LITERARY WOMEN
Celebrating Women Authors Since 1982
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Janet Sternburg
What makes women write? In The Writer on Her Work, Volumes I & II, Janet Sternburg has gathered answers from more than three dozen major American women writers. Authors as diverse as Alice Walker, Joan Didion and Jan Morris talk about what it means to be a woman and a writer. Sternburg’s work provides an excellent guide to some of the most important and interesting women writing today.
Visit Janet Sternburg’s website › 1992 Festival ›
Ruth Stone
Ruth Stone is a eminent poet, mentioned for the Pulitzer Prize. She wrote In An Iridescent Time, Topography and Other Poems, Unknown Messages and Cheap. The reader in The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women will see her own sisters and mother, friends, and perhaps herself. Rarely stuffy, her poems seem to say life is good no matter how hard. Stone has worked as a poet-in-residence and teacher, raised three children, and involved herself with drum music, bus travel and the women’s liberation movement. Her newest collection of poems is Second Hand Coat.
Visit Ruth Stone’s website › 1988 Festival ›
Susan Straight
Susan Straight writes from the unique perspective of a white woman immersed in the black community in which she lives. Her gifts are acute perception and a breathtaking ability to express what her heart discovers. The epiphanies of Aquaboogie: A Novel in Stories illuminate the delicate balance Straight’s characters maintain as they evolve within their culture and the wider world. Her second novel is Living Large.
Visit Susan Straight’s website › 1992 Festival ›
Elizabeth Strout
ELIZABETH STROUT is the author of three novels: Amy and Isabelle, which won the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, Abide With Me, a national bestseller and Book Sense pick, and her latest book, the wonderfully rich and unforgettable, Olive Kitteridge. Her short stories have been published in numerous magazines, including The New Yorker and O, The Oprah Magazine.
Visit Elizabeth Strout’s website › 2009 Festival ›
Lalita Tademy
LALITA TADEMY, in her debut novel, Cane River, recounts with compelling detail the lives of her matriarchal ancestors who were born into slavery in pre-Civil War Louisiana. Tademy describes her historical novel, an Oprah’s Book Club selection, as a work of fiction that is “deeply rooted in years of research, historical fact and family lore.” This universal story of strong-willed survivors is illustrated with documents and evocative photographs.
Visit Lalita Tademy’s website › 2005 Festival ›
Haley Tanner
Haley Tanner’s breakout novel, Vaclav & Lena, is a magical story about the strength and endurance of love. Her poignant tale of two Russian immigrant children who meet in an ESL class in Brooklyn will steal your heart as you follow the story of these unforgettable protagonists, the endearing budding magician, Vaclav, and his “lovely assistant,” Lena.
Visit Haley Tanner’s website › 2012 Festival ›
Diane Thomas
Diane Thomas….The success of Romancing the Stone turned this 33-year-old Long Beach screenwriter into Hollywood’s Cinderella of 1984. “Hollywood loves an overnight success, ” says Ms. Thomas, “but, as everyone knows, it’s never overnight.”
1985 Festival ›
Judith Thurman
Judith Thurman’s Isak Dinesen:The Life of a Storyteller is the result of penetrating research into the private world of the author of Out of Africa. This widely travelled New Yorker is a translator and a contributor to Vogue, Ms., Cosmopolitan and the Village Voice, as well as poet, anthologist and and associate producer of Out of Africa starring Meryl Streep.
1987 Festival ›
Miriam Toews
Miriam Toews’ recently released novel, Irma Voth, explores the inner life of a young woman living in an isolated Mennonite community. It is a similar theme to her award-winning novel A Complicated Kindness. Miriam’s other works are The Flying Troutmans, a novel that affirms the bonds of family; and Swing Low: A Life, a moving memoir about her manic-depressive father.
2012 Festival ›
Susan Allen Toth
Susan Allen Toth was born in Ames, Iowa in 1940. She writes of her years there with wit and an eye for remembered detail in Blooming: A Small Town Girlhood, which in 1981 received the New York Times Book Review Notable Book Award. It’s sequel, Ivy Days: Making My Way Out East, brings us universally recognized moments and characters from the tumultuous college years. Her most recent book is How to Prepare for Your High School Reunion and Other Midlife Musings.
Visit Susan Allen Toth’s website › 1989 Festival ›
Gail Tsukiyama
GAIL TSUKIYAMA was born in San Francisco, California, to a Chinese mother and a Japanese father. Initially a poet, she now uses her cross-cultural experiences in all her novels, the latest of which is Dreaming Waters. She teaches at San Francisco State Universality and is book review editor for the on-line magazine Pacific Rim Voices.
2003 Festival ›
Kathleen Tyau
Reflecting her own background of mixed race and traditions, Kathleen Tyau’s widely acclaimed novels play out against the lush background of Hawaiian cultures and landscapes. The deeply layered, interwoven strands of both Makai and A Little Too Much Is Enough result in works that are, according to The Asian Reprter, "entertaining, innovative, and emotionally satisfying."
