Virago acquires book on fame and feminity from Philippa Snow

Virago has acquired a book of interconnected essays on fame and femininity from Philippa Snow. Anna Kelly acquired world English-language rights to It’s Terrible the Things I Have to Do to Be Me: On Fame and Femininity from Imogen Pelham at Marjacq Scripts. The book will be published on 3^rd July 2025.

The book consists of a series of interconnected essays about pairs of famous women, including Anna Nicole Smith and Marilyn Monroe, Lindsay Lohan with Elizabeth Taylor, and Pamela Anderson and Caroline ’Tula’ Cossey. The publisher said: "Snow explores the echoes and connections between a constellation of female stars and lays bare the artful and gruelling demands of femininity—from the golden age of Hollywood to the Instagram era."

Kelly said: "This book is such a thought-provoking, entertaining and refreshing take on femininity and the interconnections between gender, identity and influence, full of profound insights expressed in flamboyantly stylish prose. I’m so excited to welcome Philippa Snow to the Virago list."

2020 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize shortlistee Snow said: "You cannot imagine how relieved my nearest and dearest will be that the wonderful Anna at Virago has acquired this book, now that they’ve spent nearly a decade listening to me drone on about how badly I wanted to write it. I’m thrilled about it too—Virago is the perfect publisher for a project that, I hope, engages just as seriously with ideas around femininity and glamour as it does with those that relate to feminism and the arts."

Snow is the author of Which As You Know Means Violence (Repeater, 2022) and Trophy Lives (Mack, 2024). It’s Terrible the Things I Have to Do to Be Me is her first full-length collection.