Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present
Lisa Maria Hogeland and Shay Brawn, eds., The Aunt Lute Anthology of U .S.
Women Writers, volume 2: The 20th Century (San Francisco: Aunt Lute
Books, 2007).
Comprehensive collection of works by twentieth-century American women,
including fiction, poetry, drama, nonfiction, lyrics, stand-up comedy routines, and
librettos.
Wendy Martin, ed., The Beacon Book of Essays by Contemporary American Women
(Boston: Beacon, 1996).
Excellent examples of contemporary American women writing in the essay form,
divided into topical sections on the family, identity, oppression and violence, bod-
ies, and nature.
George Plimpton, ed., Women Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews (New
York: Modern Library, 1998).
Interviews originally published between 1960 and 1994 with sixteen women writ-
ers, including Maya Angelou, Joan Didion, Toni Morrison, Joyce Carol Oates,
and Susan Sontag.
Claudia Rankine and Juliana Spahr, eds., American Women Poets in the 21st Cen-
tury: Where Lyric Meets Language (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University
Press, 2002).
Collection of works by the poets Rae Armantrout, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Lucie
Brock-Broido, Jorie Graham, Barbara Guest, Lyn Hejinian, Brenda Hillman,
Susan Howe, Ann Lauterbach, and Harryette Mullen, with short introductions.
Linda Wagner-Martin and Cathy N. Davidson, Women’s Writing in the United
States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).
Collection of short stories, poems, essays, plays, speeches, performance pieces,
erotica, diaries, correspondence, and recipes by nearly one hundred American
women writers. The introduction and notes are quite informative.
Criticism
Pamela Butler and Jigna Desai, “Manolos, Marriage, and Mantras: Chick-Lit
Criticism and Transnational Feminism,” Meridians: feminism, race, transna-
tionalism, 8, 2 (2008): 1–31.
Interprets the chick-lit genre within the context of critical race and transnational
feminist theories, considering questions of race, class, and nation in the work of
South Asian American women writers; for advanced students.
Anne Cranny-Francis, Feminist Fiction: Feminist Uses of Generic Fiction (New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990).
Analyzes how women writers adapt popular genres (science fiction, fantasy, uto-
pian, detective, and romance) to feminist concerns.
Critical Inquiry, special issue, “Writing and Sexual Difference,” edited by Eliza-
beth Abel, 8 (Winter 1981).