Chick Lit

THE GENRE

Chick-lit features Hip , Stylish female protagonists, usually in their twenties or early thirties, in Urban settings, and follows their love lives and struggles in business (often the Publishing or Advertising industries). The books usually feature an irreverent tone and frank Sexual themes. The genre spawned Candace Bushnell 's '' Sex And The City '' and its accompanying Television Series . Breakout variations on the genre have developed to appeal to specific audiences, such as the novels of Emmy-winning author Lori Bryant-Woolridge , known for her Chick-lit novels ('' Read Between The Lies '', '' Hitts And Mrs. '', '' Mourning Glo '') written specifically with women of color in mind.

CONNOTATIONS OF THE TERM "CHICK-LIT"

Aside from its obvious source ("chick" is an American slang term for young woman and "lit" is short for "literature"), the term "chick-lit" includes a reference to Chiclets brand Chewing Gum .

However, the genre has also been claimed as a type of Post-feminist fiction which covers the breadth of the female experience which deals unconventionally with traditional romantic themes of Love , Courtship and Gender .

The male equivalent, spearheaded by authors such as Ben Elton , Mike Gayle , and Nick Hornby , has sometimes been referred to as Lad Lit or Dick Lit .

One of the first uses of the term was in the title of the 1995 anthology ''Chick Lit: Postfeminist Fiction'', edited by Cris Mazza and Jeffrey DeShell. The work in this anthology was not chick lit as we know it today, and the term was used ironically. However James Wolcott's 1996 article in The New Yorker "Hear Me Purr" co-opted "chick lit" to define the trend of "girlishness" evident in the writing of female newspaper columnists at that time. This is significant, as major chick lit works such as Helen Fielding 's '' Bridget Jones's Diary '' and Candace Bushnall 's '' Sex And The City '' originated in such columns. With the success of Bridget Jones and Sex and the City in book form, the chick lit boom began. ''The Girls Guide to Fishing and Hunting'' by Melissa Bank is regarded as one of the first chick lit works to originate as a novel, though the term "chick lit" was in common use at the time of its publication (1999). The term "chick lit" was in general use by 2000/2001.

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