http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1443910,00.html

Hmmmm, that was rather pathetic. Women should be more interested in what interests men, and then they would be more interesting .... difficulty is someone has to do the domestic, bring up the babies, otherwise there'll soon be no more men to do all that exciting risk-taking .... of course, we (and I mean there whoever brings up the babies, not just women) could try to raise the babies and still take risks, but then social services would step in ....

For my money, anyone who can't see there's very real magic amidst the undoubted drudgery of the domestic lacks imagination

Mind you, I wonder if the authors are just trying to be controversial, wind women up (perhaps they even think they're doing us a favour, alerting us to our dullness), yawn

Posted this elsewhere same article elsewhere...

For interest here is some info on the two authors names:

Ali Smith's books are imbued with a perceptiveness that is acute and probing for all that it is gentle and compassionate. She is a sparky and at times a wildly funny writer for whom the experience of being a gay woman is a central theme. Her writing takes its power from a subtly-paced accretion of small details that gradually reveal the fractals of meaning beneath the surface, the 'invisibles' of life. In this delicately incremental way she draws her readers towards sharing her insight and overview, creating a resonant sense of atmosphere and situation. In 1994 Ali Smith's first short story collection, Free Love, won the Saltire First Book Award. That she was a stylish and original new voice was confirmed with the publication of Like (1997) and Other Stories and Other Stories (1999). Hotel World (2001) is an ambitious novel that takes as its scenario the intersecting lives of five women over twenty-four hours in the surreally ersatz Global Hotel, where fate, chance and death are on the register.
(info from http://www.nls.uk/writestuff/heads/wee-alismith.html)

Can't find much bio info on Mr Litt, but here is a book review on his novel 'Deadkidsongs' to give an idea.

Fiction - paperback; Penguin; 401 pages; 2001

This is a dark, macabre novel about a group of four boys, known as Gang, growing up in rural England during the 1970s. The boys plot the downfall of an elderly couple in their village, blaming them for the death of one of the gang members.
As a revenge tale it is both strangely fascinating but deeply appalling. It reveals a world in which childhood allegiances can mean the difference between life and death, where petty grievances are elevated to all-consuming violence and innocence is virtually nonexistent.
Litt, through clever and imaginative use of language and narrative, has captured perfectly the bonds between children and their warped sense of justice. deadkidsongs is a deeply disturbing yet totally compelling read.

(review taken from http://kimbofo.typepad.com/readingmatters/author_surname_l/)

It’s hardly a great advert for their book, is it? I don’t feel inclined to look at it now – which is tough on the writers who did meet their standard.

They should have asked us on WW for contributions. We’re not dull or depressed. Don’t know about domesticated – what’s wrong with that anyway?

Dee

In today's Guardian, the writers/editors defend themselves thus:

'We love the media. It's so full of wild stories. But a lack of wildness in unsolicited stories by both genders is what we were commenting on in our intro to New Writing 13. As readers, we always hope for an intelligence that questions the given shape of things; as editors, we were simply looking for the best, the most exciting new writing we could get our hands on by established and unpublished writers.

The comments we made are an honest reflection of our impressions, having read hundreds of stories and novel extracts. Our disappointments wasn't at domestic subjects, which are so often the basis of brilliant writing, but with the lack of risk taking in the writing itself especially in unsolicted submissions. We found it hard to understand why writers with nothing to lose but time and postage were so unadventurous.

You have misrepresented not just women writers and us as editors, but our anthology, which, containing new work by, among others, authors Muriel Spark, Fay Weldon, Kate Atkinson, Jackie Kay, Helen Simpson, Nicola Barker and Maggie O'Farrell, is in itself far and away enough to disprove any argument that women writers are 'dull, depressed and domestic.'

Submissions for New Writing 14 are now open at http://www.newwriting.britishcouncil.org/about/submissions.

Toby Litt & Ali Smith, Picador Pan.'

So there! There's also a good range of defences/other viewpoints in today's Guardian 2, from Yvonne Roberts ageeing with the criticsms and a spirited rebeuttal from A L Kennedy.

Oh, going to look for that. Personally I can't really offer an opinion on women writers (although I consider that a huge generalisation in itself. Do all women writers write the same? Somehow I doubt that!). I admit to only reading a few female authors: Liz Jensen; Sarah Hall; Anna Reynolds (okay, I admit it. Tis a good book to those that are interested though); Banana Yoshimoto. And that's it. Pretty terrible I know!



<Added>

Oh and Rebbecca Ray. Bad still, but not as bad as first thought

sorry, sorry, sorry but here's another good link to the Gurdian

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1444493,00.html

I seem to be having lots of feminist rants lately, but with regards to this it sounds to me like their comments were taken out of context. They were merely making very honest observations about the submissions they'd received, and the fact they called it a 'strange trend' suggests it's not what they were expecting or looking for.

I know nothing about Ali Smith, but I have to say that Toby Litt is a fantastic writer - one of my favourites. I've read all of his novels now (finished one yesterday - which was written from a female POV and was excellent), heard him read live and had a chat with him, so to an extent, I kind of trust his opinion!

Cath

I've just been thinking about this because of the Abi Titmuss thread where the topic of women's position in society in general has been brought up.

So apparently a lot of women's submissions Smith and Litt received seemed domestic. If you think in the 70s it was all about protest. In the 80s there were 'career women', shoulder pads and power suits - women taking on a more masculine role. The 90s saw women paying a price for that, with the likes of Bridget Jones and a spate of 'loveable' career women who basically can't find a bloke. This is the main theme of what has come to be known as 'chick lit'(a derogative term, if you ask me).

Well, maybe this 'domestic' trend is a sign of women writers struggling with identity again, trying to find something beyond pastel coloured covers with twirling handbags on them?

Cath

<Added>

That should be derogatory, not derogative!

Isn't this simply a rehash of the old argument about the pram in the hall being a killer for creativity? Perhaps it's staying at home, isolated, writing, fretting about being published, whilst also doing the exhausting work inherent in looking after their families that makes some women writers this way. It's tough enough for those lucky enough to have a Woolfian room of one's own, but writing whilst dandling a baby must be an enormous challenge.

However, I'll never forget hearing the inspirational PD James recount how she got up early to write before making breakfast for her family, then worked all day for the civil service, came home, cooked dinner then wrote when the kids had gone to bed. There was certainly nothing dull or domestic about her work, and if she was depressed, then she didn't let that stop her from succeeding.

Adele.

I attended a meeting at the British Council in London where Toby Litt talked about his trip through China for 16 days on a train, with stopovers at Marriott-standard hotels. Considering the talk was supposed to be about the writer's experience of China, it was severely limited to first class travel and four star hotels. The preparation consisted of one day's research on the British Library! I would tke anything this guy says with a large pinch of salt.

Sheila