Novelist Claire Vaye Watkins recently published an essay called "On Pandering," about realizing she was writing to appeal to white men. And before you say "But wait! She can write like a man, they said, by which they meant, She can write. please remember one point of "On pandering" is that the biases prevalent in society also become internalized - women writers and women critics aren't exempted just because it is a system that puts them at a disadvantage. On Pandering Claire Vaye Watkins This essay, which appears in our 2015 Winter Issue, was originally given as a lecture during the 2015 Tin House Summer Workshop. Claire Vaye Watkins’ “On Pandering” Describes a Specific Experience of Writing and Gender, But Has the Power to Start a Broader Conversation Her book of short stories Battleborn (Riverhead Books, 2012), won The Story Prize, among other awards.In 2012 the National Book Foundation named her a 5 under 35 honoree. (Because I’m reading this for the first time, because I’ll be attending a reading by Watkins tonight.) She and author Marlon James discuss responses to the piece. In “On Pandering,” we find a woman who, for all intents and purposes, has achieved that goal. Four years ago, Claire Vaye Watkins’s Battleborn, a book of short stories that delved into the harshness of the American West, was a critical success. Taken from “On Pandering” by Claire Vaye Watkins (per the title of this post), published in Tin House. A modified version of this essay can be found in Tin House. Dialogue Extra: Author Claire Vaye Watkins about "On Pander. Posted in r/writing by u/IAmTheRedWizards • 15 points and 5 comments It provoked much discussion among the literary community. This week, Tin House published a meaty essay by Claire Vaye Watkins about gender, reading, publishing, misogyny, motherhood, art, and—most of all—pandering. I had read her story collection, Battleborn, her novel, Gold Fame Citrus, and her essay, “On Pandering.” Marcia Franklin talks with author Claire Vaye Watkins about her essay, "On Pandering," which relates her experience as a female writer trying to impress her male mentors. It’s all an architecture of pandering. That last article mentions female critics, not just male ones bashing these books!" Claire Vaye Watkins (born April 9, 1984) is an American author and professor.. It’s for them. “Why does the voice in my head have an Adam’s apple?” Written on the occasion of Claire’s “troubling realization that I have been writing to impress old white men,” this call to action was given during our 2015 Summer Workshop. Over at NPR, authors Claire Vaye Watkins and Marlon James talk about Watkins’s recent essay, “On Pandering,” which she describes as: …internalizing the sexism that I’d encountered in the writing world, and the world beyond, and adjusting what I wrote accordingly so that it would be more well-received … by the people I wanted to […] I first had the privilege of meeting Claire Vaye Watkins on the coast of California at a Tomales Bay Writing by Writers workshop. Dialogue. Claire Vaye Watkins’ debut novel, Gold Fame Citrus, was published in 2016 to wide acclaim and has been recognized as a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, NPR, Vanity Fair, The Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Huffington Post, and The Atlantic, among many others.