Literary Ladies Guide’s Wish List
By Nava Atlas | On June 1, 2017 | Updated July 11, 2022 | Comments (18)
The goal of Literary Ladies’ Guide is to be the most comprehensive site on the subject of classic women authors (mainly in the English language, or who have been translated into English).
The authors listed must be deceased, since our mission is to focus on our literary foremothers. Fortunately, there are many more women writing today than there were even in the recent past, so to have entries on living writers would be overwhelming. Sometimes we do veer a bit off the path of literary authors to include historic women journalists and others who were what we call “other rad voices.”
Writer’s guidelines
Biographies should follow this example format: https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/author-biography/du-maurier-daphne/ and another good example is: https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/author-biography/audre-lorde/
Please contact us first, though, to make sure no one else has claimed the author you may be interested in writing about. Submissions should be in the form of a word doc, and we will edit and post on our end. If you have a site or blog, we’d of course be glad to link to it, and include your brief bio.
There’s no upward word limit, but posts should be at least 700 words.
We’re also looking for posts on feminism and feminist topics as they relate to women’s classic literature and the authors on this site.
Finally, we’re open to other contributions as they pertain to authors already on the site; see the slider at the top of The Literary Ladies’ Guide to the Writing Life — posts should be more on the side of informative and/or entertaining, though we do welcome literary analyses that are more academic.
Opinion pieces and book reviews are welcome, too, as long as they pertain in some way to classic women authors.
Before you delve into the author wish list following, here’s a short list of topics we’d love to see on the site:
- Great memoirs and autobiographies of classic women writers
- We are committed to in-depth coverage of classic African-American and Latina authors, so any pertinent content is welcome
- Influential one-book authors (Margaret Mitchell, Anna Sewell, Emily Brontë, etc.)
- Literary friendships: Willa Cather & Sarah Orne Jewett; Sylvia Plath & Anne Sexton
- Authors who wrote classics before age 25 (Mary Shelley, Carson McCullers, Miles Franklin, Colette, François Sagan, etc.)
- Under-appreciated literary heroines for girls (Mary of The Secret Garden; Harriet the Spy; Meg Murray of A Wrinkle in Time, Emily of New Moon; etc.)
- Jane Austen Fan Fiction
- Dorothy Parker’s Civil Rights activism and how she funded the NAACP
- How Margaret Mitchell secretly funded the education of black medical students
- Classic books that are good for book groups
- Discussion guides for classic novels by women
- Classic novels by women authors to read aloud with your children
- Classic novels for middle grade readers
… and really, anything of interest to you that relates to classic women authors —pitch me, using this site’s contact form.
Atherton, Gertrude
Bambara, Toni Cade
Bogan, Louise
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth
Brame, Mary Charlotte (Bertha M. Clay)
Breithaupt, Marguerite
Brophy, Brigid
Burrill, Mary P.
Cary, Ernestine Gilbreth (Cheaper by the Dozen)
Cavendish, Margaret
Chase, Mary
Childress, Alice
Compton-Burnett, Ivy
Cooper, J. California
Crafts, Hannah
Crothers, Rachel
Cruz, Juana Inés de la
Davenport, Marcia
Davis, Rebecca Harding
Ditlevsen, Tove
Delafield, E.M.
Delaney, Clarrisa Scott
Dickens, Monica
Edgeworth, Maria
Evans, Augusta Jane
Ferne, Fannie
Fisher, M.F.K.
Fitzgerald, Penelope
Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins
Gale, Zona
George, Jean Craighead
Gibbons, Stella (Cold Comfort Farm)
Glasgow, Ellen
Green, Anna Katharine
Hanff, Helen (84, Charing Cross Road)
Haywood, Eliza
Head, Bessie
Holley, Marietta
Hopkins, Pauline (Of One Blood)
Howard, Elizabeth Jane
Howe, Julia Ward
Jakobsdóttir, Svava
James, P.D.
Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer
Johnston, Mary
Jordan, June
Kerr, Jean
King, Grace
Kollontai, Alexandra
Konigsberg, E.L.
Laurence, Margaret
Luce, Claire Boothe
Margolin, Anna
Marshall, Paule
Miller, May
Mitford, Nancy
Morris, Jan
Mowatt, Anna Cora
Murry, Judith Sargent
Newsome, Effie Lee
O’Brien, Kate
Perkins, Lucy Fitch
Peterkin, Julia Mood
Pizan, Christine de
Radcliffe, Ann
Ramé, Maria Louise (Ouida)
Richmond, Grace S.
