Ursula Kroeber Le Guin was an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the Earthsea fantasy series. She was first published in 1959, and her literary career spanned nearly sixty years, producing more than twenty novels and over a hundred short stories, in addition to poetry, literary criticism, translations, and children's books. Frequently described as an author of science fiction, Le Guin has also been called a "major voice in American Letters". Le Guin said she would prefer to be known as an "American novelist".
Mary Flannery O'Connor was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. She wrote two novels and 31 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries.
Eudora Alice Welty was an American short story writer, novelist and photographer who wrote about the American South. Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Order of the South. She was the first living author to have her works published by the Library of America. Her house in Jackson, Mississippi has been designated as a National Historic Landmark and is open to the public as a house museum.
Nilanjana Sudeshna "Jhumpa" Lahiri is an American author known for her short stories, novels and essays in English, and, more recently, in Italian.
Barbara Kingsolver is an American novelist, essayist and poet. She was raised in rural Kentucky and lived briefly in the Congo in her early childhood. Kingsolver earned degrees in biology at DePauw University and the University of Arizona and worked as a freelance writer before she began writing novels. Her widely known works include The Poisonwood Bible, the tale of a missionary family in the Congo, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a non-fiction account of her family's attempts to eat locally.
Ahlem Mosteghanemi, alternatively written Ahlam Mosteghanemi is an Algerian writer who has been called "probably the world's best-known Arabophone woman novelist". She was the first Algerian woman to publish fiction in Arabic.
Aimee Bender is an American novelist and short story writer, known for her surreal stories and characters. She is a 2011 recipient of the Alex Awards.
Esther Louise Forbes was an American novelist, historian and children's writer who received the Pulitzer Prize and the Newbery Medal. She was the first woman elected to membership in the American Antiquarian Society.
Achy Obejas is a Cuban-American writer and translator focused on personal and national identity issues, living in Benicia, California. She frequently writes on her sexuality and nationality, and has received numerous awards for her creative work. Obejas' stories and poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Fifth Wednesday Journal, TriQuarterly, Another Chicago Magazine and many other publications. Some of her work was originally published in Esto no tiene nombre, a Latina lesbian magazine published and edited by tatiana de la tierra, which gave voice to the Latina lesbian community. Obejas worked as a journalist in Chicago for more than two decades. For several years, she was also a writer in residence at the University of Chicago, University of Hawaii, DePaul University, Wichita State University, and Mills College in Oakland, California. She also worked from 2019-22 as a writer/editor for Netflix on the bilingual team in the Product Writing department.
Susan Keating Glaspell was an American playwright, novelist, journalist and actress. With her husband George Cram Cook, she founded the Provincetown Players, the first modern American theatre company.
Qurratulain Hyder was an Indian Urdu novelist and short story writer, an academic, and a journalist. One of the most outstanding and influential literary names in Urdu literature, she is best known for her magnum opus, Aag Ka Darya, a novel first published in Urdu in 1959, from Lahore, Pakistan, that stretches from the fourth century BC to post partition of India.
Karen Lynne Hall is an American television writer, producer, author, bookstore owner and a member of the George Foster Peabody Awards board of jurors, best known for her work on the television series Judging Amy and M*A*S*H.
Paula Gunn Allen was a Native American poet, literary critic, activist, professor, and novelist. Of mixed-race European-American, Native American, and Arab-American descent, she identified with her mother's people, the Laguna Pueblo and childhood years. She drew from its oral traditions for her fiction poetry and also wrote numerous essays on its themes. She edited four collections of Native American traditional stories and contemporary works and wrote two biographies of Native American women.
Denise Giardina is an American novelist. Her book Storming Heaven was a Discovery Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and received the 1987 W. D. Weatherford Award for the best published work about the Appalachian South. The Unquiet Earth received an American Book Award and the Lillian Smith Book Award for fiction. Her 1998 novel Saints and Villains was awarded the Boston Book Review fiction prize and was semifinalist for the International Dublin Literary Award. Giardina is an ordained Episcopal Church deacon, a community activist, and a former candidate for governor of West Virginia.
Rosemary Sullivan is a Canadian poet, biographer, and anthologist. She is also a professor emerita at University of Toronto.
Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni Jr. is an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. One of the world's most well-known African-American poets, her work includes poetry anthologies, poetry recordings, and nonfiction essays, and covers topics ranging from race and social issues to children's literature. She has won numerous awards, including the Langston Hughes Medal and the NAACP Image Award. She has been nominated for a Grammy Award for her poetry album, The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection. Additionally, she has been named as one of Oprah Winfrey's 25 "Living Legends".
Heather McHugh is an American poet notable for the independent ranges of her aesthetic as a poet, and for her working devotion to teaching and translating literature.
Tracey Scott Wilson is an American playwright, television writer, television producer, and screenwriter. She graduated from Rutgers University with a BA in English and from Temple University with an MA in English Literature.
Cordelia Chávez Candelaria is an American educator and writer of Hispanic descent.
