If you’re looking for something to read this weekend, check out our list of top ten female authors you need to know about:
- Bonny Cassidy and Jessica Wilkinson explore contemporary Australian feminist poetry in their latest compilation of seventy new poems. We recommend starting with ‘Final Theory’!
- Roxanne Gay is best known for her essay collection, Bad Feminist which investigates the contradictions and challenges of being a feminist in today’s society.
- Bell Hooks, pseudonym for Gloria Jean Watkins, explores the feminist identity and what this means for African American women in particular. Bell Hooks is known for being a pioneer in addressing and really delving into intersectional feminism in literature.
- Audre Lorde was a poet, feminist and civil rights activist who dedicated her life to fighting social injustice. Lorde published 12 books during her lifetime and a number of her poems were published in anthologies.
- Yassmin Abdel-Magied is a Sudanese-Australian writer who began her career as a mechanical engineer. As a writer she is best known for ‘Yassmin’s Story’, an articulate and insightful look into her life growing up in Australia as an immigrant. In all her works, Abdel-Magied strives to promote tolerance and diversity across all communities.
- Author of ‘We Should All Be Feminists’ and ‘A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions’, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a decorated Nigerian writer. Her work has been translated into over 30 different languages to date.
- Margaret Atwood is a Canadian writer who wears many different editorial hats. She is known for being a dedicated poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, inventor, teacher and environmental activist. A woman that can write it all – her mystery novels are not to be missed!
- If you are looking for laughter and tears all rolled into one, then check out Samantha Irby. Comedian turned author, Irby is best known for her online blog and has written several books including ‘We are never meeting in real life’ and ‘Wow No Thank You’.
- Ramona Lofton, better known by her pen name Sapphire, is an African American author of fiction and poetry. Lofton is well-known for her novel PUSH that tells the harrowing story of Claireece Jones as a young black woman.
- Mona Awad is a novelist and short-story writer from Canada. While she is best known for her debut novel, ‘13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl’, her recently released ‘Bunny’ is not to be overlooked.