Skip to Content

Books that are written by women for women about women

9 November 2009

'I've always felt that I have tried to give women of a particular generation a voice. I do think chick list has potentially been very powerful as it has looked at things like our awful relationship with our bodies, our relationship with food, with the beauty industry, our relationship with work - the fact that we're still not equal... So I don't think chick lit is always as fluffy as the title implies. Nevertheless, I sort of feel that I've transcended it, I've evolved and so have my readers. I still think there's a place for the fluffy. I do think it's another form of misogyny to denigrate books that are written for women by women about women.

(Publishing)'s become a lot more brutal. I see it with first-time authors, there's far less opportunity to build an author any more. You're straight out of the tracks and if you're not a big success on the first book there isn't the same kind of loving care. | hope I don't sound disloyal saying that, but that is the reality.'

Marian Keyes, author of The Brightest Star in the Sky, in the Bookseller