Female Writers

novella said:

No, in fact that was a very straightforward comment. A person who has only read male writers (for reasons that I cannot fathom) has missed out on great books, irreplaceable points of view, and stirring writing.

Why woud you think I was joking?

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I'm not sure they thought you were joking, perhaps "hoped" would be more accurate. While straightforward, your comment also seemed a touch rude. I think that is what some may have hoped was unintended.

I agree entirely with you that one who has only read male writers is seriously missing out on so much. That is why I started this thread. I have read tons and tons of books. I would say that I have read as much as I actually am capable with while looking after my household and my kids. I run into trouble these days finding decent books and decent authors because I only get out of the house once per week and my toddler is not at an age where he can behave appropriately in a bookstore for much more than about 20 minutes at a stretch. So I have little time to browse. I also have quite a limited budget so I do not like to just grab a book at random.

I found that I had been reading mostly male authors; Tolkien, Salvatore, Kay, Martin, Jordan, etc. I think this was partly due to the fact that I have tended to read what my boyfriends and husbands have read as the books were readily available and reccomended to me. Of course I also read Anne Bishop, C. S. Friedman, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Fiona Patton etc... I was just looking for more female authors that other folks might want to reccomend. I was also interested in people's thoughts on the realism or lack thereof of female characters written by male authors.

Of course I posted this so long ago that by now I have found several female fantasy authors that I really enjoy. I found many of them because of the kind suggestions of the posters here. (thank you all so much!) I have read Robin Hobb now and LOVE her and have several more books by authors you all reccomended waiting for me to have time for them.

~Witch

"The original poster read mostly sci-fi/fantasy. IMO fantasy is a genre where you can determine the sex of the writer by reading the book with 99% accuracy. Male fantasy authors just cannot write believeable female characters. " Zolipara

Yes, it's quite frustrating to me. I have also found this to be true in historical fiction. I haven't read much of that, though.

Thanks for the comment.

~Witch

direstraits said:

Andre Norton is a *woman*? I mean, there's this long forgotten singer called Peter Andre, and then there's Andre Agassi...
ds

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Yup. A quote from an article Who is Andre Norton? andre-norton.org

Born February 17, 1912 in Cleveland, Ohio, Alice Mary Norton has always had an affinity to the humanities. She started writing in her teens, inspired by a charismatic high school teacher. First contacts with the publishing world led her, as many other contemporary female writers targeting a male-dominated market, to choose a literary pseudonym. In 1934 she legally changed her name to Andre Alice. The androgynous Andre doesn't really say "male," though it lets people jump to their own conclusions."

Heck I always thought she had just taken a male pseudonym.

I have to say Witchchild, that I have paid more attention to my female characters since our original discussion on this thread.

It makes me happy to hear that, Prolixic. We've got to keep those author types on their toes.

~Witch

If you really believe that men write "transvestites" I think you should read Memoirs of a Geisha. It's written by a man though his name escapes me.

I think many good writers are able to develope three dimensional characters of either sex. One of my favourite authors is Katherine Kerr and her male characters are bang on in my opinion. My only complaint would be that she seems to think we all have some kind of latent homosexuality thing lurking in our closets.

As for a suggestion for a good fantasy read; Katherine Kerr's Daggerspell. (I think I've made three posts today and I've mentioned her as a recommendation in each). I am not affiliated with her in any way .

TroyF said:

If you really believe that men write "transvestites" I think you should read Memoirs of a Geisha. It's written by a man though his name escapes me.

I think many good writers are able to develope three dimensional characters of either sex. One of my favourite authors is Katherine Kerr and her male characters are bang on in my opinion. My only complaint would be that she seems to think we all have some kind of latent homosexuality thing lurking in our closets.

As for a suggestion for a good fantasy read; Katherine Kerr's Daggerspell. (I think I've made three posts today and I've mentioned her as a recommendation in each). I am not affiliated with her in any way .

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Yeah but most guys write big boobs, long legs, and vacuous intellect. I think thats the point. Not that there's anything wrong with that in the proper setting but how many supermodels go around disarming nuclear bombs? All of them, if you read much SF. And anyone who's read much fantasy at all can tell you what the typical female warrior looks like. See above description and add leather and steel. Worse, the female characters they write don't think like women. A man might overlook it because, face it, most men don't worry too much about what women are thinking.

