Foremothers and Sisters: Suggested Reading

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At this year's Los Angeles AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs), Jeanetta Calhoun Mish, Leslie Samuels Entsminger, Jan Freeman, Renee Olander, and myself participated in a panel called Literary Foremothers and Filling the Gaps. We wanted to honor women writers who have influenced our writing. Renee teaches women’s literature at Old Dominion University and built a substantial lifetime reading list of women writers for her class. Each of us added several of our own favorite books.

That list, far from complete, follows.

Fiction:

  • Maya Angelou – I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS (1969)

  • Isabel Allende – THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS (1985 first English edition)

  • Dorothy Allison – BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA (1992)

  • Julia Alvarez – HOW THE GARCIA GIRLS LOST THEIR ACCENTS (1991)

  • Margaret Atwood – THE HANDMAID’S TALE (1985)

  • Sanora Babb – WHOSE NAMES ARE UNKNOWN (1939/2006)

  • Muriel Barbery – THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG (2008)

  • Charlotte Brontë – JANE EYRE (1847)

  • Aphra Behn – OROONOKO OR THE ROYAL SLAVE (1688)

  • Frances Hodgson Burnett – THE SECRET GARDEN (1911)

  • Ana Castillo –SO FAR FROM GOD (1993)

  • Kate Chopin – THE AWAKENING (1899)

  • Sandra Cisneros –THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET (1991)

  • Collette – THE VAGABOND (1910; first English edition (1955)

  • Denise Chávez – THE LAST OF THE MENU GIRLS (1986)

  • Tory Dent – BLACK MILK (2005)

  • Rebecca Harding Davis – “Life in the Iron-Mills” (1861)

  • George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) – THE MILL ON THE FLOSS (1860)

  • Louise Erdrich – LOVE MEDICINE (1984)

  • Louise Erdrich – THE LAST REPORT ON THE MIRACLES FROM LITTLE NO-HORSE (2001)

  • Laura Esquivel – LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE (1989)

  • Shirley Jackson – “The Lottery” (1948)

  • Sue Monk Kidd – THE INVENTION OF WINGS (2014)

  • Barbara Kingsolver – LACUNA (2009)

  • Maxine Hong Kingston – THE WOMAN WARRIOR (1976)

  • Charlotte Perkins Gilman – HERLAND (1915)

  • Zora Neale Hurston – MOSES, MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN (1939)

  • Zora Neale Hurston – THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD (1937)

  • Erica Jong – FEAR OF FLYING (1973)

  • Nella Larsen – PASSING (1929)

  • Nella Larsen – QUICKSAND (1928)

  • Ursula LeGuin –THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS (1969)

  • Ursula LeGuin – THE DISPOSSESSED (1974)

  • Ursula LeGuin – “THE ONES WHO WALKED AWAY FROM OMELAS” (1975)

  • Meridel LeSueur –THE GIRL Included in Ripening: Selected Work (1939/1978/1990)

  • Meridel LeSueur –“Annunciation.” Included in Ripening: Selected Work (1939/1978/1990)

  • Angeles Mastretta – TEAR THIS HEART OUT (ARRÁNCAME LA VIDA, 1985; first English edition 1997)

  • Toni Morrison – THE BLUEST EYE (1970)

  • Toni Morrison – BELOVED (1987)

  • Toni Morrison – SONG OF SOLOMON (1977)

  • Toni Morrison – JAZZ (1992)

  • Toni Morrison – SULA (1973)

  • Joyce Carol Oates – THEM (1969)

  • Flannery O’Connor - “A Good Man is Hard to Find” (1955)

  • Flannery O’Connor – “Revelation” (1965)

  • Tillie Lerner Olsen – “I Stand Here Ironing" (1961)

  • Tillie Lerner Olsen: – “Tell Me a Riddle.” (1962/1995)

  • Tillie Lerner Olsen – YONNONDIO (1930s/1974)

  • Grace Paley – THE LITTLE DISTURBANCES OF MAN: STORIES OF WOMEN AND MEN AT LOVE (1959, republished as THE LITTLE DISTURBANCES OF MAN (1980)

  • Grace Paley – ENORMOUS CHANGES AT THE LAST MINUTE (1974)

  • Dorothy Parker – HERE LIES: THE COLLECTED STORIES OF DOROTHY PARKER (1939)

  • Anne Petry – THE STREET (1946)

  • Marge Piercy – WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME (1976)

