noted.

According to recent obituaries of chick-lit , this much derided literary genre is a very broad church indeed. Apparently Jodi Picoult, whose plotlines include ambivalent motherhood, gay rights and date rape, is a chick-lit author. So too is Marian Keyes, who has tackled the issues of domestic abuse and alcoholism. And so am I. My latest book, Private Lives, is a peep behind the curtains in a media law firm. As a well-read friend recently told me, it’s the only book with a pink cover that examines the Reynolds defence, but that hasn’t stopped dozens of people asking me how I became a chick-lit writer.

I think it’s because we’re women. You don’t get David Nicholls isn’t name-checked in close proximity to the words chick-lit, even though One Day’s Emma Morley could hardly ever find a boyfriend. We write unapologetically commercial fiction with the aim of entertaining our readers, not winning Pulitzer prizes. And it’s not so much the publishers who are guilty of pigeonholing us (come on, one of Jodi’s books had toy soldiers on the front cover) but the public at large. After all, “chick-lit” trips off the tongue a lot more neatly than “women’s commercial fiction” when you’re describing what you read on your sun-lounger.

Interesting thoughts on the genre of Chick-lit.

Should we mourn the end of chick-lit? | Comment is free | The Observer