Quote

Far more women read fiction than men, and because of this, novels have become marginalised as serious texts.

I think in general, novels by men tend to be taken more seriously than novels by women.

Literary fiction is kept alive by women. Women read more fiction, period.

I don't think I'm interested in writing women's novels anymore.

I'm not an especially male novelist, but I think men are better at writing about men, and the same is true for women. Reading Saul Bellow is a revelation, but he can't write women. There are exceptions, like Marilynne Robinson's 'Gilead,' but generally, I think it's true.

It is difficult to get men to pick up a female author. Women will read men, but men won't read women.

Writers and readers are still trying to work out unresolved problems between men and women, and that is why millions of women around the world are hooked on romantic fiction. So am I.

I think printed fiction is what women read.

Three of my novels and a good number of my short stories are told from the point of view of men. I was brought up in a house of women.

Certainly, there is a tendency to lump women who write similar types of books together, and it's not just in crime, is it? Women's fiction is supposedly a whole genre of itself. There's no male equivalent.