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Women in Writing

Writer's picture: MorningstarMorningstar

Updated: Mar 19, 2021

Yesterday was International Women's Day. It got me thinking about female authors, and how often I gravitate towards them. The world's first novel is believed to be The Tale of Genji, written by a woman, Murasaki Shikibu, about 1000 years ago. Julian Of Norwich, an anchorite, wrote the first book in English by a woman. It contained one of my favorite mantras, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”


Then there are the classics: Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Mary Shelley, and Louisa May Alcott. As a girl I was sure I was just like Jo March, from Alcott's Little Women, and I swooned over Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre. Early 20th century writers I have enjoyed include Agatha Christie and Mary Roberts Rinehart, who wrote The Circular Staircase, later called The Bat. The Bat, an intriguing detective story, influenced the creation of Batman. Moving forward, I enjoyed the mid 20th century writers like Mary Stewart, Phyllis Whitney, and Elizabeth Cadell. They wrote seemingly light fare that on closer reading revealed great wit and wisdom.


Now we have a veritable plethora (thank you, El Guapo) of women authors taking on the world, from Louise Penny, Celeste Ng, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. They span every genre and often transcend them. Authors like Sarah Maas and VE Schwab have completely taken over the previously male dominated fantasy market.


And speaking about genres, where are the women of science fiction? Octavia Butler wrote fabulous science fiction in the late 1970s and 1980s and has been recently "re-discovered". But did you know that the first science fiction book thought to have ever been written was written by a woman? Penned in 1666, The Blazing World, by Margaret Cavendish, was a "portal" novel that brought the protagonist to a new world through the North Pole.


This is just a minuscule slice of the works I have enjoyed that were authored by women. As a female writer I stand on so many shoulders of the women that blazed a trail for those of us writing today. Who are some of your favorite female authors?



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