/ 
low concept
 : 
Dubious and far-fetched ideas.

Chicken LitThe latest addition to the canon takes the concept to a new level.

By Sloane TanenPosted Monday, Oct. 27, 2003, at 10:49 AM ET

The "chick lit" genre, as it is informally known, took off sometime in the mid-1990s, spurred by the success of Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary and Melissa Bank's The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing. Today, chick lit books are a dime a dozen: Did You Get the Vibe? and Pushing 30 are out this fall, and several publishing houses have imprints—including Red Dress Ink and Strapless—solely dedicated to the project of finding and publishing fiction about lonely girls in the city (who tend to work in publishing). In this slide show, Sloane Tanen, a painter in New York City, offers this year's model, a very winning chick indeed.

Click here to view the slide show.

Or join the discussion
on the Fray
Sloane Tanen is a painter living in New York. Her new book, Bitter With Baggage Seeks Same, will be published in November.
Photographs by Stefan Hagen © Sloane Tanen.
TODAY'S PICTURES
TODAY'S CARTOONS
TODAY'S DOONESBURY
TODAY'S VIDEO
Plus one.17/TP.jpg
Cartoonists' take on weather.29/TC.jpg
Et tu, dude?49/TD.jpg