Writer or Wifey?

A recent piece in the Atlantic argues that women writers’ lack of all-supporting, all-sacrificing spouses—in the vein of Vera Nabokov—may be a missing link to help explain the lack of gender parity in the literary world today. Vera was the kind of wife who not only took care of all of the details of her family’s life (including doing all the driving—Vladimir never…

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What’s the worst review you ever got? Woolson’s was a doozy.  

At the beginning of Woolson's career, she wrote to William Dean Howells that the “critics seem to hold my very life in their hands.” She could not sleep after reading her reviews. In September 1874, she must have laid awake for nights after reading The Nation’s review of two of her stories just published. Without the support of Howells and other elite male writers,…

Continue ReadingWhat’s the worst review you ever got? Woolson’s was a doozy.