What's up with "girls with feelings"?
Thoughts on writing, and the name of this newsletter
I wanted to explain the name of this newsletter, Girls with Feelings. It comes from a line in my book—two lines, actually—in which Isabel, the main character, describes her own writing.
In an early chapter, Isabel is talking to Andy, a sometime friend and fellow English major. Isabel and Andy have been accepted into an exclusive writing seminar; their friend Jason has not. Isabel is surprised by this because Jason is what she thinks of as a “real” English major, and goes on to list all the ways he qualifies as “real” to her. Compared to Jason and Andy, Isabel feels less than because all she does is write stories about “girls with feelings,” as Andy once told her.
I wasn't an English major in college so I don’t know for certain the kind of competition that goes on behind the scenes in such programs, but I can imagine. I probably would have felt the same way about my work back then, that it wasn’t big enough, important enough, male enough. I think all I’ve ever written about, or enjoyed reading about, are girls with feelings, so I would have felt the same way Isabel does, that her work isn’t valid, especially when measured against the patriarchal ideal, which—in her mind, at least—Jason and Andy represent.
Later in the book, when Isabel is praised by her professor for a story she has written, she feels that he has zeroed in on exactly what she is interested in writing about: girls with feelings. But now, instead of feeling like something in her work is lacking, it feels like a gift.
With few exceptions, I did not share my work publicly until I was in my 40s, and then did so only in female-dominated spaces. I didn’t seek out these spaces intentionally: most of the workshops and communities I found were naturally and organically female. But in retrospect, this was precisely what I needed. I had spent so much of my life seeking male approval, and I implicitly knew I wouldn’t be able to do the work I needed to do if I put myself back in that space. I feel incredibly lucky that the writing communities I found were ones that existed outside a patriarchal academic sphere and provided a space where I was able to take risks and grant myself the permission I needed to write.
The people who have read my book so far—friends, colleagues, agents, editors—have been mostly women. I am sure men will read it, but I have not written it with them in mind. I am writing to women, always women. Women who were once “girls with feelings” and who may have been led to believe that wasn’t enough. I’m here to say it’s more than enough. It’s everything.
I recently finished Ellie Eaton’s The Divines. A gorgeous, blistering read, Eaton’s debut novel brings us into the world of an elite all-girls’ English boarding school, where the girls smoke like chimneys, call each other by boys’ names and refer to each other, unironically, as divine. The book toggles back and forth between the 1990s and the present day as former student Josephine wrestles with the past and the part she may or may not have played in a school tragedy. I listened to The Divines on audio, which really enhanced the experience. Imogen Church’s narration is top-notch and brings out the power dynamic by leaning into the accents—posh vs. working class, for example. Ellie Eaton was kind enough to read my book early; she called it “a tightrope walk of a debut novel about womanhood, power, and privilege." I am delighted to have my work in conversation with hers.
DORK ALERT: My friend Terri Trespicio, to whom I often listen, recently recommended this neck lamp, which has completely transformed my reading life. Different than a headlamp, which I have also tried for late-night reading, this lamp cradles your neck in a very pleasing way and lets you direct two light sources to whatever you are reading. I am always looking for hacks that will get me reading more, and this one did not disappoint.