Banana Yoshimoto

Octavia Butler is very good writer. Dawn, Adulthood Rights & Imago is a excellent trilogy. Clay's Ark is her early work.
Wild Seed and other related titles are of some interest also.
Her writing is not for everyone. But a scifi fan might want
to try one of her writings.

Thank-you Merin, thank goodness someone else said Laurell K Hamilton, no one I talk to has ever heard of her.
My absolute favourite fantasy author (vampires, werewolves and Zombies, oh my). Although I would say to anyone wanting to try her work, start with the third book "Circus of The Damned", as thats where she really starts to find the character's feet.
I've already read the series twice this year and I think I'm about to start them again. The stories are just so absorbing.

Anyway, fan moment over, I have to agree with all who said:
Toni Morrison
Maya Angelou
Patricia Cornwell
Sue Grafton
Janet Evanovich *favourite
and of course Laurell K Hamilton.

Patricia Cornwell
Catherine Coultier
Nora Roberts

Anne Bishop
Mickey Zucker Reichert

Both of those are definitely worth checking out. Bishop is fairly dark. Reichert is very much into the Norse mythology.

Just want to welcome you to the forums Kadee!

Apart from Cherryh, whom I mentioned earlier, it struck me that I don't really follow any female authors as a matter of course: perhaps it is because there are fewer of them?

Another two that piqued my interest some years ago, and who I'd now like to recommend, are Mary Gentle and Rachel Pollack; both fantasists but a long way from "run-of-the-mill".

Some comicbook fans may recall Pollack from her work on Doom Patrol. I know here for her remarkable series of three novels that started with "Unquenchable Fire". Gentle has written some intriguing alternative-mediaeval fantasies.

I quite enjoyed Donna Tartt's The Secret History and am eagerly awaiting her next - The Little Friend. Jen Banbury's Like a Hole In the Head is very funny in a Hiaasen-esque kinda way. Not much output from those two, though.

Nadine Gordimer
Flannery O'Connor
Joan Didion
Joyce Carol Oates
Katherine Ann Porter
Denise Levertov
Toni Morrison
Willa Cather

Bharati Mukherjee - I really enjoyed 'Jasmine'
Iris Murdoch - all of her books are entertaining
Toni Morrison - of course

I'd like to send a shout out to the Victorian Women Poets as well!

Laurel K. Hamilton (Vampire Hunter series)
Margaret Weis (Dragonlance & Darksword series's)
Anne McCaffery (Pern series and those ones about telepaths)

I think its sad that there aren't a lot of female writers in sci fi and fantasy.

Definitely -- incredible southern macabre. Very dark, but very spiritual as well. Great stuff. You can find a collected volume of all her stuff really easily now. Too bad she died young (I've thought about it a little more recently since I have a friend with Lupus as well).

As far as fantasy goes, Melanie Rawn isn't so bad either.


As big a fan as I am of Lewis, Williams, Tolkein and the other Inklings, I can't believe I haven't read anything by Dorothy Sayers either. I've heard great things about her stuff (and flipped through a couple).

Tuan Jim

Ellen Emerson White -- hands down some of the best young-adult fiction ever. Too bad most of her best works are now out of print. She also wrote an amazing YA series on Vietnam under the name Zack Emerson.
Noel Streatfeild
Judy Blume
Janet Evanovich
The Bronte sisters
Jane Austen
For women in the market for a nice beach book, check out the works of Jennifer Crusie and Jennifer Weiner.

Some favorite women writers of mine:

Octavia Butler
Lois McMaster Bujold
Connie Willis
Jane Austen

I could come up with a huge list of good women writers, but these 4 are the ones I've liked the best. When I was a kid, I really liked Lois Duncan, Judy Blume and Madeleine L'Engle.

tasha