I had so much fun doing this interview at AlterNet with Helaine Olen. Here this is a fun part:
OLEN: Why use such a provocative title?
MERRICK: It's funny. When I was recently at a wedding and asked what my own novel, "Girly," was about, I gave the overview -- that it's epic, told in seven voices, about sexuality and spirituality and two intense sisters -- and the woman who asked, smirked, "So it's NOT CHICK LIT." She didn't know about the anthology, and isn't particularly literary, so I think it's just a sense that it's in the ether: What else could we be reading now? The title is a reminder that there is a huge amount of amazing work by women that is not this formulaic stuff that has taken over the front of the bookstore.