Art and Monsters – On Marion Zimmer Bradley and Not Looking Away

Karin Kallmaker Sisters of the Pen

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Trigger warning. This blog deals with child rape and a writer you probably loved. Marion Zimmer Bradley was a rare talent as a writer. Unfortunately she was also something even more rare: a female pedophile.

How do people with the power of art inside them commit monstrous acts? The emerging truth about MZB irreparably soils my love of her work. Read More

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“Women’s Fiction” – A Sign or an Answer to Sexism in the Book Industry?

Karin Kallmaker Business of Books

British novelist Joanne Harris’s Capitalize. This. is a blistering blog about sexist assumptions she routinely receives about her work. Women writers have heard them all – from the suggestion that if you write about a topic that was ever touched by a man, you’re capitalizing on the man’s involvement, to, of course, that you slept or in some way partnered with a man to get any success that you may have. Even lesbian writers get these belittling, dismissive statements that our careers somehow revolve around men. Read More