Contemporary Female Writers

1. Contemporary Female Writers

2. Contemporary Period 1945 - Now • Few women writers until the 18th century • Regard the present as part of history • We define what is contemporary culture • Multi-cultural and diverse writers • American women writing from a feminine point of view

3. Alice Walker • 1944 – rural Georgia • Valedictorian • Spellman and Sarah Lawrence • Single parent • Civil Rights Activist • Pulitzer Prize for The Color Purple • Founder of Wild Tree Press - 1984

4. ToniMorrison • 1931 – Lorraine, Ohio • Howard and Cornell Universities • Single parent of 2 sons • Editor at Random House for 20 years • 1st book, The Bluest Eyes • Pulitzer Prize winner for Beloved – 1988 • 1st African American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature – 1993. • 1st African American woman to sit on the board of an Ivy League school – Princeton University.

5. Leslie Marmon Silko • 1948 – Albuquerque, New Mexico • Laguna/Pueblo Native American, Mexican and white ethnicity • Ceremony is her most famous work. • Most accomplished Native American writer of her generation.

6. Sharon Olds • 1942 – San Francisco • Stanford – 1964, Ph.D. Columbia University 1972 • New York State Poet 1998-2000 • New York University teacher/director of creative writing program • Poet, best known work – Father • Writes raw and honest words that may make the reader uncomfortable.

7. Maxine Hong Kingston • 1939 – San Francisco • Chinese American • University of California at Berkley – 1962 • Taught in Hawaii for 10 years • 1st book, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts • Writes with an appreciation of her ancestry through a modern woman’s perspective.

8. What Contemporary Writers Have in Common

9. Many Other AUthors

10. Web sites to check out www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/booklists/feminista.html www.poetseers.org/contemporary_poets www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/