In Publishing, Women Routinely Make Blockbusters - The Atlantic

The dominance of women in the book trade is most apparent in fiction. In New York magazine, Hillary Kelly argued recently that female novelists replaced white male authors in the 2010s, observing, "Over the past ten years, it was women who were celebrated for experimenting, women whose work redefined genres." This phenomenon extends beyond, or below, the elite ranks as well. Flip through a publisher's catalog or walk through the new-releases section of a bookstore: You'll notice novel after novel written by women, with the men sneaking in like time travelers from the more masculine 20th century. I published a (not-celebrated) novel last year and never had the experience-so common in the sciences, in government, in Hollywood-of being the only woman on a panel. In fact, I participated in two or three in which the men took on the role of token and were expected to speak for a whole gender's point of view.

It wasn't always thus-obviously. Not long ago, it seemed the most famous up-and-coming novelists were all men named Jonathan (Franzen, Safran Foer, Lethem). And fiction, let alone book writing generally, is hardly an all-girls club; the most promising novelist in America is probably a man named Ben (Lerner). This feminizing trend, moreover, would have to continue for roughly 2,000 years to balance out the canon.