  • Marge Piercy – VIDA (1980)

  • Sylvia Plath – THE BELL JAR (pen name Victoria Lucas, 1963)

  • Harriet Beecher Stowe – UNCLE TOM’S CABIN (1852) & DRED (1856)

  • Amy Tan – THE JOY LUCK CLUB (1989)

  • Yvonne Vera – BUTTERFULY BURNING (1998)

  • Alice Walker – THE COLOR PURPLE (1982)

  • Eudora Welty - “A Worn Path” (1941)

  • Eudora Welty - A CURTAIN OF GREEN AND OTHER STORIES (1941)

  • Edith Wharton – AGE OF INNOCENCE (1920)

  • Edith Wharton – ETHAN FROME (1911)

  • Virginia Woolf – “A Haunted House” (1921)

  • Virginia Woolf – TO THE LIGHTHOUSE (1927)

  • Virginia Woolf – THE WAVES (1931)

Nonfiction:

  • Paula Gunn Allen – THE SACRED HOOP (1986)

  • Gloria Anzaldúa –BORDERLANDS/LA FRONTERA (1987)

  • Julia Alvarez – IN THE TIME OF THE BUTTERFLIES (1994)

  • Sanora Babb – ON THE DIRTY PLATE TRAIL: REMEMBERING THE DUST BOWL

  • REFUGEE CAMPS (1930s/2007)

  • Helene Cixous – COMING TO WRITING AND OTHER ESSAYS (1977/1991)

  • Toi Derricotte – THE BLACK NOTEBOOKS (1997)

  • Annie Dillard – PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK (1974)

  • Marilyn French – BEYOND POWER: ON WOMEN, MEN AND MORALS (1986)

  • Roxanne Gay – BAD FEMINIST (2015)

  • Susan Griffin – WHAT HER BODY THOUGHT (2003)

  • belle hooks – WOUNDS OF PASSION: A WRITING LIFE (1997)

  • belle hooks – FEMINISM IS FOR EVERYBODY: PASSIONATE POLITICS (2000)

  • belle hooks – WHERE WE STAND: CLASS MATTERS (2000)

  • Harriet Jacobs (pen name Linda Brent) – INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL (1861)

  • June Jordan – TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES: AFRICAN AMERICAN NOTES ON THE

  • STATE OF THE UNION (1981)

  • June Jordan – SOME OF US DID NOT DIE: NEW AND SELECTED ESSAYS OF JUNE

  • JORDAN (2002)

  • James King – VIRGINIA WOOLF (biography, 1994)

  • Meridel LeSueur –WOMEN ON THE BREADLINES Included in Ripening: Selected Work

  • (1932/1990)

  • Michelle Knight – FINDING ME: A DECADE OF DARKNESS, A LIFE RECLAIMED (2014)

  • Audre Lorde – SISTER OUTSIDER (1984)

  • Audre Lorde – THE CANCER JOURNALS (1980)

  • Mina Loy – “Feminist Manifesto.” https://oncomouse.github.io/loy/feminist.html

  • Eileen Myles – CHELSEA GIRLS (1994)

  • Tillie Lerner Olsen –SILENCES (1978)

  • Octavio Paz – SOR JUANA: OR, THE TRAPS OF FAITH (biography of Sor Juana Ines de la

  • Cruz, 1988)

  • Lola Ridge – “WomAn and the Creative Will.” (1919/2008) http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mfs/

  • Muriel Rukeyser – THE LIFE OF POETRY (1949, 1996)

  • Elizabeth Cady Stanton – A DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS (1948)

  • Cheryl Strayed – WILD (2012)

  • Alice Walker – IN SEARCH OF OUR MOTHER’S GARDENS: WOMANIST PROSE (1983)

  • Mary Wollstonecraft – A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN (1792)

  • Virginia Woolf – A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN (1929)

  • Virginia Woolf – ON BEING ILL (1930)

  • Virginia Woolf – THREE GUINEAS (1938)

  • Virginia Woolf – “The Death of a Moth” (1942, 1 year posthumous)

Poetry:

  • Elizabeth Bishop – GEOGRAPHY III (1976)

  • Gwendolyn Brooks –THE WORLD OF GWENDOLYN BROOKS (1971)

  • Anne Carson – AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF RED (1998)

  • Nina Cassian – LIFE SENTENCE: SELECTED POEMS (1991)

  • Lorna Dee Cervantes – EMPLUMADA (1981)

