There's a lot of talk of some really great writers here, but there aren't many women in the mix. Anyone know of any really great female writers who really write raw?
My favourite is Jenn Farrell. She has two short story collections, Sugar Bush and Other Stories and The Devil You Know. They're both fantastic and I really recommend.
There's also Angela Carter and Joyce Carol Oates.
Lidia Yuknavitch. Chronology of Water was one of my favorites of the year.
Poppy Z. Brite for me. The girl could write me into a readers-coma by description alone.
Dorothy Allison, too. Bastards Out of Carolina or Cavedweller.
Lois Duncan? I'm not so sure raw is the right word for her work, but people enjoyed her thrillers-- I Know What You Did Last Summer.
Monica Drake's Clown Girl was raw-ish ha..
Miranda July's short story collection No One Belongs Here More Than You. I also really liked Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Adichie, The Art Lover by Caroll Maso and Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link.
Jean Rhys is best known for her alternate take on the crazy woman in the attic from Jayne Eyre in Wide Sargasso Sea, but her short stories are amazing as well :)
Flannery O'Connor and her wicked sense of irony are an old favorite.
and somehow i almost forgot Ursula K LeGuin :)
4 of my favorite authors are woman (well, more than that but others have been named).
- Joan Didion - Play it as it Lays is brilliant
- Jo Ann Beard - The Boys of My Youth
- Joy Williams - The Quick and The Dead
- Amy Hemple - anything by her
Margaret Laurence the Diviners et al
Doris Lessing Briefing for a Descent into Hell
Leslie Marmon Silko Ceremony
Toni Morrison Beloved
a few off the top of my head
I don't know if I would call it "raw," but Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is great. Check out Trumpet by Jackie Kay as well.
Amy Hempel is also really good.
Kathy Acker - how could I forget Kathy! Great Expectations or Pussy King of the Pirates (and there's a CD of sea-chanties to accompany it - I think it's with the Mekons. Definitely a meeting of the odds - but Kathy is pure raw if that's what you're looking for, and as sharp as they come.
Love Toni Morrison and Leslie Marmon Silko (even if they are "taught in school" - I sincerely love their writing. I think they manage to take an issue related to history or culture and make it very readable). Love Flannery O'Connor - totally agree with Dalis.
I'll throw Herta Muller in the mix - some of the things she writes are such powerful metaphors and the writing is very tight, sometimes gritty, not flowery but many times figurative. Loved The Passport by her.
Great thread Beka!!
'Snakes an earrings' by Hitomi Kanehara is an amazing read. And this thread has made me realise how very few female authors I have in my book collection. Must rectify that.
You posting an asian writer reminded me of this book - Out by Natsuo Kirino. I loved it. It was almsot like a modern Crime and Punishment. I've heard all of her books are good, but this is the only one I've read.
The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel is an amazing novel. Stories like "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried", "The Harvest" and "The Annex" will definately leave a lasting impression on you.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is great as well.
i loved "al jolson" and also the one about the guy thats always trying to crack his teeth with ice water. not the best story structure wise, but the writing is glorious. it really shows how muscular very few words can be.
You know, I have a hard time getting into music with female vocalists, and I look at my bookshelf and see I don't have much by female writers, either. I do love Annie Proulx, but I don't know if that fits in the "theme" of writers and topics being discussed here. I think I might have to take notes on this thread and make a visit to the book store.
i also thoroughly enjoyed THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET, which a book of insanely short stories about growing up in a poor neighborhood. powerful, moving stories that develop sad and beautiful characters, but leave most of it to the reader's imagination somehow.
@Pete, Natsuo Kirino's a woman? I didn't know that. A good book though.
Of other women writers, Djuna Barnes's Nightwood is fantastic, and deserves to be called one of the best books of the twentieth century.
Sandra Cisneros will be at my college Monday and I won't be able to see her...
Sandra Cisneros will be at my college Monday and I won't be able to see her...
thats a real bummer.
I second Kathy Acker.
Also: Mary Gaitskill, AM Homes, Susan Sontag (though I haven't read her novels, her essays move me).
Margaret Atwood... Anyone?
Iris Murdoch also has some great moments.
Virginia Woolf
@Jack: I had to google it to make sure before I posted, but yeah, she's a woman. haha
@Phil: I've meant to read something by Kathy Acker and Mary Gaitskill forever now. Where should I start?
@Pete: for Kathy Acker Great Expectations (it probably helps if you've read Dickens)
I've enjoyed a few novels by Tana French. Specifically In the Woods and The Likeness.
@Pete - I can't believe I forgot Natsuo Kirino I've read 'grotesque' and 'real world'. Both very good novels. Grotesque especially because I love books about the perception of beauty.
For anyone who enjoys creative nonfiction, Cheryl Strayed is excellent. I highly recommend googling her essay, The Love of My Life. She has a memoir called Wild coming out in March, as well.
