Michelle Dean is a journalist and critic. Her new book is Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion. “There isn’t one answer. I wish there was one answer. The answer is: You just have to wing it. And I’m learning that — I’m learning to be okay with the winging it. ... I guess the lesson to me of what went on with a lot of women in the book is: You have to be comfortable with the fact that some days are going to be good, and some days are going to not be good.” Thanks to MailChimp for sponsoring this week's episode. @michelledean michelledean.tumblr.com Dean on Longform [00:45] Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion (Grove Press • 2018) [01:35] "Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter To Be Sick, Gypsy Wanted Her Mom To Be Murdered" (Buzzfeed • Aug 2016) [08:10] annefriedman.com [08:50] "The Daily Show's Woman Problem" (Irin Carmon • Jezebel • June 2010) [09:20] "Someone Got 'The Daily Show' in My Jezebel and Together They Taste A Little Weird" (The Awl • July 2010) [15:20] "Waterworld Review" (KillerMovies • July 1995) [20:25] Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace (D. T. Max • Penguin Books • 2013) [20:35] "A Supposedly True Thing Jonathan Franzen Said About David Foster Wallace" (The Awl • Oct 2011) [26:25] "The Perils of Pauline" (Renata Adler • The New York Review of Books • Aug 1980) [28:30] "How Unauthorized Is the New Book About Harper Lee?" (Gawker • July 2014) [31:05] Dean’s Archive on The Guardian [30:20] How Should A Person Be (Sheila Heti • Picador • 2013) [35:30] "True Lives" (James Wood • The New Yorker • June 2012) [35:40] "Listening to Women" (Slate • June 2012) [40:30] Longform Podcast #156: Renatta Adler [51:05] Mommy Dead and Dearest (Erin Lee Carr • 2017) [51:15] Longform Podcast #248: Erin Lee Carr [64:00] Gerard Manley Hopkins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices