Books

10 Essential Books About Writing

An illustration shows a person with brown skin and brown hair with a pencil in their mouth, bookshelves with blue, purple, yellow, and pink book covers behind them, and a laptop in front of them.
by Nylah Burton
April 6, 2022 at 12:07pm
Must-read titles for writers include works by Elena Ferrante, Akwaeke Emezi, Meg Wolitzer, Yoko Ogawa, and more.
The covers of "Young Mungo" by Douglas Stuart, "Take My Hand" by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, and "Woman, Eating: A Novel" by Claire Kohda

BitchReads: 10 Books Feminists Should Read in April

by Nylah Burton
April 1, 2022 at 2:47pm
This month, we’re reading “Young Mungo” by Douglas Stuart, “The Red Zone” by Chloe Caldwell, “Harley Quinn: Reckoning” by Rachael Allen, and more. Read more »
Digital illustration of a Black femme with long, pink hair and tattoos in a wheelchair embracing a femme fat person with long blonde hair in front of a pink background.

Hot and Unbothered: The Romance Novels Rewriting Disability and Sex

by Gabriela Ramos Tavárez
April 1, 2022 at 9:22am
Gabriela Ramos Tavárez celebrates recent romance novels that give voice to the sex lives people with disabilities can have.  Read more »
A multicolored illustration of four people. On the left, one woman is lying down reading a book. On the right, two women are talking and laughing.

BitchReads: 12 Books That Shaped Us as Feminists

by Bitch HQ
March 22, 2022 at 9:09am
For Women’s History Month, Bitch staffers share the titles that have influenced our feminist thinking, including work by Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, Julia Serano, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Octavia Butler, and more. Read more »
Melissa Febos, a white woman with blue eyes and black long hair, looks directly at the viewer. On the right of the author is a small image of her new book's cover, which shows a blue figure of a woman on a yellow background. The title reads "Body Work."

In “Body Work,” Melissa Febos Delivers a Meta-Memoir

by Laura LeMoon
March 18, 2022 at 2:28pm
Melissa Febos’s latest, “Body Work,” is a bold and exhilarating mix of memoir and master class. Read more »
A headshot of author Meghan O’Rourke next to the cover of “The Invisible Kingdom”

“The Invisible Kingdom” Shines a Light on Women’s Chronic Pain

by Brijana Prooker
March 8, 2022 at 5:32pm
Bitch interviewed Meghan O’Rourke, author of The Invisible Kingdom, about the gender bias in medicine and the plight of the “invisible” illness. Read more »
A Brown woman with glasses and short haircut is pictured smiling next to a small image of the book cover for her memoir, "Another Appalachia."

Another Appalachia: Neema Avashia Confronts Growing Up Indian and Queer in West Virginia

by Ren Jender
March 3, 2022 at 4:48pm
We talked to “Another Appalachia” author Neema Avashia about anti-queer and anti-trans legislation, coping with loss, and how people are more than the politics of their communities. Read more »
Laynie Rose

This TikTokker Has Your Next Queer Rom Com Reading Rec

by Sarah Stark
February 25, 2022 at 9:43am
“It’s Gay and It Slaps”  Read more »
Author photo of Anastasia Higginbothom, a white woman with short grey hair, a tattoo on her arm, and a cheetah print shirt. She looks into the camera. Next to her is the cover of her book, You Ruined It.

Not Just for Kids: A New Book Addresses the Unbearable Truth of Sexual Assault

by Sara Youngblood Gregory
February 24, 2022 at 12:01pm
Anastasia Higginbothom writes children’s books on serious and challenging topics. Her latest is “You Ruined It: A Book About Boundaries,” which addresses sexual assault. Read more »
Grace Lavery, a brunette woman with glasses and a tattooed arm wears black and reclines horizontally on her back across the image. To the left is an image of her book, Please Miss. The book cover is white with red lips sprouting a cigarette under title.

Fighting TERFs, Vomiting, and Writing Bathos: Grace Lavery on Her Eccentric, Exciting Memoir

by Daniel Lavery
February 22, 2022 at 1:59pm
“Someone I used to live with described my writing process as watching someone vomit compulsively for hours at a time,” says Grace Lavery, author of “Please Miss: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Penis.” Read more »
A digital collage with bright purple, blue, green, and yellow palm leaves, and in the center the book cover for High Risk Homosexual. The cover features the same multi-colored palm leaves.

In “High-Risk Homosexual,” Living Authentically Is Bittersweet

by Eva Recinos
February 11, 2022 at 1:54pm
High-Risk Homosexual pulls apart the neat narratives we often see about what it means to come out—and to pursue your creative dreams.  Read more »

Pages

Best of Bitch

Black Girls Hunger for Heroes, Too: A Black Feminist Conversation on Fantasy Fiction for Teens

by Zetta Elliott
December 17, 2013 at 3:19pm
What happens when two great black women fiction writers get together to talk about race in young adult literature? That's exactly what happens... Read more »

Eat, Pray, Spend: Priv-Lit and the New, Enlightened American Dream

Elizabeth Gilbert, a white woman wearing a navy blue jumpsuit, leans forward and holds hand with and Oprah Winfrey, a Black woman wearing a gray cardigan and jeans
by Joshunda Sanders
Summer 2010 • Action
Even as reports on joblessness, economic recovery, and home foreclosures suggest that no one is immune to risk during this recession, the popularity of women’s wellness media has persisted and, indeed, grown stronger.  Read more »

Hot Under the Bonnet: The Cooptation of Amish Culture in Mass-Market Fiction

a blue and white illustration of a woman in Amish attire standing next to a fan and a chicken
by Audrey deCoursey
Spring 2014 • Maps & Legends
Dubbed “Amish romance novels,” “Amish fiction,” or the more waggish “bonnet rippers,” these novels just one entry point into the varying images of Amish communities in U.S. popular culture. Read more »

Know & Tell: The Literary Renaissance of Trans Women Writers

by Katherine Cross
Winter 2015 • (Re)Vision
For so long, the people who wrote about us were not us. Finally, that is beginning to change. Read more »