2002 Festival ›
Helena Maria Viramontes
Helena Maria Viramontes, another prizewinner, brings a unique insight into Chicano Literature. Born in East Los Angeles, a lecturer and short story writer, her first book, The Moths and Other Stories, will be out this Spring.
1985 Festival ›
Padma Viswanathan
PADMA VISWANATHAN’s bestselling debut novel The Toss of a Lemon, was inspired by family history. It takes the reader into the private world of a Brahmin clan in early twentieth century India, a turbulent time of social and political change. At the novel’s heart is Sivakami, a young widow bound by rigorous rules, which she observes – with the exception of a single defiant act.
Visit Padma Viswanathan’s website › 2010 Festival ›
Lane Von Herzen
Lane Von Herzen’s lyrical first novel Copper Crown portrays an interracial friendship that transcends the bigotry and violence of rural Texas in the early 1900’s. Published in 1991, it was a Literary Guild selection and a featured novel in B. Dalton’s Discover Great New Writers series. Von Herzen won the 1990 Los Angeles Arts Council Fiction Prize. That same year she received her M.F.A. degree from the University of California at Irvine.
Visit Lane Von Herzen’s website › 1993 Festival ›
Susan Vreeland
Susan Vreeland has enjoyed a thirty-year career teaching English and ceramics while publishing newspaper pieces and short fiction. Her books about women include What Love Sees, the best seller Girl in Hyacinth Blue, and her recently released The Passion of Artemisia that explores a woman’s struggle to paint in seventeenth-century Italy.
Visit Susan Vreeland’s website › 2002 Festival ›
Amy Waldman
In The Submission, a finalist in the Hemingway Foundation/PEN First Fiction Award, Amy Waldman creates a fascinating look at the jury’s selection in an anonymous competition for the 911 memorial. A Muslim-American wins and the jury goes into a tailspin. Waldman eloquently considers the multiple issues that spring from this event.
Visit Amy Waldman’s website › 2013 Festival ›
Joyce Weatherford
A finalist for the Willa Cather Award, JOYCE WEATHERFORD’s debut novel, Heart of the Beast, has been lauded as “not a book, but a spell, an act of magic.” This saga of the American West told from a female perspective comes alive with fiercely rich details grounded in Weatherford’s own experiences growing up on a ranch in eastern Oregon.
2003 Festival ›
Isabel Wilkerson
The Warmth of Other Suns, written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson, is an epic narrative focusing on the lives of three African Americans who represent the stories of millions who migrated from the South from 1915 to 1970. A major part of American history, this great migration has been called the most underrated story of the 20th century.
Visit Isabel Wilkerson’s website › 2012 Festival ›
Jincy Willet
JINCY WILLETT is a Southern California author living in Escondido. Her novel, The Writing Class is a clever mystery set in a writing class comprised of adult students with varying degrees of writing ability. The reader learns a lot about the craft of writing while laughing at the hilarious situations and wry, witty writing. Willett’s other books include Winner of the National Book Award and Jenny and the Jaws of Life.
Visit Jincy Willet’s website › 2010 Festival ›
Jacqueline Winspear
JACQUELINE WINSPEAR is the author of the award-winning Maisie Dobbs series. Maisie is a one-of-a-kind psychological investigator who has captured the attention of mystery lovers and history buffs alike. In the fourth installment, Messenger of Truth, Winspear explores both the sinister aspects of the London art world and the bitter legacy of World War I.
Visit Jacqueline Winspear’s website › 2007 Festival ›
Meg Wolitzer
MEG WOLITZER has published seven novels, including The Position, which was long-listed for the UK’s Orange Prize, The Wife and Surrender; Dorothy. She has taught creative writing at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Skidmore College, Columbia University and 92nd Street Y of New York City. Her new novel, The Ten-Year Nap, will be published in March.
Visit Meg Wolitzer’s website › 2008 Festival ›
Jan Wong
Jan Wong, Canadian of Chinese descent, entered China in 1972 as a starry-eyed Maoist to join the Cultural Revolution. Red China Blues entertains and enlightens us with Wong’s two journeys: as a Beijing University student expressing solidarity with the masses; later as a journalist viewing socio-political change.
Visit Jan Wong’s website › 1998 Festival ›
Marilyn Yalom
Marilyn Yalom of Stanford’s Center for Research on Women, edited Women Writers of the West Coast, public dialogues and candid discussion of ten writers sharing “rare fragments of their life stories as well as insights into their writing techniques.” Dr. Yalom is also the author of Maternity, Morality and the Literature of Madness.
1985 Festival ›
Mitsuye Yamada
Born in Japan, raised in Seattle, survivor of an Idaho internment camp, Mitsuye Yamada reflects a unique cultural heritage in her collections of poetry and prose. Camp Notes and Other Poems and Desert Run: Poems and Stories draw on her experiences as an Asian-American woman and an advocate for human rights. Said one reviewer, “Yamada’s poetry and prose resonate with wit, power and poignancy.”
Visit Mitsuye Yamada’s website › 1992 Festival ›