Chick Lit Authors Won’t Be Dismissed

By Ron Hogan on December 5, 2006 8:11 AM

Attendees at the Small Press Center’s book fair last weekend might have been surprised to see a panel scheduled for Saturday afternoon on chick lit. After all, amidst all the serious political and literary discussions, who’d bracket out time for one of those romantic comedies where hip white women between the ages of 25 and 34 sit around drinking cosmos when they’ve finished shopping for their latest pair of shoes? “Well, I’ve never written that book,” said panelist Lauren Baratz-Logsted, “and none of the other women on this panel write that book either.” Baratz-Logsted and several other contributors to the Benbella anthology This Is Chick Lit, led by moderator Sarah Mlynowski, talked up a solid defense of their genre, which when you get right down to it is little more than a marketing hook. “I didn’t think The Twins of Tribeca was or wasn’t chick lit,” said Rachel Pine, but accepted her publisher’s decision to sell the book that way and only truly embraced the label once “serious women writers” began raising a literary stink against their bestselling competitors.

Of course, that infamous Curtis Sittenfeld pan of Melissa Bank came up again. “Literary snark is always popular,” observed Caren Lissner. “It’s a small price to pay, though. I’d rather have thousands of people love my books and a few other people snarking than nobody reading them.” Karen Siplin laughed as she told the audience about meeting a man who, when he found out what she did, exclaimed “I love chick lit!” and then, prompted to discuss his favorites, came up with Prep. And Pine openly questioned the propriety of Sittenfeld reviewing a potential competitor while her novel was still on bestseller lists, then quipped, “Anyway, her real name’s Elizabeth. If you see her in the street, you can tell her I’m the one who told you.”