I often share lists of books or lists of writers here on my blog, for a whole range of reasons — books I’ve bought in the past year, friends with work coming out, reading challenges. At least three times now, I’ve shared lists of women writers, but that list keeps growing, and it’s become something of a tradition here on the blog to share lists of women writers or books by women during Women’s History Month and in the vicinity of International Women’s Day. So, here’s some more:
For some background, you can see some lists of women writers I love from back in 2010, 2014, and 2015.
But within the past year, I have either bought new books or got round to reading older books by these amazing women:
Jane Austen, Emma
Lynda Barry, Syllabus
Gwen Beatty, Kill Us On the Way Home
Gay Degani, Rattle of Want
Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro, Bitch Planet
Rios de la Luz, The Pulse between Dimensions and the Desert
Jenny Drai, The New Sorrow Is Less Than the Old Sorrow
Monica Drake, The Folly of Loving Life
Carson Ellis, Home
Laura Garrison, Skeleton Keys
Jac Jemc, A Different Bed Every Time
Sally K. Lehman, In the Fat
Margaret Malone, People Like You
Linda Medley, Castle Waiting, Vol. II
Michelle Modesto, Revenge and the Wild
Alexis Orgera, Dust Jacket
Alexis Orgera, How Like Foreign Objects
Kate Ristau, Shadowgirl
Corie Skolnick, America’s Most Eligible
Beth Swain, Silenced
Raina Telgemeier, Sisters
Gayle Towell, Broken Parts
Ellen Urbani, Landfall
Lidia Yuknavitch, The Small Backs of Children
But that’s not all! Earlier today, the Facebook page for the Willamette Writers organization here in Oregon asked for our favorite women authors, so of course I chimed in with a long list. Among the women not already on that list above, I also named Beth Ann Fennelly, my favorite living poet; Alice McDermott (her craft lecture at Sewanee Writers’ Conference this past summer was even more amazing than her novels!); Mary Shelley; Charlotte Brontë; Jonis Agee; Leesa Cross-Smith; AS Byatt; Sandra Cisneros; Alice Munro; Toni Morrison; Annie Proulx; Margaret Fuller; Marie Marshall; Alice Walker; JK Rowling, of course; LM Montgomery; Anne Rice (I stand by her early work); Francine Prose (her Reading Like a Writer is one of my most-recommended books).
And of course there is the WEALTH of amazing women writers here in Portland: in addition to some of the women above (Kelly Sue DeConnick, Monica Drake, Carson Ellis, Sally K. Lehman, Margaret Malone, Kate Ristau, Gayle Towell, Ellen Urbani, Lidia Yuknavitch, and too briefly Jenny Drai and Alexis Orgera), we also are home to Alexis M. Smith, Cari Luna, Carrie Seitzinger, Chelsea Cain, Cheryl Strayed, Dena Rash Guzman, Domi Shoemaker, Elissa Wald, Emily Kendal Frey, Heather Vogel Frederick, Jean Auel, Jenny Forrester, Jessica Standifird, Karen Karbo, Kari Luna, Kate Gray, Kerry Cohen, Kristina McMorris, Lili Ristagno, Melissa Dodson, Mo Daviau, Olivia Olivia, Rene Denfeld, Evelyn Sharenov, Natalie Serber, Nicole J. Georges, Ruth Tenzer Feldman, Suzy Vitello, Ursula K. LeGuin, Walidah Imarisha, and, of course all the AMAZING women I haven’t named from the celebrated all-women Unchaste Reading Series.
And those are just the ones I know of, just in the Portland area!
And then there are the books still arriving later this year. There’s also Bethany Lee, Kelly Magee, and Gwendolyn Edward, three friends/acquaintances of mine with chapbooks coming out from Red Bird Chapbooks later this year (I’m thrilled to be their pressmates!)
And on, and on. So many women, so many amazing books!
So today — and tomorrow, and next week, and all year; but especially today — pick up a book written by a woman and share it. And please, feel free to add names and titles in the comments!
Samuel Snoek-Brown 