I didn’t realize that March was Women’s History Month until I saw it mentioned on the Penguin USA blog. What they’re doing there is asking people to name their favourite women writers in the Comments section of their blog.
Anyone who’s talked books with me for any length of time will already know my favourite female author — my favourite author, period. Dorothy Dunnett is my favourite fiction author of all time. Even if I were to lose my home, my cats, and all my other worldly goods, you wouldn’t be able to pry the Lymond Chronicles from my clutching hands.
I’ll have to mull over my other favourite female fiction writers. I love a great many of them.
When it comes to non-fiction, my hands-down favourite would be Margaret Macmillan, author of Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World, the book about the months-long conference held after World War 1, during which the three great powers divided the world up among them, creating most of the world political problems we’re still wrestling with almost a century later.
These two, Dunnett and Macmillan, are at the very top of my favourites list, male or female.
Penguin USA’s site is all kinds of weird for me, but here’s the list I posted on their site:
- Doris Lessing
- AS Byatt
- Margaret Atwood
- Alice Munro
- Lorrie Moore
- Anita Desai
This was fun to think about! Of course, now I’m paranoid I’ve missed a few.
Georgette Heyer, Nora Roberts, Anne MacCaffrey, Sharon Lee, Dorothy Sayers, Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Jennifer Roberson, Baroness Orczy. Well, those are the ones that leapt to mind.
I actually like some female manga artists as well.