What a lovely and amazing event to celebrate International Women's Day with UK author Naomi Alderman, US author Sarah Blake, and Turkish author Elif Shafak! Guardian journalist Homa Khaleeli facilitated a panel discussion on 'Women & Self-Censorship'. Some comments from the speakers certainly left me with lots of food for thought, especially what Naomi Alderman said about how books written by women are usually bought by women while books written by men tend to have a wider audience - both men and women. An audience member also asked what the speakers thought about the fact that her book club tended to read classics written mostly by men, as opposed to those written by women - whether modern or classics. Naomi suggested that this could be representative of the misplaced belief that work by women are perceived as women speaking whereas work by men may be perceived as 'people' speaking. Hmmm... hopefully the day will come when the idea that contemporary fiction by women writers are mere 'chick lit' will be debunked. If books represent a dialogue between the writer and the reader, let's keep the dialogue going, regardless of whether the writer is a man or a woman. - Fran
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