Gina Frangello (Slut Lullabies) & Grace Krilanovic (sp?)(The Orange Eats Creeps) are two interesting female authors that I ended up reading after hearing about them on The Cult. Both are worh checking out.
I'll second Miranda July as well.
I'll third July. Miranda is such an amazing talent.
And fourth Acker. I wish she was still writing. And alive.
I second Brandon's first of Lidia Yuknavitch's Chronology of Water. If you haven't read it prepare to have your tits blown off then sucked while they are lactating in Ken Kesey's vodka swimming pool.
Second Le Guin. Literary Science fucking fiction. Yes. Science fiction that is too real to shop at Wal Mart. I love her. She has nice tits too. I am going to see her tomorrow and get my The Lathe of Heaven tit licked. Bragging.
Amy Hempel. I see that and I raise you a...
Grace Krilanovich is on my list.
Just watched Jennifer Egan pull a 12-hour shift. She is raw. Power Point raw. Blondes have more intelligent fun raw. I'm in love.
a visit from the goon squad
I have Le Guin's Earthsea collection on my shelf, something I bought when I was on sci-fi binge a while back but never got round to reading. I do keep meaning to check it out.
Yes. Science fiction that is too real to shop at Wal Mart. I love her. She has nice tits too. I am going to see her tomorrow and get my The Lathe of Heaven tit licked. Bragging.
Ahaha Chester, thanks for the good laugh this morning. I just started on The Left Hand of Darkness and it's effing awesome. In the intro, Le Guin gives an amazing breakdown of why sci-fi is so legit and important before launching into some amazing storytelling.
Other favs of mine are Natsuo Kirono (awesome horror writer), Suzanne Collins (of Hunger Games fame), Jeanette Winterson (lesbianism in a labyrinth of art critique), and Hélène Cixous (literary and feminist theory).
On the YA side I really like Courtney Summers. It's hard for find minimalism in YA and she does it really well.
And for more literary I like Nothing by Janne Teller
If we're including non-fiction now too, I have to add Mary Roach to the list. Stiff is an excellent book.
@ Pete: yes. stiff is hilarious :)
Oh I have heard amazing things about Mary Roach and she has long been on my "too many books, too little time" list. Maybe I need to bump her up.
@ Chester: so jealous... :) how was she
also Jayne Anne Phillips. the things she can do with one page...
Dorothy Hughes, Patricia Highsmith, Selah Saterstrom, Katherine Dunn's Geek Love, Mary Gaitskill's Bad Behavior (although I hated it), Kim Addonizio's In the Box Called Pleasure, and maybe Monica O'Rourke (who I've never read and don't have the faintest idea if she's any good, but I believe her writing belongs in the splattercore subgenre and I can't think of another female author who writes in that genre--which is extreme horror stuff--although Poppy Z. Brite has a story in an old Splatterpunk anthology. Come to think of it, her novel, Exquisite Corpse, probably belongs in the subgenre. Although she isn't exactly "female" anymore.)
I know it's already been mentioned several times but Nobody Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July is amazing. Really changed my perpective on short stories and fiction in general.
Also Clown Girl by Monica Drake. I seriously feel like she wrote this book by slowly crafting one amazing sentence at a time. So many times while reading this book I had to stop and read a sentence over and over because it was just too awesome. The book is also full of a ton really great kafka references.
I was really into Miranda July's stories when they were being published by various lit journals and tracked down as much as I could. But when they were collected together in a book, I found I didn't really care for it. The stories seemed too same-y.I enjoyed them more when they were in different issues of lit journals and surrounded by stories from other writers. Regardless, I don't see her writing as being very "raw," although perhaps it is and I'm not remembering it well. It's been a long time since I've read anything by her.
I agree with you, Bradley, about Miranda July. Her stories are great if you run across them once in while in a lit mag or something. But, I didn't care for her collection.
I'm a huge fan of Emma Bull, especially her book Territory.
Nevertheless, I remember the website that advertised Miranda July's book was super cool.
The website is what got me to buy the book!
I made it to see Sandra Cisneros this evening! I loved that she said she usually writes so honestly that she thinks she'll never give it to publishers, and she compared the honesty of her writing to having a room where she can yell and scream without worrying someone will hear her. She was very entertaining and sweet.
Ayn Rand is probably my favorite lady writer. The Fountainhead was particulalry interesting for me. We The Living and Atlas Shrugged are a couple of her other books.
@Martin
I read with Gina last month in Chicago. Nice lady. Very tiny.
@mishmash,
Well if you liked Monica Drake's Clown Girl start gearing up for her next Novel due out 2012 titled Studbook. She just sold it to Crown scoring a six figure signing bonus. Also, in related news, Clown Girl was recently optioned by SNL's Kristin Wiig who will write and direct it. Keep your eyes peeled because Monica will likely appear around here in one facet or another. As a coulrophile I will be sitting at the entrance gate. She'll probably sneak in the back door though, knowing her.
Mary Gaitskill is great. So is Amy Hempel.
Beckers did you ever read The Chronology Of Water?
Also Agatha Christie.