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.
Bonnie Ruberg, a white professor with short, red hair, and wearing an ocean blue blazer, sits on a couch with a game controller in her hand

Playing for Freedom: Welcome to the Queer Gaming Revolution

by Naseem Jamnia
March 19, 2020 at 10:49am
The queer games avant-garde is a rising tide of indie games being developed by, about, and often for LGBTQ people. Read more »
Stephanie Wrobel, a thin, white woman with short blond hair, poses in front of a barn door

Stephanie Wrobel on Writing a Monstrous Mother

by Raquel Diaz
March 16, 2020 at 12:17pm
We have less sympathy for perpetrators when their illness hurts someone else.  Read more »
Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, a Black woman, wears gold hoops and dark red lipstick and looks at the camera. Her hair is in long braids and she wears a black sweater.

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh Is Widening Our Understanding of Street Harassment

by Rachel Charlene Lewis
March 12, 2020 at 9:38am
Women have been talking about our experiences with every form of sexual violence since the dawn of time. Read more »
Amanda Leduc, a white woman with wavy dark brown hair, looks at the camera. She has a soft smile and appears to be outdoors.

Amanda Leduc and Fantasy Authors Challenge the Trope of “Broken” Disabled People

by Alaina Leary
March 9, 2020 at 1:54pm
Fairy tales and their contemporary counterparts—superhero tales, science fiction, fantasy—shape our collective ideas about what it means to be powerful and beautiful.  Read more »
Three young adult novels collaged together featuring a variety of characters.

Escapist Young Adult Novels Offer a Breath of Fresh Air in the Current Political Climate

by Nicole Brinkley
March 4, 2020 at 10:19am
These stories are escapist fiction—literature that doesn’t explicitly focus on the social and political issues in our real world, allowing the reader to temporarily forget about them and fall into the story. Read more »
Rachel Vorona Cote, author of "Too Much," sits with her hands on her chin wearing a black shirt and glasses.

Corseted Up: Victorian Ideals Are Still Binding up Women

by Rachel Klein
February 24, 2020 at 6:33am
A woman who meets the world with intensity is a woman who endures lashes of shame and disapproval. Read more »
a collage of two books: Why We Can't Sleep by Ada Calhoun and In Our Prime by Susan J. Douglas

Women of a Certain Rage: Two New Books Tackle Getting Older—and More Pissed Off

by Andi Zeisler
February 13, 2020 at 1:22pm
 Like aging itself, Why We Can’t Sleep and In Our Prime are both reflective and daunting. Read more »
Judy Blume, a white author wearing a white suit, sits on a rooftop and smiles at the camera

Judged Judy: Judy Blume’s 40 Years Old Fight to Tell the Truth about Sex, Religion, and Turtles

by Joanna Miller
February 12, 2020 at 4:06pm
For refusing to condescend to her readers in the face of physical harassment and threats of nonpublication, Blume has been, regardless of whether it was her intention, a protector of intellectual freedom and the First Amendment. Read more »
Erin Khar, a white woman with black hair and brown eyes, stands against a brick wall. She wears a black coat and has a soft smile.

Cleaned Up: “Strung Out” Complicates the Conversation about Women and Opioid Addiction

by Elizabeth Lothian
February 11, 2020 at 9:00am
We can only help people if they’re alive; the only bottom you can’t recover from is death. Read more »
a white teen and an Asian teen face each other lovingly, putting their noses together, and being wrapped in Christmas lights

Paranormal Boyfriends, Purity Myths, and Practical Virgins: The Literature of Losing It

by Christine Seifert
February 10, 2020 at 11:01am
Being abstinent in these books is not empowering for female characters; instead, it’s a consequence of decisions enforced by their male counterparts.  Read more »

Pages

Best of Bitch

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 »

Demanding the Impossible: Walidah Imarisha Talks About Science Fiction and Social Change

by Kristian Williams
April 13, 2015 at 2:23pm
Before she was a poet, journalist, documentary filmmaker, anti-prison activist, and college instructor, Walidah Imarisha was fascinated... Read more »

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 »

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 »