Women Write Science Fiction: Yes, We Do!
Last week, I posted a few links to interesting articles around the traps. One was Cheryl Morgan’s Woman’s Hour on SF – A Train Wreck
The reason why the Woman’s Hour was a train wreck, according to Cheryl, was because apparently the pundits tried to tell us that women don’t write Science Fiction. My first response was: where do these people come from–Cloud Cuckoo Land? Cheryl’s response is more in-depth and reasoned, but I have been thinking about it since then and just for the record, thought I would do an off-the-top-of-my-head list of the names of women Science Fiction authors I know of. (I am going to stick to novelists as if we launched in short stories I suspect we would run into next week! 😉
Many of them are taken from the post and comments from my Thoughts On Space Opera: Women Authors from last year. But not all–there are a few new ones.
So here goes, leaping in:
- Ann Aguirre
- Catherine Asaro
- Margaret Atwood
- Elizabeth Bear
- Lauren Beukes
- Marion Zimmer Bradley
- Lois McMaster Bujold
- Octavia E. Butler
- CJ Cherryh
- Julie Czerneda
- Kim Falconer
- Elizabeth Friedman
- Mary Gentle
- Mira Grant
- Nicola Griffiths
- Ursula Le Guin
- Karen Healey
- Nalo Hopkinson
- Tanya Huff
- Kameron Hurley
- Jean Johnson
- Gwyneth Jones
- Nancy Kress
- Louise Lawrence
- Karin Lowachee
- Anne McCaffrey
- Maureen F. McHugh
- Vonda N. McIntyre
- R.M. Meluch
- Sharon Miller
- Elizabeth Moon
- Lisanne Norman
- Andre Norton
- Jody Lynn Nye
- Marianne de Pierres
- Laura E. Reeve
- Justina Robson
- Kristine Kathryn Rusch
- C.J. Ryan
- Eluki Bes Shahar
- Mary Shelley
- Sherwood Smith
- Sheri S Tepper
- James Tiptree, Jr
- Karen Traviss
- S.L. Viehl
- Joan Vinge
- Connie Willis
So who’ve I missed? I’m sure there are many.
And although I note that the ‘experts’ on the Woman’s hour programme tended to focus on women writers in the television and big screen movie game, and that is not my area, I do note:
- Leigh Brackett co-wrote The Empire Strikes Back
- Jane Espenson, who worked on the Battlestar Galactica, Caprica and Torchwood tv shows
- Mimi Leder directed the wonderful Deep Impact
- Melissa Mathison wrote ET
- Fran Walsh wrote for Dead Alive and King Kong; Philippa Boyens also worked on the latter film
So do women write science fiction? Unquestionably, yes, we do.
And to all those who say not—“Helen says bollocks to ya.” (To quote from Sliding Doors. 😉 )
Linda Nagata
Kathleen Ann Goonan
E.J. Swift
Mary Robinette Kowal
And many more.Yep, you missed *many* names. Which sort of is the point!
It is entirely the point and I kind of hoped I would miss mnay–and that more like you would post to ‘read to me from the book’ on the error of my ways. 😉