EDITORIAL

HOW much time do you spend worrying about your weight, reading diet books, weighing out portions of grated carrot? (Then getting the Black Forest Gateau out of the freezer and standing over it as it thaws?) Judging from the number of submissions we received on the ‘Fat Ladies’ theme, rather a lot. It turned out to be even more popular than ‘Sex’ and ‘Death’.

The question is, whether obsessing about our weight is consuming precious time that could be more creatively used for writing. Perhaps the best thing to emerge from Bridget Jones’ much-maligned Diary was at the end, where she adds up all the weight she has gained and lost during the year - and finds the totals cancel one another out. What a magnificent waste of time!

In this issue of Mslexia we’re putting Bridget Jones behind us in more ways than one. We’ll be asking publishers to dance on her grave and speculate about future big publishing phenomena. And we’ll be examining how woman writers spend their time - and suggesting things we can do to carve out more space for the things that really matter.


Debbie Taylor
Editor