This Week in Chick Lit
  July 29, 2011  |    Author:  admin

~ By Melina Kantor

Happy weekend, everyone. 🙂

To those of you who took the poll on Monday, thank you! If you haven’t had a chance.

The poll showed that readers are most interested in author guest posts, posts on writing industry, and resources and tools for writers. Good to know! We’ll do our best.

As for what’s happening with our favorite genre this week:

Mostly, there’s a lot of talk about chick lit author and member of parliament (aka “Chick Lit MP”) Louise Mensch. (We mentioned this article she wrote, in defense of romance and chick lit, two weeks ago, as you may recall.)

Of course, most of the attention she’s getting this week is on her phone hacking select committee hearing.

Sadly, it seems that her history as an author of 12 chick lit books has come back to haunt her, especially on one particular blog:

. . . but the blog’s snide, patronising tone – Bagehot calls her “the author of breathless ‘chick lit‘ novels” — sticks in the throat. Since her election last year, Mensch has struggled to be taken seriously, her career as a bestselling author continually bandied about as an indication of her lack of gravitas. Such sneering persistently dogs female authors of commercially successful novels that appeal predominantly to women: the genre dubbed, in a vastly unsatisfactory and reductive term, “chick lit”.

Thoughts? Comments?

And yet again, Jennifer Weiner is all over Google again. She herself posted a link on Facebook to an interview in the San Francisco Chronicle about her new TV show and new book.

Yeah, she’s still on a roll!

Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments! As always, if you’ve got links to any other chick lit or romance news items, let us know.

Have a great weekend, and see you next week.

Melina writes contemporary women’s fiction with a pinch of oregano and a dash of chutzpah. She is spending her summer visiting family and friends in Crete and Israel, and doing her best to turn her travels into research and inspiration for her writing. You can visit her at http://melinakantor.com.