Fay Weldon webchat – post your questions now

The prolific novelist is publishing a career-spanning short story collection, Mischief – and will be answering your questions in a webchat from 1pm GMT on Wednesday 11 February. Post yours in the comments below

4.52pm GMT

Some of the short stories in Fay Weldon’s new collection, Mischief, stretch back 50 years, right to the start of her career when she was writing copy for adverts. Working with brilliantly economical slogans like “go to work on an egg”, she was soon taking on almost any literary form, from radio plays to TV scripts to journalism. And of course novels: the classic likes of Puffball and The Life and Loves of a She-Devil feature battles of the sexes whose wars still haven’t been won today. It’s all stemmed from a rich life, with numerous marriages, a late conversion to Christianity, and the teaching of hundreds of students in the craft of writing.

And as a new interview with the Guardian shows, her spark is undimmed as she takes on the big social questions. On sex: “We’re sedated by sex, by oxytocin. The only time women are really themselves is when they have PMT, and turn into people who are vile, nasty and mean.” On religion: “I find atheism infinitely depressing.” And at a time when women seem assailed by contradictory messages of how to live, she reminds us that it used to be worse still: “When I began, women needed to be taught the truth about love, babies, money, men. They seemed to know so little and be fed so many misapprehensions.”

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