Well done to all the winners in the five categories for this years Costa Awards. For the first time in history all five are female. Also well done to the winner of the Man Booker Award who was once again a women. If you add in the other big award for writing in the all female Orange Price and you will have a clean sweep of all the major writing prizes by women.
Men are left standing out in the cold. All these people deserve their awards no matter what their sex is because they are all good writers, but it does seem to prove a point I was trying to make in my blog called "The female advantage" posted on the 12/12/12.
Because women have worked so hard to gain an equal footing in publishing they now dominate in large parts of it. Is this now causing a female dominated circle in fiction? Are good male writers even getting on the first rung of the ladder because of their sex?
It seems to be happenning in other countries too, not just the u.k. In America, Germany, Canada, Austrlia, etc. Check it out in your own part of the world.
I noticed this trend when I first started to write and reserched in advance; who was who in the industry, both agents and publishers.
Nearly everyone was female and it did give me the idea of writing under a womens name just as women writers used male names in victorian times.
The other option I was going to do was to try and get published with no name, so no one would know what sex I was, what country I came from, the colour of my skin, or anything else about me, they would just buy the book because it was a good story with no prejudgements. The book was to be written by the unknown author.
Who knows I may even have done it!
Who Knows what my real name is!
Hi, so what you are saying is that the rolls have now changed in fiction writing. Men are now the lesser species and that women dominate. Women run the show and so will promote the type of new writing they like which will most likely be other unknown female authors?
ReplyDeleteSo new male authors are being by-passed?
In my country i am told that men can not write romance thats why i do not get a contract. always women say this why?
ReplyDeleteThere's plenty of subjects where men still come first in writing. Boring history or religious books for two, and sport as well. Fiction and childrens stories you need more than just facts and that's why women now come top.
ReplyDelete