Authors Electric

Last month my blog post  partly looked back at couple of interesting facts about my own family ancestry, including two studio photographs showing middle class women smartly dressed in the fashion of the time. In this post I want to talk about Sarah Moss ’ s follow-up novel, which continues the story of Alethea, (once ‘poor baby’), begun in Bodies of Light , the book which brought to mind for me the strange fact that the two families who would be later joined by my parents’ marriage both had connections to the Pre-Raphaelites. One thing which has really struck me reading these novels, and was brought to the fore of all our minds in the past week or so, is that the position of male and female has not changed since Victorian times. What do I mean by this? Surely today's woman is an independent person, capable of earning her own living in any field she chooses, spending her own money without necessary reference to any male relative?   Of course she has the vote, won by the hard c...

On Facebook this week, Guardian Teen Books was asking ‘Where are all the girls in adventure-ready trousers ’ in children’s books today. If you can think of any, they want to know.   Why? Thought we’d won that battle. I recommended my battle-ready girls, Joan of Arc’s friend, Mariane, Viking girl, Beren,  and Aoife, my Druid elephant keeper but I don’t think they meant our heroines from past ages.   No, what they had in mind, I think, was feisty tomboys, girls ready to explore and jump from rock to rock and light fires, capable, brave, self-sufficient and hardy. That sort of thing.  Well, where are they, then, and why is the Guardian asking? Are they suggesting that writers practise some kind of social manipulation, by inventing a certain kind of female role model?  Mm.   It set me thinking about the role children’s books play in children’s lives. Do they reflect them, exploring real problems, or do they actually mould them, to promote...

          So, at the risk of touching upon an emotive and controversial Die's forthcoming book subject for my first Authors Electric post, I really need to talk about the treatment of women in horror (not to mention writing in general). This is a huge topic. I’m not even scratching the surface here.           Horror is no place for women.           Of course I’m saying that as an ‘outrageous opening statement’, similar to the recent and excellent New Statesman article ‘ I hate strong female characters ’. But I do mean it a little. Why any woman would want to bother writing in the horror genre considering the pernicious, outmoded sexism that’s rife in it is beyond me.           Every genre writer I’m sure is aware that (and I don’t want to blanket here, there are good examples out there; this is just ba...