Susan Watkins - Contemporary Womens Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

This monograph series aims to showcase Late Twentieth and Twenty-first Century work of contemporary women, trans and non-binary writers in literary criticism. The women in our title advocates for work specifically on womens writing in a world of cultural and critical production that can still too easily slide into patriarchal criteria for what constitutes worthy literature. This vision for the series is avowedly feminist although we do not require submissions to identify as such and we actively encourage submissions that engage directly with different definitions of feminism. Our series does make the claim for a continuing imperative to promote work by women authors; it remains essential for our field to make space for this body of literary criticism. Further, our series makes a claim that serious inquiry on Late Twentieth and Twenty-first Century womens writing contributes to a necessary, emerging and exciting research area in literary studies.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15978

Cover image: RapidEye/Getty Images, Silhouette of girl under stormy sky looking towards sunlit area, 157677075

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Limited

The registered company address is: The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, United Kingdom

I have a wonderful network of friends and colleagues who have been a part of this book. First, many people in the English Literature and Creative Writing team at Leeds Beckett University have advised me on different aspects of this project: they are mentioned specifically in the footnotes too. Thank you Rob Burroughs, Sue Chaplin, Rachel Connor, Nick Cox, Caroline Herbert, Andrew Lawson, Emily Marshall and Ruth Robbins, as well as former colleagues Claire Chambers, Katy Shaw and Joanne Watkiss. Current and former Ph.D. students Jennifer Bowes, James Collinge and Danielle Hall also gave invaluable suggestions arising from their own work. They are also thanked in the footnotes too. I have been thinking about this project in different ways for many years and have had helpful feedback from audiences at conferences or seminars (in the UK) at the University of Birmingham, the University of Brighton, Brunel University, the University of Leicester, Northumbria University, Newcastle University and the University of Westminster, as well as at the National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan, and the MLA conference in New York City. Many of these conferences were Contemporary Womens Writing Association events: the CWWA has been a great home for my work. Thank you to the women who have been closely involved with the CWWA over the years, but especially to Mary Eagleton, Clare Hanson and Alice Ridout, whose conversations and ideas about this book have been key. Im also delighted that this book is the first in the new Contemporary Womens Writing series with Palgrave. Thank you to Denise, Andrea and particularly Gina (with whom Ive given papers on panels on all things apocalyptic). Thanks also to those scholars I have met through the Doris Lessing Society who have supported my work and this project in different ways: Debrah Raschke, Roberta Rubenstein, Christine Sizemore, Virginia Tiger and Robin Visel. Paula Kennedy and Ben Doyle (formerly of Palgrave) and Milly Davies at Palgrave have seen this book through to publicationthank you. I have found when talking about this project in different places and contexts that people suggest more and more examples of contemporary womens post-apocalyptic fictions for me to read. I have picked up on many of them. Thank you to all those who did recommend booksI may not remember who first suggested a particular text to me, but I am very grateful. My final thanks must go to my family. Ian, Amy and Luke Strange have witnessed and taken part in this books growth.