Alison Bechdel on 'the problem of women writing' and why everyone could use an instruction manual:
Alison Bechdel, whose most recent book, Are You My Mother?, is out this week, on "the problem of women writing"
Bio: Carlene Bauer has written for n + 1, Salon, Slate, and Elle. She is the author of the memoir Not That Kind of Girl, and the forthcoming novel Frances and Bernard. (photo by Justin Lane)
"I'm writing about the problem of women writing," she admitted. The "core problem," as Bechdel called it, being the conflict between motherhood and artistic ambition. "I don't mean to oversimplify things," she said, "because I know that many women have creative lives and raise children. But how many Leonard Woolfs are there? Not many." More
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on May 8th, 2012 11:15amOne may debate Lillian Hellman's merits as a playwright and prose writer, or question whether her refusal to name names when she was called in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee served anything other than her own ego, but in reading Alice Kessler-Harris's book, A Difficult Woman, one gets the sense that Hellman's most lasting and undebatable achievement might have been willing herself into a resolutely unconventional and full life that was not predicated on her being a wife or a mother. More
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on April 25th, 2012 4:00pm
