Shannon Turlington

For my yearly reading project in 2015, I have been focusing on women writers, specifically of speculative fiction. This project has led me down lots of wonderful side alleys discovering new writers, revisiting old favorites, and thinking about what they have to say. It’s also helped me understand the bias that women writers continue to face when it comes to getting published, reviewed, and honored. Here I want to share some related links and also encourage every reader to seek out more women writers to add to their To Read lists.

• Shit people say to women writers – A Tumblr dedicated to the shit women writers have to hear all the time
• One of my favorite women writers, Margaret Atwood, lays down her 10 rules of writing
• Daphne du Maurier, women writer and badass
• Is there a double standard for judging domestic themes in fiction?
• Madonnas and whores: on mothers writing about sex
• How to pose like a man for your author photo
• How to analyze male characters in book reviews
• Ban men from literary readings

I am putting together a list of great books by women writers to read. It is now over 150 books. I’ll probably share it when it gets up to 200 or so titles. In the meantime, here are some women writers who I have been reading lately to go out and discover right now: the aforementioned Margaret Atwood and Daphne du Maurier; Shirley Jackson; Patricia Highsmith; Ursula K. Le Guin; Octavia Butler; Jane Austen; Stella Gibbons; Dorothy L. Sayers; Harper Lee; Tana French; Mary Doria Russell; Kate Atkinson; Ngozi Chimamanda Adichie; Ruth Ozeki; Jhumpa Lahiri; Ann Leckie; Emily St. John Mandel.