Rereading your post and skimming the Elle article, the word that floats out from the screen in italics is "should": what should we read, what should we write, what should be valued. I confess "should" makes me want to put down the pen or walk away from the keyboard!

As a writer--and someone who spent nearly a decade in academia studying Modernism and then left--I've had to wrestle with that vestigial "should" and give myself permission to ignore it, with mixed results, mind you. I still love some literary fiction, including Woolf (who was always a favorite), but as a reader I love the freedom to range widely and enjoy all kinds of good writing, in lots of genres. I read works by women more often, but certainly not exclusively. And as a writer, I am thrilled to find spaces and conversations online where people are talking writing and craft without worrying quite so much about the categories and divisions. What gets me excited is the prospect of reaching all kinds of readers, for all kinds of reasons, and telling a good story.

Thank you for writing such a marvelous definition of the serious writer! I'm putting it on my board of inspiration.