‘I’m just being a bitch again’, wrote Amy King, in response to a post by Blake Butler at the HTMLGIANT blog announcing the contributors for issue #2 of We Are Champion magazine. None of the ten writers is female.

King originally posted a comment at the original HTMLGIANT post:

I love Gary Lutz and Mike Young, but I ain’t buying this mag. Three women writers in the entire contents of two issues? And it’s a new mag?

…

I’m sure the editor, or someone, will come along and insult me, call me bitchy names, mock my face, etc in “defense” of the contents and for pointing out such obviousness, but it’s plain and simple: here we go again, repeating the old exclusive boy’s club traditions of what we thought was fading. Shall we all retreat to Black Mountain and sit at Olson’s feet whilst we write poems for Pound? Oh, I’ll shut up; that’s my job.

Butler later wrote a post in response, titled ‘Language over Body’ (and imagine what another Butler would have to say about that):

When you are reading or editing an issue of a magazine, do you perform a contributor penis and vagina count, to verify a decent mix? Do you perform a race count? Do you verify the range of the letters in the last names? Read more

The Miles Franklin longlist for 2010 has been announced – and with only three of the 12 writers women, the signs are ominous that there may be another sausage fest (aka all-male shortlist) this year.

In strictly objective alphabetical order, the longlist is:

Patrick Allington, Figurehead
Peter Carey, Parrot and Olivier in America
Brian Castro, The Bath Fugues
Jon Doust, Boy on a Wire
Deborah Forster, The Book of Emmett
David Foster, Sons of the Rumour
Glenda Guest, Siddon Rock
Sonya Hartnett, Butterfly
Thomas Keneally, The People’s Train
Alex Miller, Lovesong
Craig Silvey, Jasper Jones
Peter Temple, Truth

While there’s not the very obvious omission of female literary heavyweights that there was last year (when Kate Grenville, Helen Garner, Amanda Lohrey and Joan London all missed out), the gender imbalance is still curious, to say the least. Read more

International Women’s Day is celebrated this month (8 March). Recently, there have been some really interesting discussions and debates about the gender divisions between male and female writers: whether they in fact exist in this ‘post-feminist’ world and if so, how they present and what those divides mean.

Last year, there was a flurry of discussion following the all-male Miles Franklin shortlist, dubbed a ‘sausage fest’ by Literary Minded blogger Angela Meyer. It was a year when female heavyweights like Helen Garner, Kate Grenville, Joan London and Amanda Lohrey released eligible, critically acclaimed, books that didn’t even make the longlist, let alone the shortlist. Miles Franklin judge Morag Fraser reported that she ‘walked out of our two-hour shortlist meeting without realising what we had done’ and that there were ‘no conclusions to be drawn’ from the outcome. And I’m sure that nobody in that room made a conscious decision to choose an all-male shortlist, but rather chose what they thought were the best books published during the period that met the award criteria, an exercise that will always be somewhat subjective – and the results of which, for Australia’s leading literary prize, will reflect something about the current values of Australia’s literary culture.

Former Miles Franklin judge Kerryn Goldsworthy observed as much on her blog, Australian Literature Diary, concluding that ‘if the dominant culture is a sausage fest, then, well, you know’. Meanjin’s Sophie Cunningham added an intriguing angle to the discussion. ‘What was the problem? Too modest in scope? Too domestic? The undermining of women’s writing involves the use of many such phrases.’ With the exception of Grenville’s The Lieutenant, the other books that were surprisingly left off the longlist could indeed fit these criteria, with their intense focus on relationships and domestic politics. ‘I think at the moment there’s a feeling that women shouldn’t write about domesticity about relationships, or about middle-class concerns,’ the wonderful UK writer Rachel Cusk – whose novels and non-fiction writing intensely explore domestic concerns – told The Book Show last month. Cusk recently wrote an article for the Guardian about this feeling: ‘Women … might cease to produce “women’s writing” not because they are freer but because they are more ashamed, less certain of a general receptiveness, and even, perhaps, because they suspect they might be vilified.’

It’s a fascinating and complex debate, and one we should continue to have, to keep us evaluating and thinking about the kinds of writing we value in our culture and why – or why not. Of course, I think both women and men should be able to write about any subject they fancy. But I also think that some of the best writing – in my subjective opinion – is that which examines human nature, human relationships, the intricacies of how we live our lives, and mirrors them back to us so we can better understand ourselves. And as domestic life will always be an area ripe for that kind of examination, I fervently hope that our most talented writers don’t feel obliged to steer away from that arena for fear of not being taken seriously.

