FABClub (Female Authors Book Club) discussion

The poll results are in, and the majority of voters chose the option (in addition to our monthly group read) of also focusing next year on a single author and her entire body of work. So the idea is, we pick an author, and start in January with her first published work, and then move on to a new one each month until we’re all the way through. So which great female author would you like to spend some significant time with? It could be a contemporary writer, or someone long dead, or someone who wrote literary fiction or specialized in a genre. Who are you eager to examine in depth? Nominations are now open!

This is really hard for me to pick! I think I want to nominate Margaret Atwood. Specifically I'm thinking just her 14 novels (although if someone wanted to suggest a short story collection or a poetry collection or a non-fiction collection as well, that would be OK with me).

I adore Margaret Atwood and she writes such a variety of things that she'd make a great, varied year of reading.

However, Elizabeth Berg jumped to my mind as well. She doesn't leap genre to genre and form to form like such constraints are mere stones in a creek the way Margaret does, but she tackles a wide variety of themes and ideas. I always find her stories riveting, her characters dead-on real as if they're just the house over living, breathing, and carrying on . . . and her prose is beautiful.

I'm going to nominate Jeanette Winterson because I've only read her memoir, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?. I loved her writing style, so I keep meaning to pick up her other books.

Great title, Nicole. I'm immediately intrigued--and I haven't read anything by her so I'm immediately whereas I've read almost all Atwood's books and most of Elizabeth Berg's.

I just checked, and Elizabeth Berg has 35 works on Goodreads, while Jeanette Winterson has 50. Obviously some of them are works such as translations, or books where they only wrote the introduction, but it would be helpful if you could specify which (or how many) you think constitute their body of work? Thanks!

I think Elizabeth Berg's body of work is actually comprised of 24 titles:

Tapestry of Fortunes

Once Upon a Time, There Was You

The Last Time I Saw You

Home Safe

The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted: And Other Small Acts of Liberation

Dream When You're Feeling Blue

We Are All Welcome Here

The Handmaid and the Carpenter

The Year of Pleasures

The Art of Mending

Say When

True to Form

Never Change

Ordinary Life

Escaping into the Open: the Art of Writing True

Open House

Until the Real Thing Comes Along

What We Keep

Joy School

The Pull of the Moon

Range of Motion

Talk Before Sleep

Durable Goods

Family Traditions

:)

I would be more interested in Berg or Atwood than in Winterson. I've read several of her titles and wasn't deeply engaged by them. However, my opinion shouldn't carry too much weight as I can never predict whether I'll be able to participate.

From what I can tell, Winterson only has about 12 adult fiction books. I'd be happy to read Atwood too, though I've already read a lot of her books.

I'm in the Atwood Camp too, she has a new collection of stories coming out next month! She has so many different genres to choose from, poetry, short story, fiction, speculative fiction, non-fiction etc.

Ursula K. Le Guin also springs to mind, if we don't mind a year of sci-fi/fantasy. Marge Piercy might be an interesting author to look at too.

Ursula K. Le Guin and Marge Piercy are both great nominations! How many (or which) books would you say constitute their body of work?

Marge Piercy's wiki lists these as her collected works, there are fiction, non-fiction, memoir, and poetry options! (Her poetry is amazing, btw)

Novels

Going Down Fast, 1969
Dance The Eagle To Sleep, 1970
Small Changes, 1973
Woman on the Edge of Time, 1976
The High Cost of Living, 1978
Vida, 1980
Braided Lives, 1982
Fly Away Home, 1985
Gone To Soldiers, 1988
Summer People, 1989
He, She And It (aka Body of Glass), 1991
The Longings of Women, 1994
City of Darkness, City of Light, 1996
Storm Tide (novel)|Storm Tide, 1998 (with Ira Wood)
Three Women, 1999
The Third Child, 2003
Sex Wars, 2005

Poetry collections

Breaking out, 1984
Hard Loving, 1969
4-Telling ( with Emmett Jarrett, Dick Lourie, Robert Hershon), 1971
To Be of Use, 1973
Living in the Open, 1976
The Twelve-Spoked Wheel Flashing, 1978
The Moon is Always Female, 1980
Circles on the Water, Selected Poems, 1982
Stone, Paper, Knife, 1983
My Mother's Body, 1985
Available Light, 1988
Early Ripening: American Women's Poetry Now (ed.), 1988; 1993
Mars and her Children, 1992
What are Big Girls Made Of, 1997
Early Grrrl, 1999.
The Art of Blessing the Day: Poems With a Jewish Theme, 1999
Colours Passing Through Us, 2003

