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When women stop reading, the novel will be dead (Ian McEwan)
Women writers
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z
General sites on women writers/fiction
A Celebration of Women Writers (the definitive women’s writing site)
Victorian Women Writers Project
Women and Literature
Women Writers: A Zine
Women Writers Project
Female writers, poets, novelists, feminist writers
Women’s writing in English
wwwomen.com Literature directory
A Bibliography for Women’s Literature
Écriture féminine
Domestic Goddesses (A moderated E-journal, devoted to women writers, beginning in the 19th century, who wrote domestic fiction.)
Femme de lettres (in French)
Le Dictionnaire universel des Créatrices (in French)
Feminize Your Canon
95 Best novels by women
100 Great 20th Century English-language Works of Fiction by Women
500 Great Books by Women
100 Most Influential Novels by Women Writers
6 Most Influential Women Writers You’ve Never Heard Of
Women Studies Resources Literature
#VOTE100BOOKS (books by women writers from the last 100 years that recognition and celebration)
Women Writers
The 107 female authors everyone should have on their bookshelf
The Sixty Best Books by Women Every Man Should Read (But Could Always Ignore and Stick to Philip Roth)
75 Books by Women Whose Words Have Changed the World
Books by Women Whose Words Have Changed the World
Mary Watson’s top 10 books about maverick women
Women’s Watershed Fiction – Top 30
Women’s Watershed Fiction – The 100 plus titles that didn’t make it into the Top 30
Libby Brooks’s top 10 women’s novels
75 Books Every Woman Should Read
10 Women Writers Who Changed Literature
Are these the 50 most influential books by women?
Old favourites and new heroines
The 10 Most Powerful Women Authors
Virago anniversary: female writers pick favourite books
21st Century Women Authors’ Book List
Women Writers (discussion from Library Journal, based on 500 Great Books by Women: A Reader’s Guide)
These Are the 100 Most-Read Female Writers in College Classes
20 novels by C20th women writers
#VOTE100BOOKS (the books by women writers from the last 100 years that you felt deserved recognition and celebration)
Elena Ferrante’s Recommended Reading (all women)
100 best books to read by women authors (Good Housekeeping!)
Polemical articles on women’s writing, inc. sexism in the literary world
Virginia Woolf Discusses Women and Fiction
Why is women’s fiction so miserable?
No Place for a Woman: Female Fiction
Can a Woman Be a”Great American Novelist”?
Why can’t a woman write the Great American Novel?
The Count 2014 (i.e. percentage of women writers reviewed/women reviewers in major English-language literary reviews)
A Literary Glass Ceiling? (follow-up to above)
No women in PW’s top 10 best books of 2009?
AI study finds that males are represented four times more than females in literature
Regarding those men-only”best of the year” lists …
The key to literary success? Be a man — or write like one
Gender wars in books?
Scent of a woman’s ink: Are women writers really inferior?
The WILLA List Wiki (to note great books by women that Publishers Weekly missed in 2009)
Are women writers unimaginative – or their publishers?
“I am not a woman writer”
Literature’s gender gap (article from Harper’s)
AS Byatt says women who write intellectual books seen as unnatural
What is Women’s Fiction?
Rewriting women’s literature again
The Transformation of Gender in English-Language Fiction
How women conquered the world of fiction
The Franzen/Weiner/Picoult feud
NYT #1 Bestselling Author Jodi Picoult Blasts NYT For Giving Rave Book Reviews To”White Male Literary Darlings.”
When Is a Literary Feud NOT a Literary Feud?
Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner Speak Out On Franzen Feud: HuffPost Exclusive
Reviews, bias, and women writers
Ladies of the Club
David Liss’ view
All the Sad Young Literary Women
Feminist ‘Franzenfreude’ Over Raves For ‘Freedom’
Franzen Fallout
Naipaul and women writers
VS Naipaul finds no woman writer his literary match – not even Jane Austen
Jane Austen Caught in Crossfire in Literary Battle of the Sexes
On Women Writers and V. S. Naipaul (by Francine Prose)
Misogyny is Alive and Well: V. S. Naipaul on Female Writers
Shut Up, Naipaul!
Naipaul Right About Women Writers
Women Writers Who Are Better Than V.S. Naipaul
The Naipaul test: Can you tell an author’s sex?
