"Like in high school, whether we knew it or not, whether we were aware of it or not, or whether we actually received the advice directly or not, there was an underlying understanding that boys wouldn’t like girls who were pensive and smart or who looked serious and intellectual, or worse yet, somber, gloomy, reclusive, or a snob (i.e. shy). Back then, I got labeled “the sad girl.” Is this like that? The bubbly, effervescent girls will succeed as writers too?"
—
Cris Mazza in this essay on The Nervous Breakdown. The essay was published several months back. I got the link from this post about age discrimination in publishing by Mazza on VIDA’s Her Kind blog.
Two of my anxieties when it comes to the PR aspect of existing in the world as a literary fiction writer - 1) being “old” (a woman over thirty) and 2) not having a fun/quirky/not boring persona.
