Summer seems to finally be here, and it looks promising for reading more works written by women writers. Recently, the Women’s Writer Network held their second Twitter chat of 2018 on June 5th. This time, our discussion focused on women writing the city, and we had an engaging conversation about how the urban landscape appears in writing. You can check out the highlights here and find our reading recommendations lists here.¹ These chats tend to be inspiring, both for generating ideas about and for writing as well as providing opportunities for discovering (or rediscovering) authors. I’ll be sure to announce the next Twitter chat (planning already underway!) when details become available.

Additionally, Reading Women is celebrating their second year podcasting. As I discussed last year, Reading Women, dedicated to reclaiming half the bookshelf, focus on works written by and about women. In additional to the #readingwomenmonth photo challenge (I’m participating again this year), they are debuting a Mrs. Dalloway read along (incidentally, one of the books mentioned during Women Writer’s Network Twitter Chat) as well as other events described here.²

Finally, another opportunity to read more women writers will be in August, which is Women in Translation month. Founded by Meytal Radzinski in 2014, this event seems to grow every year. In addition to Meytal’s 2018 #witmonth resources page, you can check out the Translationista blog run by Susan Bernofsky and the Women in Translation blog (run by women translators) for more ideas and information. I’ll be discussing more about #witmonth when we get closer to August.

The Recs Lists

If you need additional suggestions for your reading list, I’m recommending several books I’ve read. Links will takes you to post I’ve written focusing on the books or their writing approaches.

• Toni Morrison, Beloved
• Andrea Wulf, The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World 
• Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus
• Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
• Sandy Benett-Haber (editor/contribution), You Won’t Remeber This: Travel with Babies
• Han Kang, Human Acts (trans. by Deborah Smith)
• Rachael Carson, Silent Spring
• Amy Tan, The Bonesetter’s Daughter
• Barbara Kingsolver, Flight Behavior
• Banana Yoshimoto, Kitchen
• Hannah Tinti, The Good Thief
• Paula Hawkins, The Girl on a Train
• Angela Saini, Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong—and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story

Finally, check out these articles that list more amazing works by women writers:

• 25 Recent Works by Women Writers to Read for #WITmonth by Jessie Chaffee

• 7 Overlooked Women Writers You Should Be Reading Now by Elizabeth Flock

• Eight Irish Women Writers who Match up with Joyce and Yeats  by Caroline B. Heafey

• Women Writing About the Wild: 25 Essential Authors by Kathryn Aalto

• 50 Novels by Women on Conflict, Displacement and Resilience by Soniah Kamal

• The Cut’s 15 Great Books by Women We Read This Year

• From Muir to Matriarchs: The New, Female-Penned Nature Novel by Ellie Robbins
  

For more ideas, you can also take a look at last year’s recommendations. Happy reading, everyone! And as always, feel free to share your suggestions!

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