Collected Other

The Last White Class, (play co-authored with Ira Wood), 1979
Parti-Colored Blocks For a Quilt, (essays), 1982
The Earth Shines Secretly: A book of Days, (daybook calendar), 1990
So You Want to Write, (non-fiction), 2001
Sleeping with Cats, (memoir), 2002


And Ursula, my goodness. There is so much.


Earthsea fantasy series

A Wizard of Earthsea, 1968 (named to the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award list in 1979)
The Tombs of Atuan, 1971 (Newbery runner-up)
The Farthest Shore, 1972 (National Book Award)
Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea, 1990 (Nebula Award and Locus Fantasy Award)
Tales from Earthsea, 2001 (short stories)
The Other Wind, 2001 (World Fantasy Award, 2002)

Hainish science fiction series

Rocannon's World, 1966
Planet of Exile, 1966
City of Illusions, 1967
The Left Hand of Darkness, 1969 (Hugo Award[62] and Nebula Award)
The Dispossessed, 1974 (Nebula Award;[64] Hugo Award; Locus Award)
The Word for World is Forest, 1976 (Hugo Award, best novella)
Four Ways to Forgiveness, 1995 (Four Stories of the Ekumen)
The Telling, 2000 (Locus SF Award;[66] Endeavour Award)

Miscellaneous

The Lathe of Heaven, 1971 (Locus SF Award)
The Wind's Twelve Quarters, 1975
Orsinian Tales, 1976
The Eye of the Heron, 1978 (first published in the anthology Millennial Women)
The Beginning Place, 1980 (also published as Threshold, 1986)
The Compass Rose, 1982
Always Coming Home, 1985
Annals of the Western Shore, 2004-2007
Lavinia, 2008 (Locus Fantasy Award)

OH!!!! I love Jane Urquhart. It is going to be hard to vote. :)

Another author I would like to throw out for consideration is Karen Joy Fowler. She is the co-founder of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, an annual literary prize for "science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores our understanding of gender." She is the author of six novels and three short story collections.
Artificial Things, Sarah Canary, The Sweetheart Season, Black Glass, Sister Noon, What I Didn't See: Stories, The Jane Austen Book Club, Wit's End, and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. There is also a small collection that includes an essay: The Science of Herself (although this might be harder to get hold of).

I would be into that idea too, I've been meaning to read Sarah Canary for a while now!

SO many choices!!!

Alexa wrote: "Another author I would like to throw out for consideration is Karen Joy Fowler. She is the co-founder of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, an annual literary prize for "science fiction o..."

I'd be into her too. I've always meant to read more of her!

Those are both great choices! How many books would we be talking about for each of them?

Of particular relevance to this set of nominations: http://io9.com/lifetime-achievement-a...

Ursula!!!!

So, to review the nominations. We've got:
Margaret Atwood - primarily her 14 novels, but with a taste of essays, short stories and poetry
Elizabeth Berg - 24 titles
Jeanette Winterson - 12 books
Ursula K. Le Guin - 23 works
Marge Piercy - 17 novels, 17 poetry collections, 5 other
Jane Urquhart - 8 novels, 1 non-fiction, 1 short story collection, plus articles, poetry and anthologies
Karen Joy Fowler - 6 novels, 3 short story collections
Doris Lessing - 17 novels, 2 plays, 2 poetry, 17 short story, plus non-fiction
Toni Morrison - 10 novels and some non-fiction
Did I get all that correct? Any last minute nominations before I put up the poll?

Eeeeee I'm so excited to see who gets voted in!

And the poll is up! Come and vote!

Voted! I'm excited to find out too! :)

If you haven't voted yet come and do so; this one's a nail-biter!

It's still tied between Margaret and Ursula!!

The poll is still neck-and-neck! If you voted for one of the also-rans you might want to consider going back and changing your vote? I can't wait to see how this ends up!

MARGARET ATWOOOOOOOOD <3<3<3