Discussion · Open Science

Challenge: "Name 20 female authors you admire, 1 per day"

N. K. Jemisin.

Incredibly powerful writing and writes science fiction and fantasy that I actually enjoy reading after getting disillusioned with the Tolkein lineage for its deep racism & colonialism. Her Stone Sky series is wildly creative in terms of world building, had an excellent epic plot to rival any of the other greats you could name, has complex and compelling characters, and a satisfying conclusion. She's won the right awards, and I hope that that translates into a lineage of people building in her ideas as rich as Tolkien's.

Tiota Sram

@tiotasram@kolektiva.social replied · last week

Correction: it's the "Broken Earth" series; Stone Sky is one of the books.

Tiota Sram

@tiotasram@kolektiva.social replied · last week

In any case, day 2: Ursula K Le Guin.

As I've said elsewhere, part of her science fiction thesis is that "human" can encompass much more than what we mere Terrans think of it as, and that moral standing extends broadly throughout the universe. This is the antithesis of Tokens fantasy, wherein "race" is real and determines moral standing. For Le Guin, it's barely okay to intervene in complex alien politics unless you carefully ensure you're not causing systemic harms; for Tolkien, it's okay to ambush and murder orc children, because they are by nature evil.

Add to her excellent politics Le Guin's masterful worldbuilding and unparalleled range of plots, and you have the one author I loved as a decidedly liberal and naïve teen and love even more now that I'm an adult. She's an absolute legend and deserves a very high place on any list of women authors (or list of authors, period.).

For a short story, try "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" which you can read here: https://www.utilitarianism.com/nu/omelas.pdf

For fantasy "A Wizard of Earthsea" (also has a nice graphic novel adaptation), or for science fiction, "The Left Hand of Darkness" or if you want a more anarchist flavor, "The Dispossessed."

I'll close this with an amazing quote from her:

"""
We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.
"""

View (PDF)

Tiota Sram

@tiotasram@kolektiva.social replied · 6 days ago

Day 3: Octavia Butler.

Incredibly dark, graphic, and disturbing near-future science fiction, which has proved absolutely prophetic. In the 1990's she was writing about a charismatic Conservative Christian and white nationalist president elected in 2024, and the horrors his paramilitary followers would unleash, including forced labor & indoctrination camps. Did I mention those books include ebikes & pseudo-cellphones too? Characters fleeing north from a disastrous social collapse in Loss Angeles? This is "The Parable of the Sower" and "The Parable of the Talents" and the later was tragically rushed to an end because of Butler's declining health.
Her work deals unflinchingly with racism and the darker parts of society, and to those who might say "her depiction of social collapse is overblown," I'd say that while it's not literally the world we live in, it's *effectively* the world that the poorest of us live in. If you're a homeless undocumented latinx person in LA right now, I'm not sure how meaningfully different your world is from the one she depicts.

Her work comes with a strong content warning for lots of things, including racial violence, sexual abuse and slavery, including of children, animal harm, etc., so it's not for everyone. Reading it in 2023 was certainly an incredible trip. Her politics are really cool though; with explicit pro-LGBTQ themes and tinges of what might today be considered #SolarPunk.

#20WomenAuthors

Tiota Sram

@tiotasram@kolektiva.social replied · 5 days ago

Day 4: Adiba Jaigirdar

Thought I'd mix things up a bit in terms of intensity & genre. Jaigirdar has written several lovely sapphic teen romances that grapple with parental acceptance in Muslim Bengali immigrant culture, along with racism and other aspects of second generation immigrant life in Dublin.

I've discovered a few other Southeast Asian authors at my local library who will appear on this list, but I'm putting Jaigirdar first because of just how enjoyable her books are, and because I generally find queer romance to be more engaging than non-queer romance. Jaigirdar's characters are sympathetic and convincing, and their problems are both dramatic and a little funny. "Hani & Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating" is probably my favorite by Jaigirdar, but I also enjoyed "The Henna Wars" and "Rani Choudhury Must Die." "A Million to One" is a bit of a departure from her other books, as historical fiction with a heist plot, but it still engages with Irish culture, immigrants, and queer romance.

#20WomenAuthors

Tiota Sram

@tiotasram@kolektiva.social replied · 4 days ago

Day 5: Robin Wall Kimmerer

I'm taking these liberty of changing my hashtag and expanding the intent of this list to include all non-men, although Kimerer is a woman so I'll get to more gender diversity later... I've also started planning this out more and realized that I may continue a bit beyond 20...

In any case, Robin Wall Kimmerer is an Indigenous academic biologist and excellent non-fiction author whose work touches on Potawotomi philosophy, colonialism (including in academic spaces), and ideas for a better future. Anyone interested in ecology, conservation, or decolonization in North America will probably be impressed by her work and the rich connections she weaves between academic ecology and Indigenous knowledge offer a critical opportunity to expand your understanding of the world if like me you were raised deeply enmeshed in "Western" scientific tradition. I suppose a little background in skepticism helped prepare me to respect her writing, but I don't think that's essential.

I've only read "Braiding Sweetgrass," but "Gathering Moss" and her more recent "The Serviceberry" are high on my to-read list, despite my predilection for fiction. Kimmerer incorporates a backbone of fascinating anecdotes into "Braiding Sweetgrass" that makes it surprisingly easy reading for a work that's philosophical at its core. She also pulls off an impressive braided organization to the whole thing, weaving together disparate knowledges in a way that lets you see both their contradictions and their connections.

The one criticism I've seen of her work is that it's not sufficiently connected to other Indigenous philosophers & writers, and that it's perhaps too comfortable of a read for colonizers, and that seems valid to me, even though (perhaps because I am a colonizer) I still find her book important.

An excellent author in any case, and one doing concrete ideological work towards a better world.

#20AuthorsNoMen

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