously worried by the fact that I would read a poem and immediately want to write my version of that poem, which would be something new, but definitely inspired by my reading. It felt as if I was borrowing ideas, stealing them even. However, I soon discovered that one poem leads to another.

...mostly poetry fills me
with the urge to write poetry,
to sit in the dark and wait for a little flame
to appear at the tip of my pencil.

And along with that, the longing to steal,
to break into the poems of others
with a flashlight and a ski mask...

from The Trouble With Poetry, Billy Collins

What you hope to read is the poem that so inspires, you feel you must write something yourself and perhaps that is what I am hoping will emerge from my reading now; a novel that says to me yes, this is the kind of novel I want to write. The kind of novel that makes me want to open my notebook and start all over again..

In the meantime, I thought I’d share with you a somewhat salutary tale - here goes:

I’m sitting in what is fast, becoming one of my favourite places, Collected Books, Durham, an independent bookshop that specialises in women’s writing, though I should add, also stocks regional male writers. I’m sitting at a small table with a black coffee and a pile of, The Silent Women, in front of me. I've brought the books on behalf of Linen Press, (their postmistress being on holiday) at the request of the proprietor Emma, and I’ve just signed them.

As well as signing books and looking at books and inevitably buying books–this time it's Sarah Bernstein's, Study for Obedience–I've decided to sit and write. So, here I am, sitting quietly with my notebook open in front of me, when it happens. It's all over in a matter of a minutes, but its aftermath lingers much longer.

Emma is standing next to my table, and we are talking about the forthcoming Collected Books, in–conversation event, with Emma Donoghue, when a woman, around my age (I would guess), hovers in front of us. Behind her, stands a man I assume to be her husband. We stop talking.

Emma steps forwards and asks in her quiet, friendly manner, 'Can I help you?'

'Have you got a book called...? (I don’t really catch the title, likewise the author) by Martin.... ?'  His surname is lost on me, though I’m pretty sure it isn’t Amis.

Emma thinks for a moment then shakes her head. 'No, I’m sorry I don’t,' she says in the nicest possible way.

The woman hesitates, seems a little taken aback.

'You see, we specialise in women’s books,' says Emma.

'Why's that?' says the woman with an edge of confrontation already surfacing in her voice.

'Well, because women’s books are not as widely stocked or advertised or reviewed as men's, they don’t win as many prizes, they’re not read in the schools, and...'

 But before she can finish, the woman steps or rather lunges forward, chin out, and declares, 'Maybe because they’re just not as good.' Then turning on her heels triumphantly, she leaves, followed by her husband.

I am flabbergasted. We are flabbergasted, speechless, turning to other each other in disbelief, me checking, if I’d heard correctly.  Wondering not just at her message but at her manner and how someone could be quite so rude.

I can understand men might be miffed at the idea of a women’s only bookshop, or for that matter at a women’s only prize, but let’s face it, men have held sway in the world of literature and books, long enough, and to be fair in this particular instance, Emma has books by men, as I’ve already said, who are regional writers. Whatever we think about the cost of entering the Women’s Prize for Fiction, it was set up to redress the imbalance of which Emma spoke. Likewise, my publisher, Linen Press.

It is evident in the Vida count, that the balance is beginning to shift. Diversity has caught on, to a degree. Now, since 2020, women are for the first time publishing more books than men, but they are not replacing men. It's simply that the industry is growing. Sadly, evidence shows that the majority of men are less likely to read books by women. Whereas women are more eclectic in their taste. Though not it seems our visitor in the bookshop!

I read books by men. I love and admire books by men. Recently, in these pages, I mentioned, Sebastian Barry's, Old God’s Time, and I have just this week, finished, The House of Doors, by Tan Twan Eng - such exquisite writing. But I make no apology for being eternally grateful for a women-only publisher and a bookshop that will stock my books. Yes, things are improving, but if this brief encounter is anything to go by, we still have a long way to go. There are all kinds of arguments you can make for and against a woman’s only bookshop, there are all kinds of arguments you can make about why women are under-represented in the world of literature, but that women’s writing is not as good as men’s, is just not one of them.

Hope you're enjoying this taste of an Indian summer, long may it last

Thanks for reading

Avril x