Issue Details: First known date: 2012... 2012 'Opposing All the Things They Stand For' : Women Writers and the Women's Magazines
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'In her essay on mid twentieth-century women's journalism, Susan Sheridan considers some of the strategies that women writers used to bridge the gap between their hard-earned place in the literary field and their bread-and-butter work for popular women's magazines. Her case studies of Kylie Tennant, Charmian Clift and Barbara Jefferis suggest that writers must negotiate different forms of professional identity as they move from one literary institution to another - from the novel to women's magazines - each of which has its unique networks of sociability and values. When Tennant began writing for the Woman's Mirror in 1961, for example, she felt that she had made her name as a novelist by 'opposing all the things' the women's magazines stood for. Jefferis dealt with the problem by adopting the pen-name 'Margaret Sydney' and assuming the persona of 'an everywoman'. While writing for the women's pages created 'a fragile community of women writers and readers, Sheridan argues that it was too bound up with the gendering of the domestic sphere to constitute 'a positive counter-public sphere', which was not achieved until the rise of women's presses, like Virago, in the 1970s.' (Kirkpatrick, Peter and Dixon, Robert: Introduction xvii)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Republics of Letters : Literary Communities in Australia Robert Dixon (editor), Sydney : Sydney University Press , 2012 Z1911531 2012 anthology criticism 'Republics of letters: literary communities in Australia is the first book to explore the notion of literary community or literary sociability in relation to Australian literature. It brings together twenty-four scholars from a range of disciplines - literature, history, cultural and women's studies, creative writing and digital humanities - to address some of the key questions about Australian literary communities: how they form, how they change and develop, and how they operate within wider social and cultural contexts, both within Australia and internationally.' (Publisher's blurb)
    Sydney : Sydney University Press , 2012
    pg. 195-204
Last amended 1 Feb 2013 12:51:08
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