Writing Now

Abstract

This chapter considers the preoccupations and forms that characterize British women's writing in the new millennium. We argue that these are, firstly, multiculturalism with its questioning of race, religion, and culture, and its relationship, if any, to terrorism. Secondly, this chapter will address the treatment in fiction of the issue of an ageing population, and the resultant concerns with women's changing roles in relation to employment, fertility, and childcare. Thirdly, an anxiety about climate change and environmental catastrophe manifests itself in a renewed interest in dystopian, post-apocalyptic writing. Finally, we consider the impact of technological change. The fact that publishing faces its greatest upheaval since Johannes Gutenberg's fifteenth-century invention of the printing press is leading to contemporary women's diverse interest in new technologies, including the internet, ebook and digital publishing, and other interactive online formats.