Women Of Fiction

It’s been said that male readers will read male writers, and women readers will read both male and female writers.  I tend to read males, but have pushed the boundaries of my learned ways to find female writers that I enjoy.  And find them, I certainly have.
  

Ann Beattie’s new short story collection, The New York Stories, spans her decades as a short story writer for The New Yorker magazine, and they are fantastic slices of life, not only about the city, but also rural New England.  I’m enjoying one now about the stone wall, and a doctor who must keep it up on his property, the townfolk forcing him to do so.  Characters as vivid as a tie-dyed shirt. 

Joyce Carole Oates has written some neat stories -- the one about Punkinhead comes immediately to mind, about the guy who wears a Jack O Lantern on his head.  And of course my Kindle has non-fiction, such as Bird By Bird by Annie Lamotte, which I have reviewed here and an Amazon recently. 

There are so many that remain on my “to read” list: Toni Morrison.  Maya Angelou.  Willa Cather from Jaffrey, NH.  Eudora Welty (although I own her book “On Writing” to be fairly convoluted). 

My goal is reading for 2011 and 2012 is to assure an even balance between male and female authors.  Young and old authors.  New and vintage authors.  

So many books, so little time.