There’s a very good chance that Harper Lee never meant for you to read this book. This is an important fact to bear in mind when considering cracking the spine of Go Set A Watchman, the “sequel” to Lee’s classic 55-year-old novel, To Kill A Mockingbird. It is a fact that I didn’t know when…
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None of us will ever know how many private moments under the bed sheets with a book light it has inspired, nor do we know how much marital boredom it has enlivened with riding crops and silk ties, but the new wonder-product otherwise known as the “women’s Viagra” of our time, Fifty Shades of Grey,…
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Belinda McKeon captivatingly examines youth and sexuality in her second novel, set in late ’90s Ireland. Tender focuses on a loving turned obsessive friendship between Catherine and James, recent arrivals to Dublin from their respective rural communities. Catherine is studying English and art history at Trinity College Dublin while James is pursuing his dreams of…
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If you’ve ever overanalysed a Facebook friend request, celebrated an increase in Twitter followers or agonised over the time elapsed from when a message was “seen” to a reply sent, then In Real Life is the book for you. Beguiling and affecting, Chris Killen’s latest novel examines human connections both online and IRL. In 2004…
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Margot McGovern is a Lip book reviewer and emerging author. Her manuscript, Neverland, was selected in the 2015 Text Prize Shortlist. Lip had a chat to Margot about her story, writing, and why writing YA novels is the best kind of writing. Tell us about your novel. Neverland is the story of Kit Learmonth, a…
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Many people will recall the appearance of Emer O’Toole on This Morning in 2012, where she participated in a friendly debate over the importance of shaving body hair. For those who haven’t seen it, you can watch it here. This video went viral, and O’Toole’s surprise at her fame led to the writing of…
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‘Polyamory is a claim that the heart is capable of loving more than one person deeply and intimately at the same time,’ wrote Anne Hunter in Archer Magazine. ‘Poly relationships are often sexual but may not be, and they may shift in and out of being romantic and sexual.’ In her article, she discusses the…
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Watching Lena Dunham’s Girls for the first time was an edifying experience. A large part of the show’s appeal for me—and perhaps for countless other teenagers and women in their early twenties—is its flawed and often hapless characters, who are relatable precisely because of their faults. Here was Hannah Horvath: podgy, solipsistic beyond help,…
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The vaccination debate heated up again recently when in March four-week old Riley Hughes died from whooping cough in Perth. Riley was too young to have had the whooping cough vaccine and therefore relied on the immunity of those around him to protect him from the disease. With a growing number of parents choosing not to…
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The woman behind the counter jiggles the baby on her hip. The child is red-faced and crying. Customers smile sympathetically as the woman tries to serve them and placate him. She had no choice in the matter. The daycare is closed today. There is no one at home who can care for her son. Thus…
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Miranda July sees the world askew. In her work as a writer, filmmaker and visual artist, she peeks behind exterior lives to look at the secret inner world. Though often unsettling, her work emboldens the meek and celebrates the weird. Preceded by her award-winning short story collection No One Belongs Here More Than You (2007),…
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Fantomina: or, Love in a Maze was published in 1725. Its author, Eliza Haywood had an indisputably impressive writing career; she authored numerous works within a diverse range of genres. Although her writing was experimental in both form and content, she has, until recently, been curiously absent from the literary canon and is scarcely known beyond academic…
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Unlike ABC’s Q&A, the panel for the Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction is chockers with excellent women. Over the last few weeks, Lip has been getting to know our judges so you can meet the writers who will be reading your work. For our last instalment we are featuring Lorelei Vashti, author of Dress, Memory. What are you working on in…
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Last year, Eric Garner, an African-American man, was killed by police. Law enforcement officials had him in a chokehold, despite the NYPD prohibiting their use. This event caused a wave of protests, and the phrase Black Lives Matter. Syreeta McFadden wrote for the Guardian US: ‘We declared in 2014 that Black Lives Matter because we…
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