New trends in female readership:

Chick lit—hot pink covers featuring martini glasses and Manolos, stylish city girl heroines navigating the urban jungle in search of love and career—seems to have gone the way of Friends and the dotcom bubble. “A visit to any chain bookstore will testify that its heyday has definitely passed,” says Salon, quoting an editor who says, “We’ve pretty much stopped publishing chick lit.”

“[T]he bloom is off the “chick lit” rose,” agrees The Economist.

Well I have news. Yes, chick lit is dead (or dying, at least). But in its place, we now have a new genre. Call it “farm lit.”

In farm lit books, our heroines ditch the big cities beloved in chick lit—New York, Chicago, LA—in favor of slower, more rural existences, scrappily learning to raise goats on idyllic Vermont farms or healing their broken hearts by opening cupcake bakeries in their sweet Southern hometowns. Instead of sipping $16 appletinis with the girls, they’re mucking out barns and learning to knit. Instead of pining after Mr. Big, they’re falling for the hunky farmer next door.

Hey, ladies! I left the big city in favor of a slower, more rural existence, scrappily learning to blog in my sweet (but complicated) Southern hometown — and wrote a book about it.  I want in on this trend, dang it!