The latest issue of Mslexia – a magazine for women who write – includes a feature by Emily Midorikawa and me.
After The Times ran our piece on female writing friendships, we became interested in rivalry between women authors.
As writer friends who have often collaborated together and competed against each other, this is something we know all about. Indeed, the Spectator Books Blog commended us for touching on this in our feature for The Times.
In this new Mslexia feature, we have investigated why popular ideals of female friendships rarely accommodate competition. Why is it, for instance, that Mansfield and Woolf have gone down in history as foes, whereas Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald are remembered as friends?
In an attempt to get to the bottom of why rivalry between women is still considered such a taboo, we interviewed Madeline Miller, winner of the 2012 Orange Prize. We asked her for an insider’s view on being shortlisted for the prestigious award. The experience, though a game-changer for the debut novelist, was fraught with possible conflict since it pitted her against her novelist mentor, Ann Patchett. She explained how their friendship survived, and even thrived, on the competition.
EMMA CLAIRE SWEENEY 
This looks great, Emma! Can’t wait to read…and many congratulations!!!
On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 10:16 AM, Emma Claire Sweeney wrote:
> ** > emmaclairesweeney posted: ” The latest issue of Mslexia – a magazine > for women who write – includes a feature by Emily Midorikawa and me. After > The Times ran our piece on female writing friendships, we became interested > in rivalry between women authors. As writer friends w” >
Thanks, Liz! I hope you enjoy it.
As always, it was a pleasure working with you. I look forward to researching this subject further in the future.
I can’t imagine being able to discuss such taboos so openly with anyone else. And such a treat to know that we have lots more thinking and writing to do on this together in the future too…