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.
Forsyth Harmon, a white woman with a black bob and bangs.

With “Justine,” Forsyth Harmon Charts Teen Queerness

by Rachel Charlene Lewis
March 9, 2021 at 10:51am
Justine may weigh very little, but it’s emotionally heavy. Read more »
Naima Coster, a light-skinned woman with short, black hair, and wearing a black t-shirt crosses her arms and smiles as she poses against a colorful wall

“What’s Mine and Yours” Complicates the School Segregation Story

by Evette Dionne
March 2, 2021 at 9:48am
Naima Coster’s prescient novel brings human faces to a broader social issue. Read more »
Morgan Rogers, a Black woman with shoulder-length hair, stands in front of a bookshelf wearing a purple sweater and glasses

“Honey Girl” Is about a Woman Coming Home to Herself

by Evette Dionne
February 23, 2021 at 10:20am
Honey Girl is not a romance novel. Read more »
Patricia Lockwood, a white woman with short, brown hair, poses in profile in a black and white photo

“No One Is Talking about This” Brings Online Pangs to Real Life Tragedy

by s.e. smith
February 16, 2021 at 11:47am
No One Is Talking About This is a reflection of our ebbing and flowing need for connection. Read more »
Tessa Miller, a white woman with short blond hair, poses in a black and white photo with her small, brown dog

“What Doesn’t Kill You” Tells the Gut-Churning Truth about Chronic Illness

by Jordan Davidson
February 10, 2021 at 10:17am
Crohn’s disease is unpredictable, cruel, and gross. There’s no way around that. Read more »
A fire against a dark background.

In “We Are the Ashes, We Are the Fire,” Women’s History is Lifesaving

by Ashley Bardhan
February 10, 2021 at 9:31am
The novel is a meditation on the power of uncovering past heroines. Read more »
A Black man and woman at work. The woman is teaching the man how to do something on a computer screen.

In “Work Won’t Love You Back,” Sarah Jaffe Kills the Dream Job

by Mary Retta
January 26, 2021 at 11:05am
No one should have to earn the right to financial security through labor.  Read more »
A white woman with blond chin length hair wears red lipstick and a silky pink blouse.

Gabrielle Korn Questions the “Feminist Utopia” of Women’s Media

by Rachel Charlene Lewis
January 12, 2021 at 10:06am
“There needs to be a radical rewriting of what we expect the internet to give us.” Read more »
A bowl of beans next to the phrase "performative parenting."

Very Online: Bean Dad Continues a Tradition of Performative Parenting

by Rachel Charlene Lewis
January 8, 2021 at 2:09pm
From Facebook to Twitter and beyond, parents dunk on their own children online. Read more »
A woman in a black hijab reads in an open space.

BitchReads: 9 YA Books Feminists Should Read in January

by Rachel Charlene Lewis
January 8, 2021 at 11:47am
There is one thing we can count on: young adult novels bringing us a much-needed distraction. Read more »

Pages

Best of Bitch

A Look at How Media Writes Women of Color

by Victoria Law
November 17, 2014 at 5:07pm
Nearly every Saturday morning, feminists of color hold Twitter discussions taking a deeper look at issues, such as gender violence. It’s the... 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 »

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 »

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 »