General sites on women but with some writers
Emory Women Writers Resource Project (a collection of edited and unedited texts by women writing in English from the seventeenth century through the nineteenth century)
The National Women’s Hall of Fame (United States)
Female Nobel Prize Laureates
Women-Related Web Sites in the Arts and Humanities
Gender and Sexuality Studies
AI study finds that males are represented four times more than females in literature
Interesting publishers of women’s books
(Note: only publishers that publish at least some prose fiction)
See also The VidaWeb list
Archipel
Artemis Press
Aunt Lute
Bella Books
Bold Strokes Books
Bywater Books
Chicory Blue Press
Les Editions de la Pleine Lune
Les Editions du Remue-Ménage
L’Espace des femmes
The Feminist Press
Honno
Intaglio Publications
Kore Press
Mayapple Press
Minnesota Women’s Press
New Victoria Publishers
Persephone Books
Redbone Press
Seal Press
Second Story Press
Spinifex Press
Spinsters Ink
Vindicación Feminista
Virago
Zubaan
By ethnic group/nationality/region
African
African women writers (in French and English)
Voices from the Gaps – Women Artists and Writers of Color
Lusophone African women writers
10 excellent African Women Writers
A New Generation of African Women Writers Make New Waves
50 Books By African Women That Everyone Should Read
Women’s Prose Fiction (Nigeria)
Les meilleurs auteurs africains de la décennie sont des femmes (in French)
African-American
African-American Women
African-American Women Writers of the 19th century (digitized texts)
Harlem Renaissance Women
Selected Works by Twentieth-Century, African-American Women Writers
A Celebration of Women Writers – African American Writers
African American Women Writers
Voices from the Gaps – Women Artists and Writers of Color
Blackgirl
African American Female Authors
Black Female Authors
Sistahs
Arab
Arab Women Writers
Women Authors from the Mediterranean Arab World (special issue of the International Journal
of Euro-Mediterranean Studies with full text of the issue)
Arab Women Writers:”Are There Any?”
Voices from the Gaps – Women Artists and Writers of Color
Asian
Women in Pre-Independent India
Modern Indian Women Writers in English
Women Writers of Indian Diaspora Create A Big Impact
A review of Pakistani Women Writers
Literature Written by South Asian Women
Celebration of Women Writers From Japan
An Introduction to Modern Chinese Female Literature
Chinese Women Writers in Diaspora
Reading Contemporary Indonesian Muslim Women Writers
Writing by Indonesian Women
Voices from the Gaps – Women Artists and Writers of Color
53 Indian Women Writers Millennials Must Read
Australian
Celebration of Women Writers From Australia
Australian Women’s Fiction
Australian Women Writers 1900-1950
The Dreamtime Narrative: Australian Aboriginal Women Writers, Oral Tradition and Personal Experience
Monday musings on Australian literature: Where are our women writers?
Let’s read writing by women (focusing mainly though not exclusively on Australian women)
Australian Women Writers
Brazilian
Brazilian women writers
Unearthing Brazil’s Women Writers
Recent Brazilian Science Fiction and Fantasy Written by Women
Escritoras Brasileiras (in Portuguese)
Escritoras Brasileiras (in Portuguese)
Mulheres importantes na Literatura (in Portuguese)
Antologia de Escritoras Baianas (in Portuguese)
British
The Orlando Project (Women’s Writing in the British Isles)
Contemporary British women fiction writers
The Bluestocking Archive (an archive of texts by or relating to the eighteenth-century British Bluestocking Circle and the second generation Blues)
British Women Authors, 2000-2010
Favourite Female British Authors
My literary love affair (Jonathan Coe on Virago writers)
Canadian
Native Canadian Women Writers
Celebration of Women Writers From Canada
Chronicle of Canadian Women Writers
14 Aboriginal Women Writers to Read this Summer (despite the title, all Canadian)
Caribbean
Women Writers of the Caribbean
Voices from the Gaps – Women Artists and Writers of Color
Czech
Word Made Flesh: Czech Women’s Writing from Communism to Post-Communism
Celebration of Women Writers From Czech Republic
Dutch
Het Damescompartiment [The Ladies Section] (about women’s writing related to Indonesia and the Dutch Indies) (in Dutch)
Women Writers’ Network (a Dutch project, focusing mainly on Dutch writers born before 1900, but others as well)
French
Celebration of Women Writers From France
French Women Writers
