Women Writers

When Harold Bloom's name comes up, Erica Bauermeister smiles to herself a little ruefully, like someone who knows she should keep her mouth shut and knows perfectly well she won't. Bloom is the venerable Yale professor and recent author of "The Western Canon," an exhaustive and oh-so-authoritative recitation of the 26 greatest authors in the history of Western Civilization, nearly all of whom happen to be white men.

On a desolate stretch of Spring Street, beyond downtown's high-rise chessboard and the pungent crush of Chinatown, the only signs of life besides the occasional passing sedan or pacing yard dog are pink balloons, tied to the facade of an old brick warehouse and tugged by an intermittent wind. Even without balloons, the stout red-brick building has long resembled some sort of out-of-season blossom.

Regarding Sharon Bernstein's Feb. 18 article on the status of jobs for women in TV: I congratulate her for not mentioning once (with one passing and very casual exception) the idea that women will raise the artistic level of the medium. Her article only shows that women can be as rich-and-famous crazy as the boys, because they produce lugubrious junk such as "China Beach" and "Tour of Duty" without a qualm. ROSLYN SMITH North Hollywood

The script hasn't changed much for the diversity -- or lack thereof -- of writers in Hollywood. That's the log line from the 2011 Hollywood Writers Report, the latest study by the Writers Guild of America, West on the career status of film and TV writers. The study tracks employment and earnings by ethnicity, gender and age for writers between 2008 and 2009. Among the key findings: Though the share of minorities working in television -- 10% -- rebounded to 2005 levels, the earnings gap between minorities and white writers more than doubled since 2007.

Barbara T. Christian, author and UC Berkeley professor of African American studies who examined and encouraged contemporary American feminist literature, has died at the age of 56. Christian, who helped focus attention on such writers as Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, died Sunday of cancer at her home in Berkeley, university officials announced. Intrigued by literature since she discovered T.S.

In the last 20 years, since women sportswriters have been allowed to interview athletes in locker rooms, there have been some uncomfortable incidents, from fraternity house-style heckling to a USFL player running a razor up the leg of one writer. Jack Morris, a Detroit Tigers pitcher, said to a Detroit Free Press summer female intern, "I don't talk to women when I'm naked unless I'm on top of them or they're on top of me."

Ernest Hemingway wades into the dark, rushing current of the Big Two-Hearted River. He lifts his arm to cast a grasshopper-baited hook into a pool. To his astonishment, someone else's line skims into the froth first. Standing on a log across the water playing out her line is Viva, a former Andy Warhol sidekick who is an actress, model, movie producer and photographer. Such imaginary confrontations are an underlying theme of "Uncommon Waters: Women Write About Fishing."

The Mystery Writers of America, formed in 1945, is the senior organization of crime writers in this country. Its annual Edgar awards (named, of course, for Edgar Allan Poe, who is generally saluted as the founding father of the form) are the most prestigious in the field.