It's always good when women win things in fiction because it tends to be more male-dominated, unlike poetry, which is more equal.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Literary fiction is kept alive by women. Women read more fiction, period.
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.
Women are far and away the bigger consumers of fiction than men, but men are still far and away the more reviewed, the more critically esteemed, the more respected. That can get frustrating.
I think in general, novels by men tend to be taken more seriously than novels by women.
The public is probably more suspicious of poets than women, and maybe for good reason.
Most of my writer friends are women, and they're all extremely talented, so of course I think the state of contemporary fiction for women is pretty great. Which is to say there is a ton of amazing work out there. These women are writing hard. There's much to be said. We're on it, chief.
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.
Nobody is surprised that women writers accurately represent male characters over and over again, no doubt because everybody knows that women understand men much better than vice-versa.
Far more women read fiction than men, and because of this, novels have become marginalised as serious texts.
I wonder if novels work for women because they give us a safe place to talk about our ish.