This engaging resource examines the stories of women from a wide array of cultures and generations who share a love of writing. These women are also united by the unique challenges facing women writers - some having to opt for masculine pen names in order to be published.

Table of Contents

• Women and Literature
• A
• Adams, Abigail
• Alcott, Louisa May
• Allen, Paula Gunn
• Alvarez, Julia
• Angelou, Maya
• Antin, Mary
• Arnow, Harriette Simpson
• Auel, Jean
• Austin, Mary Hunter
• B
• Bambara, Toni Cade
• Barnes, Djuna
• Bishop, Elizabeth
• Blume, Judy
• Bly, Nellie
• Bogan, Louise
• Bombeck, Erma
• Bonfils, Winifred Black
• Bowen, Catherine Drinker
• Boyle, Kay
• Bradstreet, Anne
• Brooks, Gwendolyn
• Brown, Margaret Wise
• Brown, Rita Mae
• Buck, Pearl S.
• Butler, Octavia E.
• C
• Carson, Rachel
• Cather, Willa
• Child, Lydia Maria
• Chin, Marilyn
• Chopin, Kate
• Chute, Carolyn
• Cisneros, Sandra
• Clampitt, Amy
• Clifton, Lucille
• Cornwell, Patricia
• D
• Danticat, Edwidge
• Davis, Rebecca Harding
• Dickinson, Emily
• Didion, Joan
• Dillard, Annie
• Dove, Rita
• Dunbar-Nelson, Alice
• E
• Ehrenreich, Barbara
• Erdrich, Louise
• F
• Fauset, Jessie
• Ferber, Edna
• Fisher, Mary Frances Kennedy
• Flanner, Janet
• Foster, Hannah Webster
• Freeman, Mary Wilkins
• Fuller, Margaret
• G
• Gaitskill, Mary
• García, Cristina
• Gilman, Charlotte Perkins
• Glaspell, Susan
• Glück, Louise
• Godwin, Gail
• Goodwin, Doris Kearns
• Gordon, Mary
• Grafton, Sue
• Graham, Katharine
• H
• H. D.
• Hale, Sarah
• Hamilton, Edith
• Hansberry, Lorraine
• Hardwick, Elizabeth
• Harper, Frances E. W.
• Hellman, Lillian
• Henley, Beth
• Herbst, Josephine
• Hoffman, Alice
• Hogan, Linda
• Howe, Julia Ward
• Hurst, Fannie
• Hurston, Zora Neale
• J
• Jackson, Helen Hunt
• Jackson, Shirley
• Jacobs, Harriet
• Jen, Gish
• Jewett, Sarah Orne
• Johnson, Georgia Douglas
• Jong, Erica
• K
• Kincaid, Jamaica
• Kingsolver, Barbara
• Kingston, Maxine Hong
• Kumin, Maxine
• L
• Lahiri, Jhumpa
• Larsen, Nella
• Lazarus, Emma
• Le Guin, Ursula K.
• Lee, Harper
• L'Engle, Madeleine
• Levertov, Denise
• Loos, Anita
• Lorde, Audre
• Lowell, Amy
• Lurie, Alison
• M
• Marshall, Paule
• Mason, Bobbie Ann
• McCarthy, Mary
• McCullers, Carson
• McDermott, Alice
• McMillan, Terry
• Millay, Edna St. Vincent
• Miller, Sue
• Mitchell, Margaret
• Mohr, Nicholasa
• Moore, Lorrie
• Moore, Marianne
• Morrison, Toni
• Mourning Dove
• Mukherjee, Bharati
• Murray, Judith Sargent
• N
• Naylor, Gloria
• Nin, Anaïs
• Norman, Marsha
• Norris, Kathleen
• Norton, Andre
• O
• Oates, Joyce Carol
• O'Connor, Flannery
• Olds, Sharon
• Oliver, Mary
• Olsen, Tillie
• Otsuka, Julie
• Ozick, Cynthia
• P
• Paley, Grace
• Paretsky, Sara
• Parker, Dorothy
• Perillo, Lucia
• Petry, Ann
• Piercy, Marge
• Plath, Sylvia
• Porter, Katherine Anne
• Portillo Trambley, Estela
• Powell, Dawn
• Proulx, E. Annie
• Q
• Quindlen, Anna
• R
• Rand, Ayn
• Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan
• Rice, Anne
• Rich, Adrienne
• Rinehart, Mary Roberts
• Roberts, Nora
• Robinson, Marilynne
• Rose, Wendy
• Ross, Ishbel
• Rowlandson, Mary
• Rukeyser, Muriel
• S
• Sanchez, Sonia
• Santiago, Esmeralda
• Sarton, May
• Sedgwick, Catharine Maria
• Settle, Mary Lee
• Sexton, Anne
• Shange, Ntozake
• Shreve, Anita
• Silko, Leslie Marmon
• Simon, Kate
• Smith, Anna Deavere
• Sontag, Susan
• Stafford, Jean
• Steel, Danielle
• Stein, Gertrude
• Stowe, Harriet Beecher
• Strout, Elizabeth
• Swenson, May
• T
• Tan, Amy
• Tarbell, Ida
• Teasdale, Sara
• Thompson, Dorothy
• Truth, Sojourner
• Tsukiyama, Gail
• Tuchman, Barbara
• Tyler, Anne
• U
• Uchida, Yoshiko
• V
• Vogel, Paula
• W
• Walker, Alice
• Walker, Margaret
• Warren, Mercy Otis
• Wasserstein, Wendy
• Wells-Barnett, Ida B.
• Welty, Eudora
• West, Dorothy
• Wharton, Edith
• Wheatley, Phillis
• Wilder, Laura Ingalls
• Wilson, Harriet E. Adams
• Wylie, Elinor
• Y
• Yamamoto, Hisaye
• Yezierska, Anzia
• Z
• Zitkala-Sa
• Recommended Sources on American Women Writers