OK, so because I was ignoring the internet for most of the weekend I didn’t pay much attention to the Gay Talese thing until this morning. So while standing at the home desk with this morning’s coffee I wanted to see if I could do any better. The below is a list of women journalists, critics, and nonfiction writers who inspire me and/or I admire and/or whose bylines I seek out simply because they’re good at what they do. In no particular order, by no means exhaustive, heavy on music & culture writers because that’s what I read a great deal of, I did cheat a bit by looking around at the piles of magazines laying about the desk and nearby bookshelf and used titles for memory clues, and I didn’t include a number of people I know personally and/or have/currently work with as I felt that might be playing favorites in some way. Included brief IDs for some names, figured the names who I didn’t ID needed no intro.
Also: am sharing not to be one of those not-all-men asshats but as an invitation for others to tell me what women journos they read on the regular as well. Like I said, what came to my mind is heavy on arts/culture and the publications I regularly read so am always looking for more bylines to pay attention to.
Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times‘s crime fiction columnist since the late 1980s—I know I just said this list is in no particular order but Stasio immediately came to mind for me because in many ways she’s the platonic ideal of a critic to me: highly informative, economically entertaining, and somebody you trust not because you agree with everything she says or her tastes, but because you have utter faith in her succinct ability to communicate what’s in her brain without wasting your time.
Andrea ‘Enthal, who penned the Underground column for SPIN pre-Byron Coley, and who was responsible for making me aware/turning me onto the very idea that things I had never heard about or known existed were worth seeking out and experiencing for myself.
The late art critic & historian/curator Arlene Raven, Baltimore-born, Hopkins-educated, who I had never heard about until her 2006 death, and since then the 1989 book she edited, Art in the Public Interest, has become as interesting and oft-referred to text for me as Daniel Bell’s The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism.
The late Molly Ivins, political columnist/reporter & OG badass
Ellen Willis, music critic and formidable essayist
The late Jill Johnston, dance critic and utter original
Alma Guillermoprieto, Mexican journalist and longtime Latin American correspondent for the New Yorker, The New York Review of Books
Barbara Ehrenreich
Jamilah Lemieux, culture critic
Lorrain Ali, veteran music & culture critic/reporter
Danyel Smith, music and features writer
dream hampton, veteran music/culture writer
Geeta Dayal, music/features writer
Lucy Lippard, art critic
Amy Taubin, film critic
Carol Cooper, veteran music/culture writer, early Spin introduced me to her byline
Laila Lalami, The Nation contributor/essayist
Caitlin Moran, British music/culture writer, co-creator of the fab TV series Raised by Wolves
Melissa Gira Grant
Catherine Taft, art critic/curator
Naomi Klein
Melissa Harris-Perry
Sylvie Simmons, music writer
Gina Arnold, music writer
Donna Gaines, music writer
Molly Haskell, film writer
Jamaica Kincaid
Janet Kutner, Dallas art critic
Libby Lumpkin, art critic
Ingrid Sischy, art writer/editor
Susan Faludi
Joy Press, music & arts writer
Rachel Kushner, Artforum & Bomb contributor, in addition to being a novelist
Linda Yablonsky, longtime Artforum contributor and veteran art critic
Tricia Romano, features writer
Ann Powers, music writer/editor
Rosalind Krauss, art critic, October co-founding editor
Jessica Hopper, music writer/editor/visionary
Julianne Escobedo Shepard, music & pop culture writer
Sia Michel, features writer/editor
Lillian Roxon, music critic
Hannah McGill, film critic
Andrea Grimes, Texas Observer, investigative reporter/culture critic
Heather Havrilesky, one of the many funny-smart writers that the late, great suck.com clued me into.
Melissa del Bosque, Texas Observer investigative reporter
Michelle Tea, essayist
Anne Midgette, classical music critic/reporter
Karen Durbin, veteran film/TV critic
Joan Acocella, New Yorker dance critic
Katy Vine, Texas Monthly features writer
Pamela Colloff, Texas Monthly features writer
Mimi Swartz, Texas Monthly features writer
Emily Nussbaum, New Yorker TV critic
Karina Longworth, film critic/writer
Molly Lambert, all-purpose pop culture writer and assassin of trite, conventional thought
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All People Sideways 