Marina > Recent Status Updates

"Great books remind me that when we spend more time talking about publishing than we talk about books themselves, we’re forgetting what matters most."

(Beyond the measure of men)

"Change requires intent and effort. It really is that simple."

(Beyond the measure of men)

"Every single day there’s a new instance of gender trouble. Some men aren’t interested in the concerns of women, not in society, not on television, not in publishing, not anywhere."

(Beyond the measure of men)

"We are willing—even anxious—to see prominent figures in a state of helplessness as they sacrifice their privacy for the greater good. How helpless are we willing to be for the greater good? That question interests me most."

(A tale of three coming out stories)

"People with high public profiles are allowed very few boundaries. In exchange for the erosion of privacy, they receive fame and/or power. Is this a fair price?"

(A Tale of Three Coming Out Stories)

"We are still in that time in our history when public figures come out of invisible closets largely built by a public insatiable in its desire to know all the intimate details of the private lives of very public people."

(A Tale of Three Coming Out Stories)

"There’s a certain crassness to an alleged pedophile being allowed to defend himself on national television. While our justice system is predicated upon the notion of the presumption of innocence until the establishment of guilt, there should be limits to what a highly visible figure can do to establish that innocence outside of the court of law. There aren’t, though, not really."

"More often than not, these players were forgiven for drug and alcohol infractions and assault and rape allegations because they could move the football down the field."

(The spectacle of broken men)

"Human endurance fascinates me, probably too much because more often than not, I think of life in terms of enduring instead of living."

(The illusion of safety)

"I cannot write the way i want to write and consider using trigger warnings. I would second-guess myself, temper the intensity of what I have to say. I don't want to do that. I don't intend to ever do that."

"Life, apparently, requires a trigger warning. This is the uncomfortable truth: everything is a trigger for someone. There are things you cannot tell just by looking at someone."

"I swallowed the truth, which only made that gaping void of need inside me yawn wider. Just because you survive something does not mean you are strong."

(What we hunger for)

"As a critic, I recognize the significant flaws, I do, but The Hunger Games is not a movie I am able to watch as a critic. The story means too much to me."

(What we hunger for)

"All too often, representations of a woman’s strength overlook the cost of that strength, where it rises from, and how it is called upon when needed most."

"The way we currently represent rape, in books, in newspapers, on television, on the silver screen, often allows us to ignore the material realities of rape, the impact of rape, the meaning of rape."

"I once wrote an essay about how, as a writer who is also a woman, I increasingly feel that writing is a political act whether I intend it to be or not because we live in a culture where McKinley’s article is permissible and publishable. I am troubled by how we have allowed such intellectual distance between violence and the representation of violence. We talk about rape, but we don’t carefully talk about rape."

"We have also, perhaps, become immune to the horror of rape because we see it so often and discuss it so often, many times without acknowledging or considering the gravity of rape and its effects."

"Happiness is not uninspiring if we don't allow our imaginations to fail us."

"Sometimes, and especially as a writer, I feel like I have no idea what happiness is, what it looks like, what it feels like, how to show it on the page."

"The happy endings in Game of Secrets are subtle and incomplete but they are there, and it works because happiness itself is often subtle and incomplete."

"Happiness is not a popular subject in literary fiction. We struggle, as writers, to make happiness, contentment, and satisfaction interesting."

"She is grieving, after all, and in grief, there is a certain amount of indulgence for bad behavior. Sorrow allows us a freedom happiness does not."

"I don't think I know any woman who doesn't hate herself and her body at least a little bit. Bodily obsession is, perhaps, a human condition because of its inescapability."

"It makes perfect sense that many of us obsess over our bodies. There is nothing more inescapable. Our bodies moves us through our lives. They bring pleasure and pain. Sometimes our bodies serve us well, and other times our bodies become terribly inconvenient."

"I’m not sure how we can get better at having these conversations, but I do know we need to overcome our deeply entrenched positions and resistance to nuance. We have to be more interested in making things better than just being right, or interesting, or funny."

"Disagreement, however, is not anger. Pointing out the many ways in which misogyny persists and harms women is not anger. Conceding the idea that anger is an inappropriate reaction to the injustice women face backs women into an unfair position."

"Some women being empowered does not prove the patriarchy is dead. It proves that some of us are lucky."

"Better is not good enough, and it’s a shame that anyone would be willing to settle for so little. I cannot think of clearer evidence of how alive and well the patriarchy remains (see above)."

"Just as there are many different kinds of rape, there are many different kinds of God. I am also reminded that women, more often than not, are the recipient of God’s intentions and must also bear the burdens of these intentions."

"Women are rising but Hillary Clinton, a comer secretary of state and potential presidential candidate in 2016, still must answer questions about fashion."