Reading series author explains chick-lit, post feminism
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For more information about the American Book Review, go to www.americanbookreview.org.
In 2009, the terms "chick-lit" and "post-feminism" have very different meanings from when writer Cris Mazza used them in the mid-1990s as the name for the anthology, "Chick-Lit: Post-Feminist Fiction," she was co-editing.
On Thursday, Mazza discussed post-feminism, as well as other topics, as the last speaker for the American Book Review's 2009 fall reading series.
"I believe we were the first to use the term in print when we used it as the title of the anthology. At that time, post-feminism was almost a joke, back when people were putting 'post' in front of everything. Soon we'll have post-post feminism," she joked in front of an audience of students, professors and community members. "I actually got the term off a flyer, but eventually, since we used it in the title, I had to take credit for it and make up a definition."
Mazza went on to explain that post-feminism is simply the next wave of feminism.
"We have to stop blaming other people and look at ourselves," she added. "Being a victim was the only way many women got attention and they were starting to cling to that idea of being a victim. We need to look at how women cause their own heartbreak and tragedy."
During the reading, Mazza also read a short story, "The Three Screwdrivers," from her most recent book, "Trickle-Down Timeline." The collection of stories are all set in the 1980s and are a piece of nostalgia for people who had nothing to consume in the consumer era, Mazza said in a news release prior to the event.
"I had five short stories that were never published before that I had shopped around. But after awhile, I realized if I published them as new work it wouldn't look like new work since I wrote them in the '80s. You know, back when phones cost a dime and no one had a computer," Mazza said, explaining how her latest book came to be. "So, since those five were written in the '80s, I decided to write five more stories set in the '80's. It was partially laziness, but I didn't want to update the other stories because it would change them. And that's how 'Trickle-Down Timeline' was born."
As the author of 15 books, as well as the editor of two anthologies of women's fiction, Mazza also answered questions from the audience on how she became such a prolific writer.
"The quick answer is that I don't have a life," she said to the laughter of the crowd. "But to be honest, I don't have an answer for that. I type with only two fingers. It's just my full-time job."