Witchchild said:

I was wondering if there are any folks here who were just going along with their lives and for one reason or another realized that the vast majority of the books they read were authored by men.

It came as a suprise to me because I have always been pretty vocal about the greatest short-coming which almost every male author shares; they cannot write, create or sustain believable, real female characters. The women all seem cartoony, stilted and odd... I asked around and my women friends agreed with me. So I asked my men friends if they felt that their was a simillar problem when women tried to write men. They did not... almost to a man. Weird.

Anyway, I am on a quest to read more woman-authored books. I read mostly sci-i/fantasy, and I've found several women authors that I am quite enjoying. My current favorite is Fiona Patton. Would anyone else like to share their favorite female authors? What type of books does she write? How did you find her?

Thanks,
Witch

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Margeret Atwood is great!

I don't agree with what you say about the way male authors write their female characters though.

I am speaking primarily about male fantasy authors that I have read. Robert Jordan, for instance, whose females are all so idiotic that they think sharing Rand is a great idea. I can't even see one girl falling for the guy in the first place, let alone 3. What I am talking about is when the author tries to write "inside her head." Sometimes they get it so wrong I can't even force myself to keep reading.

I once read this book where the author was trying to write from inside a young girl's head as she grew up and lived her life. The premise was good, the plot was good, the setting everything except I kept going; "Huh?" The main character was just not authentically female. My favorite part was when she was maybe 9 years old and was taken off into the woods or the swamp by a couple of teenage boys. One of the boys whipped out his erection and from the girl's perspective it was described as looking like a newborn kitten with it's eyes still closed, feverish and sick, she wanted to pet and cuddle and kiss it..... Yeah, right. That is certainly NOT the sick fantasy of a closet child molester. That is how female children think. *gag* That author is an EXTREME example, I in no way wish to imply that all male authors miss the mark to that extent or so disgustingly... but many of them do fail to write believable, coherent, female characters.

~Witch

Witchchild said:

I am speaking primarily about male fantasy authors that I have read. Robert Jordan, for instance, whose females are all so idiotic that they think sharing Rand is a great idea. I can't even see one girl falling for the guy in the first place, let alone 3. What I am talking about is when the author tries to write "inside her head." Sometimes they get it so wrong I can't even force myself to keep reading.

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Hehe i got the exact same feeling when reading Wheel of Time.

After reading some interviews i picked up a few interesting comments from RJ. He claims the women in wheel of time are based on his wife. In another interview he says that his wife will be happy when he finishes wheel of time because he spends all his time alone in his room writing. But i'm thinking if his wife is as grumpy and annoying as the women in wheel of time, its not so strange that he stays alone in a room writing. Maybe thats why the series is dragged out forever....

Troy F - the author is Aurther Golden. When I started reading this tread the first book I thought of written by a male about a woman was him! I think it is hard sometimes for any gender to write about the opposite one. Men and women are so different and some authors tend to base characters of the opposite gender on stereotypical images. Like.... Jordan who wrote The Wheel of Time. Maybe it was just his characterisation, but the women were not his speciality. I could insert a swear word here when I think about it actually...

Memoirs of Geisha though is written by a man, about a woman. And not just about a woman, he wrtes it in frst person so he really had to get into the psychology of a woman as well as a japanese geisha, who is part of an entirely different culture then many western readers. I knew nothing about japanese geisha until I read that book and yet I came away with an understanding. I love that book - don't bash all male authors!

As for my collection of books, I think it is fairly well balanced between the sexes. I shall say though that some really excellent books are in fact written by women because I think women are more open with their feelings where as men can be restricted I suppose, by there sense of masculinity and what would be approriate to write.

I'd reccomend reading Memoirs of Geisha, if Aurthur Golden hadn't been written on the front cover I'd have thought it was written by a woman.

Read Diana Gabaldon's Outlander Series. (Outlander to the yanks, Crossstitch to the Limeys) They're very long but very, very good. They're quite graphic and can go on but there's a lot of detail in there I think many books lack. It's about a woman who gos back in time and falls in love with a scottish highlander. It follows a lot of histroy from 1745. It might not be everyone's cup of tea as it doesn't actually have a strict plot line.

Juliet Marriler - The Sevenwater Trilogy - is a great fantasy set in Ireland during the Viking/Anglo Saxon Period. It incororates a lot of irish myths and legends as fact and is subtly magical and absoultely beautiful. Read, read, read.

