Latest news with #womenwriters
Telegraph
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Trans books for toddlers are an outrage
But let's move away from the brazen attempts to brainwash little children for just a moment and settle down in the story corner for today's educational tale (with apologies to Eric Carle), The Very Publicity-Hungry Campaigner. One day a tiny and very publicity-hungry campaigner, who wanted to be a big deal, hatched a plan to recruit pre-school allies. He had guessed, quite rightly, that toddlers were the only demographic likely to believe his guff that anyone can change sex if they just pop on a frock and get furious about pronouns. On the first day, The Very Publicity-Hungry Campaigner gobbled up one publishing deal. On the second day he wrote two books explaining that girls who play with trains are probably boys and boys who like pink should be taken to a doctor and diagnosed as transgender. On the third day, The Very Publicity-Hungry Campaigner bullied women writers who did not agree with his crackpot notions. On the fourth day he slapped a great big Stonewall Award sticker on a book about a sister becoming a brother. On the fifth day, he ate a wheelbarrow of oranges and threatened to cancel anyone who said they were not the only fruit. Then on the sixth day, he disseminated a library of kids' books in which gender transitioning turned out to be the twinkly secret of a happy-ever-after. On the seventh day, he devoured every last scrap of bonkers gender ideology he could find and disappeared off to digest it. Some time later, The Very Publicity-Hungry Campaigner emerged looking like an extra from RuPaul's Drag Race and announced he was now a biological woman. The Very Publicity-Hungry Campaigner banged on about his lived experience (of about a week). It was tempting to get very cross indeed. But then the Supreme Court decided that references to 'sex', 'man' and 'woman' in the Equality Act referred to biological sex and after that, nobody cared what he said, safe in the knowledge it was now illegal for him to manspread in the ladies' changing room or beat women to a pulp in the Olympics. The End. If only it were. I thought we were done with all this nonsense – Martine Croxall we salute your eye roll at the witless term 'pregnant people' – and I for one have no desire to give Very Publicity-Hungry Campaigners any more of the attention they so desperately crave. Fighting dirty But new research into the publishing industry carried out by UK pressure group Sex Matters and its US equivalent, SEEN in Publishing, has revealed that a 'shiny, sparkly world of trans identities' is being promoted to young readers, with 'many aimed at toddlers'. Now that really is fighting so dirty I have to speak up: how dare publishers literally mess with little children's minds in this way? Here in north London having two mums is commonplace, two dads is no biggie; small kids aren't that interested in their parents' sexual preferences, they are interested in being loved, nurtured and protected. Growing up is hard enough work, which is why it's utterly immoral to draw toddlers, who haven't even mastered the potty, into the adult world of human identity politics. What next? Assisted dying and late-stage abortion? At this age, most of our collective offspring still believe Paw Patrol is real and the moon follows them home, for pity's sake. Sowing the seeds of doubt about their biological sex is outrageous, indefensible and, let's be honest, exceedingly creepy. Let our littlest citizens learn tolerance, fairness (yes even to women) kindness (ditto) and consideration. But they also deserve to know they have the right to ask questions and press for answers – anathema to the militant trans lobby who prefer to shut everyone down in case they bring up uncomfortable truths like biology. This new audit of the publishing industry found that of 21 publishers surveyed, a fifth of their output on transgender-related products was targeted at children, leading the report to raise concerns that the message in the early-reader books was often that becoming transgender will 'resolve bodily hatred and create enduring joy in the form of 'trans euphoria''. Crikey, if that were the case we'd all be at it. But it's not. Take a look at the shouty trans forums online and I've got to say that enduring joy doesn't feature nearly as often as spittle-flecked misogyny.