  • Lorna Dee Cervantes – FROM THE CABLES OF GENOCIDE: POEMS ON LOVE AND HUNGER (1991)

  • Franny Choi – “Pussy Monster” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sunQ9UxZsZ8

  • Jayne Cortez – “Rape” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig4ItmFlKTg (2011)

  • Jayne Cortez – “If The Drum Is A Woman” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYV9_zSs-DU (1982)

  • Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) – “Because I could not stop for Death” (1951)

  • Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) – “Much madness is divinist Sense” (1951)

  • Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) – “Some keep the Sabbath going to Church” (1951)

  • Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) – “Tell all the Truth but tell it Slant” (1951)

  • Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) – “This is my letter to the World” (1951)

  • Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) – “This world is not Conclusion” (1951)

  • Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) – “Wild Nights, Wild Nights—” (1951)

  • Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) –COLLECTED POEMS (Ed. by Franklin, 1998)

  • Rita Dove – Thomas_and_Beulah (1986)

  • Claudia Emerson – LATE WIFE (2006)

  • Diane Gilliam Fisher – KETTLE BOTTOM (2004)

  • Judy Grahn – THE WORK OF A COMMON WOMAN (1964-1977)

  • H.D. – TRILOGY (1917-1944)

  • belle hooks – APPALACHIAN ELEGY: POETRY AND PLACE (2012)

  • Lyn Hejinian – MY LIFE (2002)

  • Gray Jacobik – LITTLE BOY BLUE: A MEMOIR IN VERSE (2011)

  • June Jordan – LIVING ROOM (1985)

  • June Jordan – PASSION, NEW POEMS 1977-1980 (1980)

  • Maxine Kumin – OUR GROUND TIME HERE WILL BE BRIEF: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS (1982)

  • Dorianne Laux – SMOKE (2000)

  • Dorianne Laux – WHAT WE CARRY (1994)

  • Audre Lorde – UNDERSONG: POEMS OLD AND NEW(1992)

  • Marcia Falk – THE SONG OF SONGS: LOVE LYRICS FROM THE BIBLE, A New

  • Translation –(1973, 1993)

  • Mina Loy – THE LAST LUNAR BAEDEKER (1923-1958)

  • Mina Loy – THE LOST LUNAR BAEDEKER (1923-1958)

  • Sharon Olds – THE GOLD CELL (1987)

  • Mary Oliver – AMERICAN PRIMITIVE (1983)

  • Tillie Lerner Olsen – “I Want ¥ou Women Up North to Know” (1934/1987). Included in Writing Red: An Anthology of American Women Writers, 1930-1940

  • Marge Piercy – TO BE OF USE (1973)

  • Marge Piercy – THE MOON IS ALWAYS FEMALE (1980)

  • Sylvia Plath – ARIEL (1966, 3 years posthumous, edited by Ted Hughes)

  • Sylvia Plath – ARIEL: THE RESTORED EDITION (2004, edited with a foreword by Freida Hughes)

  • Sylvia Plath – THE COLLECTED POEMS (2008)

  • Adrienne Rich – THE WILL TO CHANGE: POEMS 1968-1970 (1971)

  • Adrienne Rich – DIVING INTO THE WRECK (1973)

  • Adrienne Rich – AN ATLAS OF THE DIFFICULT WORLD: POEMS 1988-1991 (1991)

  • Lola Ridge – THE GHETTO http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/ghetto.html

  • Lola Ridge –SUN-UP AND OTHER POEMS http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/sunup.html

  • Muriel Rukeyser – THE COLLECTED POEMS (2005)

  • Sappho – SAPPHO; A NEW TRANSLATION (Translated by Mary Barnard 1958)

  • Ntozake Shange (b. Paulette Williams) – “With No Immediate Cause” (2006)

  • Gertrude Stein – THE YALE GERTRUDE STEIN (1980)

  • Ruth Stone – IN AN IRIDESCENT TIME (1996)

  • Ruth Stone – SIMPLICITY (1959)

  • May Swenson – IN OTHER WORDS (1987)

  • May Swenson – NEW AND SELECTED THINGS TAKING PLACE(1978)

  • Natasha Trethewey – NATIVE GUARD (2006)

  • Cecilia Vicuna – UNRAVELING WORDS AND THE WEAVING OF WATER (1992)

  • Anne Waldman – FAST SPEAKING WOMAN (1975)

  • Anne Waldman – MANATEE/HUMANITY (2009)

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