British writer Caitlin Moran has a lot to say, and she isn’t afraid to say it.
“Of course, there are lighter, more enjoyable aspects of living in London: Regent’s Park rose garden, tiny dogs, spotting celebrities, getting keys cut in Timposon’s. And the 5:2 [intermittent fasting] diet. For a brief spell in 2013, everyone was on the 5:2 diet, and I found it very, very amusing.”
“The logic of the fury against [Hillary] Clinton essentially centered on the fact that she had been able to make a choice about her life. It was sobering, as a seventeen-year-old, to witness this: that women just can’t say they don’t want to make biscuits and would prefer to be a lawyer, instead.”
“In my time on these pages I’ve suggested some pretty contentious things: Jam is horrible. Fish are evil. Ketchup shouldn’t be kept in the fridge. Father Christmas is the sexiest man alive. But this week I am going to say something that I confidently expect to win 100 percent support … We should ban homework.”
These excerpts are from Caitlin’s second book, Moranifesto, a collection of columns she’s written that demonstrate the range of opinions that have won her a worldwide audience for their insight and humor.
The author of six books, a television series, a screen adaptation for her first book, and a longtime columnist for The Times of London, Caitlin was named Critic and Interviewer of the Year by The Times in 2011, and awarded Columnist of the Year by the British Press the year before.
She’s also a prolific Twitter user, whose account @caitlinmoran has grown to more than 850,000 followers since 2008. In 2013 she organized a 24-hour Twitter boycott to draw attention to online harassment and offensive content; in 2014 Reuters named her the most influential British journalist on Twitter.
Caitlin knew from an early age that she wanted to be a writer. She was born in 1975, the oldest of eight children who lived with their parents in a three-bedroom house in Wolverhampton, in west-central England.
Her father was a drummer with several psychedelic English bands in the 1960s; her mother was a hippie who, as Caitlin describes her in her first book, How to Be a Woman: “… is like some Ford car production line, producing a small, gobby baby every two years, as regular as clockwork, until our house is full to bursting point.”
Caitlin and her brothers and sisters were educated at home, informally. She won her first essay contest at 13, and at 15 won The Observer’s Young Reporter of the Year. She got her first journalism job at 16, writing about music for Melody Maker, a weekly British magazine; that same year, she wrote her first novel, The Chronicles of Narno, about a home-schooled family.
When she was 17 Caitlin turned to television, hosting a music show on Channel 4 for two seasons. Later, she wrote Raised by Wolves, an original series inspired by her childhood, that aired on Channel 4 in late 2013.
Caitlin’s forte is taking on hot-button issues, but with a sense of humor. Her columns for The Times, for which she’s written since 1992, are a mix of politics, popular culture and the personal, from parenting to beauty to celebrity crushes (Benedict Cumberbatch and Bruce Springsteen, to be specific).
She’s particularly interested in exploring feminism and women’s equality, advocating at one point that young girls should avoid reading male authors in order to build trust and confidence in their own writing first.
Her most recent book, More Than a Woman, was released last week. It’s the second in a trilogy of autobiographical novels about being a woman at different stages of life. She wrote the first book, How to Be a Woman, at 32; it sold 400,000 copies worldwide. Now 45, married and the mother of two teenage daughters, Caitlin shares her perspective on parenting, patriarchy and, as always, feminism at a new stage of life.
“For me, the most feminist thing you can do is tell the truth about your life as a woman,” Caitlin told the Irish Times recently. “Let’s just be honest — life’s too short.”
Top photo by Andrew Lih.