Great woman behind "The Great Man"

Kelly Love Johnson

Skirt! managing editor

Writer, editor, author, independent girly feminist hipster, slightly neurotic, cynically optimistic, compassionately liberal, fiscally conservative, somewhat intellectual, and always irreverent. ...

Kelly Love Johnson

Monday, May, 12, 2008

While listening to NPR this weekend, I found out that one of my favorite authors, Kate Christensen, won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for her latest book, The Great Man. She is only the fifth woman to win the PEN/Faulkner Award in its 27-year history.

I’ve loved Christensen’s writing since I discovered In The Drink a few years ago. It really spoke to me and it irritated me that some magazines and reviewers classified her work as “chick lit.” At least initially. Her later books defied the stereotype (and categorization) and she has been compared to everyone from Updike to Austen. I have a feeling we're going to be looking back on her work years from now in Lit classes and in fiction workshops.

About the award (from NPR:) "I always thought of it as this big award for these literary lions," says Christensen. "I didn't even know they gave it to women."

Read the whole story, and an excerpt from The Great Man, here. Another good interview with Kate by Maud Newton here.