It would appear that Gideon Haigh found it irresistible – when invited to write a piece for a new magazine called Kill Your Darlings – to mount a wholesale assault not just on his putative target, (alleged) hack reviewers, but the wider Oz literary culture itself – from his point of view a ‘small, snobbish, fashion-conscious’ bratpack colluding (no less) to dish up the literary equivalent of Myki ‘smart’ cards to an unsuspecting, impoverished reading public.

Now, I’m the last one to suggest this doesn’t make good copy – Haigh’s journalistic credentials stand him in good stead here. For those with long enough memories, his essay stands in the clear tradition of Mark Davis’s incendiary Gangland: Cultural Elites and the New Generationalism – all very self-righteous and frothing at the mouth at perceived cultural apparatchiks. But in Davis’s case I remember thinking he did at least have some salient points, and certainly the career of the reigning pontiff in Australian literary criticism at the time, Peter Craven, never seemed to quite recover from Davis’s rather withering analysis of his motives.

I can only speak for myself though in finding Haigh’s assessment of the current crop of literary reviewers well wide of the mark. To my mind, by contrast, it seems a veritable renaissance at present in Australia’s reviewing culture. When JM Coetzee’s latest novel Summertime appeared last year, I relished the wonderful extended analyses by the likes of Geordie Williamson, James Ley and Delia Falconer that appeared in various publications. Indeed (and again contra Haigh), whomever reviewers such as these decide to write about, I inevitably tend to read their reviews: I know I’m going to be entertained and instructed, as expected from all good criticism. Kevin Rabelais and Jennifer Levasseur regularly publish considered and well-researched pieces, and a raft of others – the likes of On, Bradley, Starford, Williams, Swinn and Case (I’m probably leaving several noteworthies out here – please don’t take offence!) – all bring intelligence and taste to their – yes – usually very modestly remunerated commissions.

Of course, there’s still the occasional punitive piece (seemingly something Haigh wishes more of) but most readers, I’m sure, think: ‘surely-there’s-another-agenda-going-on-here?’ The most recent example that comes to mind is Catherine Ford’s near demolition of Cate Kennedy’s debut novel The World Beneath late last year, all very peculiar coming from a fellow well-regarded short story practitioner whose own first novel seemed to find scant fanfare. And that Melbourne literary types now grace the glossy supplements under the heading ‘Page Turners’ suggests the marketing wing of the new Wheeler Centre might be overdoing the ‘writer-as-celebrity’ just a tad.

But overall I fear that Gideon, you’re just not reading the review pages these days! That is probably the thing for all of us to be really concerned about – that books seem to be getting shunted ever deeper into the recesses of our newspapers. But still there are glimmers of hope – Ben Naparstek seems to have upped the word count at The Monthly for his book reviews page, giving reviewers more space to do some sort of justice to their subjects. He even ran an extraordinary critique of a book written by his chairman’s wife – no shrinking violet this man! Over at The Australian Miriam Cosic regularly has well-considered pages. I could go on.

So: Ozlit seems to me to be in remarkable good health at present, despite Haigh’s diagnosis to the contrary. Lots of new (and sometimes very exciting) work, considerable marketing and (healthy) buzz surrounding both new and established writers, and, most of all, much good faith amongst all those who work in and care for the industry, not least amongst the ranks of professional book reviewers.

My great literary and intellectual hero, the late WG Sebald, remarked somewhere once that a writer must at all costs avoid the contemporary literary marketplace – fashions, literary ‘rivals’, etc. – and indeed his own fame accrued only slowly and amongst a small dedicated following (much like Cormac McCarthy’s, I might add). Now each writer has of course to handle the accoutrements of publicity, of forging a career as a writer, each in their own way – a by no means easy task to negotiate in a culture which puts such a small premium on the written word.

But, a gravy train? Haigh’s insinuation is a bit of an insult – to authors and reviewers alike. It’s one thing to kill your darlings, quite another to throw the baby out with the (damn fine) bathwater.

Martin Shaw is books division manager of Readings Books Music & Film and an editorial adviser to Kill Your Darlings.