Richardson, Dorothy
Richardson, Henry Handel (Ethel Florence Lindsay Richardson)
Rinehart, Mary Roberts
Rodoreda, Mercè
Rowlandson, Mary
Rukeyser, Muriel
Russ, Joanna
Sachs, Nelly
Sayers, Dorothy
Schreiner, Olive
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria
Sidney, Margaret
Sitwell, Edith
Smith, Lillian
Smith, Stevie
Southworth, E.D.E.N.
Spark, Muriel
Stoddard, Elizabeth Drew
Struther, Jan (Mrs. Miniver)
Terhune, Mary Virginia Hawes
Thompson, Flora (Lark Rise to Candleford)
Thompson, Kay (Eloise)
Undset, Sigrid
Ury, Else
Warner, Gertrude Chandler (Boxcar Children)
Warren, Mercy Otis
Weldy, Ann
Whipple, Dorothy
Williams, Margery (Velveteen Rabbit)
Wilson, Harriet
Wittig, Monique
Woolson, Constance Fenimore
I would love to write a piece about Hazel Hall for your site, but for the life of me, I can’t find an e-mail addy to send the pitch to!
It would be akin to this piece, and formatted to Literary Ladies Guides biography specs:
https://herrhetoric.wordpress.com/2021/10/21/hazel-hall/
Hi Tami, you’re right, I do make it challenging for people to find me! Though there is a contact form on the navigation bar, I should make people work so hard. I added that link to the sentence about pitching me, so thanks for that nudge. I’ll reach out to you via your e-mail address, or you can e-mail me via the contact form.
I think the portuguese author Alice Sampaio would fit in pretty well in this website! Thank you for all the hard and beautiful work.
Felipe, Alice Sampaio sounds fascinating … I wonder if her work has ever been translated, as I don’t see an English Wikipedia page for her. And thank you for your kind thoughts!
For women’s literary friendships, I highly recommend https://somethingrhymed.com/ which is dedicated to that topic. I have had a couple of postings there–Can we submit a piece that has been published [only] on another blog? Alternatively, I have a piece that has only appeared on my own blog about Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, who for some reason evaded your list?! ‘How Could Gertrude Stein Write The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas and What’s With Those Brownies?’ suchfriends.wordpress.com/the-american-ex-patriates-in-paris/how-could-gertrude-stein-write-the-autobiography-of-alice-b-toklas-and-whats-with-those-brownies/
Hi Kathleen — we do have a piece on Gertrude & Alice: https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/literary-musings/the-excellent-marriage-of-gertrude-stein-and-alice-b-toklas/ I’m familiar with Something Rhyme; I excerpted from their book, Secret Sisterhood (which I loved) when it came out: https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/literary-musings/the-literary-friendship-of-george-eliot-and-harriet-beecher-stowe/ — is there something else you might like to contribute to this site?
I would love to write about Susan Sontag. I have written for BookRiot and several other publications – please let me know.
How about more classic mystery writers? I’m thinking Dorothy Sayers and Josephine Tey. Also a more recent mystery author, Barbara Seranella (1956–2007). I would be interested in writing entries about one or more of these authors. Thanks so much!
Hello Dorothy — thank you for your offer! I’d be interested in Dorothy Sayers and/or Josephine Tey — If I had to choose one, it would be your namesake. I’m surprised she’s not on this wish list already. Let me know if you need any other guidelines other than what’s at the top of this page.
Wonderful, Dorothy Sayers it is – I’ll give it a go!
Could you please consider adding Edna St. Vincent Millay to the list?
Hi Jennifer, The wonderful Edna is already represented on the site: https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/author-biography/millay-edna-st-vincent/ — there are also a couple of related posts on her poetry. The site is currently being slightly redesigned, and there will be a landing page for browsing biographies that are up on the site soon. Thanks for your interest!
Ellen Gilchrist!?
She sounds quite worthy, Laura, but one of the criteria for being on the Literary Ladies site is they have to have passed on!
Would you consider having Gene Stratton Porter on the list (Girl of the Limberlost, Freckles etc.)
Sure! I’ll add her right now. Might you be interested in tackling a page about her?
Please consider adding Dawn Powell to the list.
Oh yes, how could I have forgotten; I even have one of her books. I will add her now. Might you be interested in writing the entry?