Monday, Mar 26, 2007
| Most Women Writers Churning Out Trivial Sob Stories These Days: Muriel Gray
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 Muriel Gray. Photo Credit: TV Grab Scottish novelist and television broadcaster Muriel Gray has slammed women writers for not being able to churn out novels depicting anything beyond the humdrum trivial domesticity of everyday life.
Gray, who is in charge of choosing the most important novel by a woman this year for the 2007 Orange Prize, said too much was written about relationships and motherhood rather than sweeping epics addressing substantial issues.
As the 20-strong long list was announced, Ms Gray, the chairman of the judges, said most of the 150 titles submitted for the £30,000 award lacked imagination and ambition.
"There were lots of books we rejected - about personal female issues, the loss of a child, the break-up of a marriage, thinly veiled autobiographical things of no consequence - because they weren't expansive enough," she was quoted by The Telegraph, as saying.
"They are writing small personal takes on what it's like to be a woman. They don't seem to be dreaming big dreams," she added.
Gray, who made her name in the 1980s as presenter of the Channel 4 music programme, The Tube, now writes and runs Scotland's biggest independent TV company.
She excluded from her attack the long-listed authors but said the criticism was aimed
at "the majority" of the books entered.
"I wish people would look at the example of JK Rowling. She lost her mother and she had a bad marriage break-up but look what she wrote. She turned that into a thing of incredible imagination,” she was quoted by the Telegraph, as saying.
"We found too many lazy writers who think that it's enough just to chronicle something going on in their lives. It is mildly depressing," she added. (ANI)
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