Irish Times
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
My Name is Emilia del Valle: A lighthearted and comical late-Victorian adventure
My Name is Emilia del Valle Author : Isabel Allende, tr. Frances Riddle ISBN-13 : 978-1526683359 Publisher : Bloomsbury Guideline Price : £18.99 The heroine of Isabel Allende 's My Name is Emilia del Valle is the illegitimate daughter of a Chilean aristocrat and an Irish novice nun. Born in 19th-century San Francisco, Emilia is an author of thrilling 'dime novels' and a journalist, which takes her across the United States before catapulting her into Chile 's 1891 civil war. This is Allende's most lighthearted book, a late-Victorian adventure with exotic locales, hair's-breadth escapes, and genuine comedy. Imagine a more action-packed David Copperfield narrated by a Latina Josephine March. Although Emilia observes that 'docility and eagerness to please, celebrated qualities in a woman, were grave obstacles to moving up in the world', the women – be they nun, bellydancer or canteen girl – are thorny and bright, skirting and subverting stereotypes. Emilia's mother Molly, a fanatic moral paragon 'armed with her rolling pin', shows an astonishing talent for dreaming up dime-novel plots. ('The gorier and bloodier the details, the happier she seemed.') Emilia's bejewelled great-aunt Paulina gives a speech at a deathbed so hilarious and poignant it would make Charles Dickens himself smile. READ MORE There are parallels between Emilia and her author, both writers who are born into important political families, grow up without their birth fathers, and survive a Chilean civil revolution. Emilia's forays as a dime novelist could be a nod to critics who have called the author's work shallow. What's more, the personal tone of Emilia's newspaper columns perhaps winks to a moment in Allende's journalism career, when the poet Pablo Neruda told her, 'You are the worst journalist in this country. You put yourself always in the middle of everything.' [ Inside the Stargazer's Palace by Violet Moller: A front seat at the birth of science Opens in new window ] The magical realism often associated with Allende's work makes no appearance; instead the novel is grounded in actual events. Historical figures include San Francisco Examiner editor Samuel Chamberlain, Chilean journalist Rodolfo León, and Patrick Egan, Irish activist and US ambassador to Chile. But even the slightest of characters in the novel's densely populated pages is crafted tenderly and given dignity and depth. It echoes the heroine's own authorial aspirations, focusing as she does during an early trip to New York, 'on the workers who all had abandoned their families to keep the trains running ... the waiters who slept upright'. Despite being stripped of Allende's trademark spirits, Emilia del Valle, with its resolute compassion, still manages to enchant.
ABC News
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Romance fiction enjoys comeback as women seek escapism
Romance novels are enjoying a renaissance in Australia but their female characters are no longer just dreaming of marrying a knight in shining armour. The contemporary female protagonists in modern-day romance fiction deal with real-life struggles and dramas, are proactive rather than passive and have agency in their lives. And readers are here for that, with an average annual growth rate of 49 per cent over three years for Australian sales of romance fiction, a genre once trivialised as a low-brow guilty pleasure. According to Nielsen BookScan Australia, 3 million romance books, valued at $46.4 million, sold in 2024. With romance sub-genres such as rural, historical, paranormal, erotic, billionaire, LGBTQIA and romantasy, the female protagonists in these stories are diversified and represent women's experience across different cultural, faith and class backgrounds. Collins Booksellers owner Natasha Hunt in Sale, Victoria has observed an uprising of female writers in the fiction and memoir space, and women who want, as readers, to be inspired and feel joy, particularly with romance, general fiction and romantasy. "There's some fantastic literature out there," she said. Ms Hunt describes that immersive experience and the pleasure of touching the pages and feeling the weight of a book as an alternative to doing "bite-sized bits on the phone" and endless scrolling. "They hold a book, they sit in their favourite place, their favourite couch, looking out the window and immersing in that story, sipping a wine or a coffee or whatever brings them joy." It is also a portal for learning about life and relationships. In a world of digital transactions in which people lack connection, Ms Hunt believes women are seeking depth, nuance and the lost art of getting to know someone slowly, even if that is through a story. The slow awakenings, prolonged courtships and gradual unravelling of a book offer a counter point to the relatively superficial online realm. "The world is hard at the moment. Books are not cheap, but people will buy a book and then share it with their family and their friends — it's the gift that keeps giving." Upper Pakenham-based rural fiction author Jennifer Scoullar has published 13 books, but only after a career change. Her ambitions to become a writer were thwarted by her mother's insistence that she pursue a career in law. After years of working as a lawyer with the National Crime Authority and Legal Aid, she became burnt out and desensitised to the daily stories of human struggle, a burden that took a toll on her wellbeing. Feeling that she was losing her empathy towards people, she delved into the escapism of writing, creating worlds where she could control the behaviour of her characters and the situations they faced, even granting them a more optimistic future. Eventually she made the break and quit law to write. It was a move that would bring an end to her marriage, and confront her with the challenges of raising her four children alone. She completed a year-long novel writing course with Writers Victoria but with no industry connections or big profile to launch a book in a market saturated by celebrity cookbooks and biographies, Ms Scoullar's chances of being published were slim. But then a friend suggested attending a writers' conference, where she was able to pitch to publisher Belinda Byrne, sister of First Tuesday Book Club presenter Jennifer Byrne, who was on the hunt for a rural fiction writer. The chance meeting resulted in a book deal with Penguin Australia. Stratford-based author and women's literary event organiser Lisa Ireland is in the process of writing her ninth book published by Penguin Random House. Originally from the western suburbs of Melbourne and a teacher for 20 years, Ms Ireland said her books had mirrored the various stages of her life, from finding love, to motherhood through to middle age. She believes the women's fiction movement is primarily driven by younger female readers, who are discovering books and authors through TikTok and Instagram and want to see their own lives represented. "Our stories are just as important as men's stories," Ms Ireland said.
