International Women's Day

We’re going to see lots of posts today about some fabulous and inspiring women and girls.

Here are some of my own (writer) heroes:

• Jane Austen: the older I get, the more I appreciate Austen’s humor and the fact that she wrote her novels with papers hidden under her letters. Oh, and I’m also going to see the new film version of Emma today, so she’s definitely at the top of my list.

• Paula Gunn Allen: one of my professors in college, she also guided me through the Creative Writing program and helped me to believe in my writing when my confidence started to falter. She was a trailblazing woman for the native nations in literature, and a mentor to so many aspiring scholars and writers.

• Virginia Woolf: I can’t adequately express in words how much my teenage self found solace in Woolf’s words. There was no such thing as YA at the time, no books in verse when I was a teen. At the time, my own writing was abstract and stream-of-consciousness, and seeing her lovely words was motivating as well as a balm to my tender heart. At one point I wrote a very abstract stream-of-consciousness story that mourned the way she died. (My fellow writers in class were confused, but Professor Gunn Allen understood me perfectly. See above.) I still hope to one day create a room of my own in which to write! For now, in my petit maison (small house as my mom calls my home, the kitchen table will suffice.

• Sandra Cisneros, Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, Leslie Marmon Silko, Amy Tan, and Julia Alvarez: these women transformed my view of life when I was a young adult in college. I studied and read a LOT of women’s literature, especially by women who were minorities in America. These women helped me realize that I had a voice of my own.

• I have other authors represented as other ‘firsts’: Erin Entrada Kelly for being the first Filipina-American to win the Newbery Medal, Grace Lin for transforming Chinese mythology and folklore into something so accessible and wonderful for our young kids, Jenny Han for writing a strong Asian-American mixed teen who is anything but stereotypical, and Becky Albertalli for similarly writing believable teen characters who just happen to be gay. These women are my heroes.

  Tell Dr. Bookworm!

  Who are your female heroes?

This is how I found Little Lion this morning on International Women’s Day. Yes, she’s reading a book via flashlight. It’s a common occurrence in the Bookworm household. Even on days in which you lose an hour. :D