Safia said:

Read Diana Gabaldon's Outlander Series. (Outlander to the yanks, Crossstitch to the Limeys) They're very long but very, very good. They're quite graphic and can go on but there's a lot of detail in there I think many books lack. It's about a woman who gos back in time and falls in love with a scottish highlander. It follows a lot of histroy from 1745. It might not be everyone's cup of tea as it doesn't actually have a strict plot line.

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You're right about that. I read one of the Outlander books, and I had to wrestle through it. I'm still immensely proud of myself that I finished it.

I didn't find them that hard to get through, but I haven't read the last one - The Fiery Cross yet. It's bigger then a brick, it is boulder sized. I read the first four within two months... probably just over a month, instead of doing my revision.

Safia said:

I didn't find them that hard to get through

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It's not that they're hard to get through, I just thought them incredibly dull.

these aren't scifi, however they are fabulous. anne marie macdonald's "as the crow flies" and "fall on your knees". also alice sebold's "lovely bones". all three of these books have female protagonists who suffer sexual abuse, which as a recommendation for why to read the book seems sick, however it is the way in which these characters handle this abuse and those around them that is so amazing. strong females in all three. another book i recommend is anita diamant's "the red tent". diamant takes a small biblical reference of dinah, the daughter of jacob, and fleshes out her life. we see the famous story of jacob and his son's told through the eyes of his daughter and his wives. it gives a peep hole into the lives of the women of the bible, one of the most male-centric books ever!

Barbara G. Walker. She is better known for her non-fiction titles such as The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects, and
I Ching of the Goddess but she did write the novel Amazon. Part fantasy part social commentary, it's about a warrior who travels in time from her ancient society of Goddess worshippers to the present.

my favorite modern writers

my favorite modern writers are women. sometimes the books i like to read are books about modern women and they are written by modern women: Jane Green and Meg Cabot. i comb the shelves looking for women writers because of what you have said. most male writers have problems portraying believable female characters.

I think John Marsden is one example of a male author who successfully writes from a female perspective. It's not Sci-Fi or Fantasy, he writes teenage fiction, but I really enjoyed a lot of his work, including So Much to Tell You and most of the Tomorrow Series which were written from the perspective of a main character who was a young girl. Apparently he used to teach at a girls' boarding school. Maybe that helped. I haven't read much of his stuff lately as the last few dissapointed me a bit, but I may have just moved on in my taste.

tom robbins is another author who writes female characters well. even cowgirls get the blues and skinny legs and all, my 2 fav's, feature many interesting characters,( a can of beans for example), but i really think he gets women. i feel he understands our sexuality, our peculiar neurosis, what we want from love, how we view each other and the world. he is very funny, and crude, which i love. he can write a sentence that will move you, and then one that makes you go 'ewwww' in the same paragraph. i haven't read anything new from him, but i recommend those 2 for sure.

Right off the bat:

Isabelle Allende, A. S. Byatt, Margaret Atwood, Margaret Drabble,
P. D. James, Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell).

Not necessarily in that order, either.

Witchchild said:

I was wondering if there are any folks here who were just going along with their lives and for one reason or another realized that the vast majority of the books they read were authored by men.

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Actually, the vast majority of books I read are authored by women. In fact, it's probably accurate to say that at least half of fiction books are authored by women, not men.

If you were just to look at the New York Times bestseller list for paperbacks (and they've been shown as not incredibly accurate, but it's an indication), of the top 15, 7 are women. Right there, that's not a "vast" majority. In fact, the top selling author--aside from JK Rowling, of course--is Nora Roberts, who has outsold Stephen King and Tom Clancy combined. You will see her name pretty much all the time on the NYT list. But, ask anyone if they have heard of Nora Roberts, and you will generally get a "no." Yet, she gets enough sales to hit the NYT list pretty much every week, for decades now.

The difference? Men get movies made of their books. Women, in general, don't. And, movies help name recognition, and because of that, sales. That Nora Roberts sells extremely well even though none of her books have been made into movies says something.

There are plenty of books by women. They just generally don't get the publicity.

Oh, and as for a male fantasy writer who really gets women right, try Charles deLint. Great writer, great stories. I like the women characters in his stories--they're like women I know, and even women I'd like to be friends with. That's rare.

--Karen H.