| BEHIND THE PRETTY COVERS The grit and gloss of “women’s fiction” Why are ‘books for women’ so easily dismissed as lightweight when they are so often the paces to examine the hard truths of our lives? The genre known as “commercial women’s fiction” is often packaged and treated as light fodder when it’s anything but. Books by giants of the genre – Liane Moriarty, Marian Keyes, Jodie Piccoult – routinely deal with topics far from fluff. Topics like addiction, family violence, and terminal illness, all sitting inside colourful graphic covers that more “literary” readers might dismiss as a ‘beach read’ or an ‘airport novel’. What they don’t know is what women want to read on beaches and on planes, and anywhere at all, really, are stories that reflect their lives back at them. And even the most mundane female life is often quietly seething with these so-called ‘dark themes’ ABOUT HOLLY WAINWRIGHT Holly Wainwright is an author, editor, and podcast host at MamaMia. She has written four novels, including her two most recent bestsellers, I Give My Marriage A Year and The Couple Upstairs, with Pan Macmillan. Holly’s an Executive Editor at women’s media company Mamamia, where she hosts the almost-daily flagship show Mamamia Out Loud, as well as pop-culture pod Lowbrow. Holly has had a long career in publishing, both in magazines and in the digital sphere, and has been an editor, a GM of audio, and a Head Of Content in her time. Now she’s a novelist who talks a lot, writes on the internet, and lives on the New South Wales south coast with her young family. PURCHASE A DAY PASS OR WEEKEND PASS TO ATTEND THIS EVENT. |
