Angela Carter Is A Babe

Lady Authors

Been researching through the list of authors on the list today and decided because of the way my work from last year was shaping up I definitely want to choose a female author. The original list I started with was:

• Susan Sontag
• Ursua Leguin
• Donna Tartt
• Margaret Atwood
• Angela Carter
• Rachel Carson

All of these authors were from around the time frame of literature that I find myself most drawn to, but upon closer research I realised that Susan Sontag wrote about political activism, Ursula Leguin wrote about Sci-fi and fantasy and Rachel Carson wrote about marine biology. Although I find these all interesting in their own right I felt they weren't in keeping with my emerging interests. 

From here I researches the three remaining authors and just wrote down what I found out about them that stood out to me:

Donna Tartt:

Pros:

- her books are really well known and have been read by lots of people so I should be able to finish them?

- like the idea that she discusses social status and aesthetic, not something I'd usually discuss myself

- very descriptive and seems to be a lot of visuals to work with

Cons:

- her books are neo-romantic in style and famously very dense and descriptive

- doesn't discuss female issues or have really any female main characters in her books

- The Goldfinch is 700 freaking pages long

Margaret Atwood:

Pros:

- she does discuss feminism, most of her protagonists being females under patriarchal rule

- her books are slightly shorter 

- she also wrote some poems inspired by myths and fairy tales

Cons:

- Handmaids tale has been adapted to TV recently and I worry this might make her work a little bit over saturated at the moment for me to make anything original

Angela Carter:

Pros:

- Her background is SO interesting, she was born during the war in Eastbourne and moved to Tokyo for two years in her 30's. Travelled a lot, didn't get along with her mum who was very straight laced and was fluent in French and German

- she was fiercely feminist

- a lot of her books talk about sexuality, women, escapist fairy tales and gender

- not only has she written novels, but also books of poems and short stories

Cons: 

- NOPE

So definitley going to be researching more into Angela Carter as so far shes been of the most interest to me, although I'll see how it goes. Currently I've got the most excited and inspired whilst researching her though.

Book Research Begins

Today I started my initial research into which author I'll be studying for the summer brief, "about the author". In the Persons Of Note brief I found I encountered problems while researching Dr Nakamatsu. I didn't personally identify or agree or was even particularly interested by his life and work, and all of his experiences were very far from anything I've experienced or try to explore in my work. So because this summer brief is similarly very research focused I realised I'd need to identify the author off the list who I most closely resonates with me. I also need to consider the work of the author because due to my dyslexia I find it quite challenging to read certain types of very dense books as I just don't take them in all that well.

Author Criteria:(if possible, should fit a few of these)

• Female
• More recent work, this is both due to the fact that I find less contemporary, denser books much harder to read and I worry I wouldn't be able to read them in time. Also because I have no memory for historical facts and figures and focusing on more recent history makes things easier for my brain to handle
• Discuss gender, sexuality, feminism, nostalgia? 
• Maybe have not only written novels but short stories or poems as again, I will hopefully feel less daunted by these