Women In French (in French and English)
German
Celebration of Women Writers From Germany
Datenbank Schriftstellerinnen in Deutschland 1945 ff (Database of Women Writers in Germany since 1945) (in German and English)
Sophie A Digital Library of Works by German-Speaking Women
Frauenliteratur (in German)
Irish
writeon-irishgirls.com
Forgotten Irish Female Writers
A Database of Irish Women’s Writing, 1800-2005
Celebration of Women Writers From Ireland
Italian
Italian Women Writers
Italian Women Writers During Fascism
Donne e letteratura (in Italian)
Latin American
Cien años, cien librosde escritoras en español (in Spanish)
10 Essential Latin American Feminist Writers
Reflexiones: Essays on Contemporary Spanish-American Women Writers
Latin American Women Writers
Autoras (in Spanish)
Escritoras (in Spanish)
Las mujeres escritoras más importantes (in Spanish)
Escritoras latinoamericanas: encuentros tras desencuentros (in Spanish)
Literatura y Escritura femenina en América Latina (in Spanish)
Latin American Women Writers (in Spanish – writers and others)
Narradoras Argentinas (Maria Teresa Andruetto’s blog on Argentinian women writers – in Spanish)
Korean
Women and Korean Literature
Lusophone
Lusophone African women writers
New Zealand
Celebration of Women Writers From New Zealand
New Zealand Women Writers
Contemporary women fiction writers – New Zealand
Other United States
Dixie Chicks
Contemporary American women fiction writers
Domestic Goddesses (Women writers, beginning in the 19th century, who wrote domestic fiction)
American Women Writers (Elaine Showalter’s blog)
chick-lit: postfeminist fiction
The female frontier (Elaine Showalter chooses the best novelists writing in the US today)
Scribbling Women (classroom resources for teaching and learning the rich tradition of American literature by women)
Reading List: Selected Contemporary American Women Writers
American Women Writers: Bibliography 1820-1829
American Women Writers: Bibliography 1830-1839
100+ Contemporary American Women Fiction Writers
“There aren’t a lot of you out there”: What? Let’s fix our female Asian-American writer blind spot now
The Online Archive of Nineteenth-Century U.S. Women’s Writings
Making Face, Making Soul…. (a Chicana feminist homepage)
Wisconsin Women Writers of Adult Fiction
Women Writing the West
Books and Plays Written By and About Mormon Women
Portuguese
Mulheres Nas Letras, Mulheres Dos Livros (in Portuguese)
Russian
Celebration of Women Writers From Russia
About Russian Women Writers
About Russian Women’s Literature
Contemporary Russian Women Writers
Scandinavian
Tema Female Writers (Nordic women writers from the Project Runeberg) (some English but mainly Scandinavian languages)
Norwegian woman writers
Celebration of Women Writers From Denmark
Celebration of Women Writers From Finland
Celebration of Women Writers From Norway
Celebration of Women Writers From Iceland
Celebration of Women Writers From Sweden
Excerpts of Novels by Contemporary Swedish Women Writers
Too Many Swedish Women writing Crime?
Women of colour
Voices from the Gap – Women Writers of Color
Fiction And Non-Fiction Works By Women Of Color – a preliminary bibliography
Index to Women SF Writers of Color
Lesbian
Lesbian fiction
Lesbian Fiction Herstory
Lesbian pulp fiction
Mystery writers
Favorite Women Mystery Writers
Women Mystery and Detective Fiction Writers & the Rise of Feminism
Sisters in Crime
Science fiction/fantasy
Index to Female Writers In Science Fiction, Fantasy & Utopia: 18th Century to the Present
Index to Women SF Writers of Color
List of queer women writing SF
Feminist Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Utopia: Quick Lists: Themes, Characters, Genres, and”if you like…” Lists
Feminist science fiction
Gender in speculative fiction
Women’s Rights and Women’s Images in Science Fiction: A Selected Bibliography
Science Fiction and Utopias by Women, 1818-1949: A Chronology
Women writing SciFi: Your Picks?
The Early Women Writers of Science Fiction
Women writer lists – Other topics
Women: Fiction and Poetry (from Women and Marxism though it does include Henrik Ibsen!)
Stories of Strong Women
Desperate Housewives (Stories of women and their angst)
Domestic Goddesses (Women writers, beginning in the 19th century, who wrote”domestic fiction)
Other
Women & World Lit: Anthologies in Translation
Distinguished Women of Past and Present
What can a woman do? (article on 19th century US women writers)
Women’s Literary Salons Archive, 1975-1985