Bookish Broads

Excerpt

I am here to publicly confess that I am an addict—a book addict. I’m so hooked that I logged a super-geeky one hundred books during the summer between sixth and seventh grades. My reward (other than getting to constantly have my nose in a book) was a green T-shirt featuring a crazed monster and the declaration “Beware! I am a bibliomaniac!” I still have that T-shirt in a wardrobe in my childhood bedroom, and sometimes when I go visit my parents, I take it out and put it on—just in case anyone has forgotten who they are dealing with.

My bookworm ways have served me well as an English lit major, a professional book editor, and a published writer. Which is to say that in writing this book, it has been an absolute treat for me to delve deeply into the lives and work of the women I read growing up, those I’ve admired as an adult, and those whom I am—in my advanced stage of bibliomania—just now discovering.

Women have experienced restricted access to education throughout most of history—and, as we know too well (thank you, Malala), they still do in many parts of the world. I wanted to tell the stories behind the storytellers and explore the obstacles they had to overcome to become writers and create the lasting works that they did. And, by the way, if you look at the works of the women featured in this book chronologically, you’ll see nothing less than a literary history of the female experience over the past thousand years.

Most of these bookish broads also had to face vocal critics, who typically didn’t have a lot of subtlety when it came to expressing their disdain. Stick to your knitting. You have no talent. It isn’t feminine; it’s even downright immoral for a woman to publish.

In a world where they had no voice, these women created one. As Margaret Atwood said, "a word after a word after a word is power."

This book isn’t meant to be encyclopedic or exhaustive; it’s meant to celebrate a selection of women who took up their pens, who were compelled to express themselves and comment on what they saw as flaws in society or on frustrations in their own lives that might resonate with other women. My hope in telling their stories is that you will be inspired to read some of their work and to understand the amazing legacy of female writers that is too often underappreciated. Still.

To this end, as a part of each profile, I have included some recommendations for further reading, if you are looking to explore the works of any of the women here in more detail. These recommendations are not comprehensive, but they offer a starting point.

This is a book for all book lovers, for readers but also for writers and aspiring writers of all ages and backgrounds. Anyone who has ever poured their heart and soul onto paper and then pared it down, reworked it, and revised it, trying to make it sing, knows the difficulty and self-doubt involved in putting ideas into words. To do all of that, despite the harsh criticism, overt discrimination, and limited access to education, resources, and fair pay that most of these women faced—well, it just goes to show how determined these writers were.

All of the unconventional rabble-rousers featured in the pages that follow wrote themselves into history. They were ahead of their time, and they didn’t let their fear get the best of them. They were able to express their vision so well that their works continue to make an impact today, and with this book, I hope to do my part in honoring their legacy and helping a new generation of readers and writers find inspiration and hope in their incredible stories.