Beatrix Potter

Beatrix Potter (1866 - 1943)

English writer, illustrator, natural scientist, and conservationist.

She is best known for her charmingly illustrated children's books

featuring animals, such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902).

Before her literary success, however, Beatrix Potter was keenly interested

in mycology, the scientific study of fungi, producing brilliantly observed

illustrations of many types. She wrote a learned paper on mycology that

was dismissed and ignored because of her gender. It was only on her death,

when she left hundreds of her mycological artworks to a museum, 

that her scientific talents were recognized.

Today, Potter’s precise and beautiful

paintings and drawings of fungi are helping

modern mycologists in their efforts to identify species.

Her best-selling books enabled Beatrix Potter to become

a prosperous farmer and a prize-winning sheep breeder.

She bought several farms in the Lake District to preserve

its unique hill country landscape. Much of that land

now constitutes the Lake District National Park.

Mary Trump

Mary Trump (1965 -     )

American psychologist, author, and political commentator;

niece and outspoken critic of President Donald Trump;

author of the best-selling book Too Much and Never Enough:

How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man (2020),

an unauthorized biography and psychological profile of President Trump;

author of two other books exploring trauma, politics, and Trump family dynamics.

Margaret W. Rossiter

Margaret W. Rossiter (1944 - 2025)

American historian of science at Cornell University.

In 1993, she coined the term The Matilda Effect to describe

the systematic erasure of women's achievements in science

over the centuries and the theft and attribution of

their work and discoveries to male colleagues.

She named it in honour of suffragist and abolitionist

Matilda Joslyn Gage who had sounded the alarm 

about this practice more than a century earlier.

Following decades of research, her 3-volume work,

Women Scientists in America, restored women to

their rightful place in the history of science.

Her books inspired programs and policies which ensure 

that today’s women in STEM are properly

credited, published, and remembered.

Sophia Tolstaya

Sophia Tolstaya (1844 - 1919)

Russian diarist and wife of writer Count Leo Tolstoy;

their marriage is considered one of the most famously unhappy

marriages of literary history, in which their children also took sides;

her diaries, in which she recorded her life with her husband,

were not published in English translation until the 1980s;

she also wrote her memoirs entitled My Life;

interested in photography, she took over 1000 photographs

documenting her life and the decline of the Russian Empire;

most of her works were published postmortem, long after being written,

because Tolstaya was critical of Leo Tolstoy in her writing and

the Russian authorities did not want the famous author's status tarnished.

Lorna Crozier

Lorna Crozier (1948 -     )

Canadian poet, author, and former chair of the

Writing Department at the University of Victoria;

one of Canada's pre-eminent poets, her writings often 

deal with themes of human relationships, the natural world,

language, memory, and perception;

this video is a good introduction to her life, interests, and poetry

for those who may want to know more.

Dame Pat Barker

Dame Pat Barker (1943 -     )

English writer and novelist;

her multi-award winning fiction often centres on

themes of memory, trauma, survival and recovery,

often in the context of war and oppression;

her famous Regeneration Trilogy (1991-1995)

deals with the trauma of World War I, while

her latest Trojan War Trilogy (2018-2024)

retells Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, but from

the perspective of the women involved in those myths.

Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759 - 1797)

English writer and philosopher best known for

her advocacy of women's rights;

foremother of feminist thought;

author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792);

married to philosopher William Godwin, one of the

forefathers of the anarchist movement; 

she died after giving birth to their daughter, Mary, who

grew up to be Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein.

Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson (1959 -     )

English author, broadcaster and educator;

her first novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985)

was a literary sensation and later made into a TV miniseries;

the literary career which followed has made her

one of Britain's most distinguished modern writers;

awards include the Whitbread Prize for a First Novel,

a BAFTA Award for Best Drama, the E. M. Forster Award

and the Lambda Literary Award twice.

Judy Grahn

Judy Grahn (1940 -     )

American poet, author, and educator;

discharged from the United States Air Force in1961 for being lesbian,

she endured much homophobia and violence due to her butchness;

in the 1970s, became an active member of the Gay Women's Liberation Group,

the first lesbian-feminist collective on the west coast;

her groundbreaking and influential poetry is infused

with her lesbian-feminist identity, women's spirituality,

and often addresses racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia.

Alice Walker

Alice Walker (1944 -    )

American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist;

she is the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction,

awarded in 1982 for her novel The Color Purple;

a noted activist in a wide variety of causes, she is occasionally criticized

for controversial or unpopular views.

Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)

American poet and author credited with advancing the

genre of confessional poetry in Ariel, her collection of poems,

and The Bell Jar, her semi-autobiographical novel;

clinically depressed for most of her adult life, she died by

suicide following a tumultuous marriage and children with

the English poet Ted Hughes;

became a posthumous feminist icon as a "symbol of

blighted female genius" during her life in pre-feminist days;

posthumously awarded many literary prizes, including

the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Tamron Hall

Tamron Hall (1970 -     )

American broadcast journalist, television talk show host and author;

winner of 2 Daytime Emmies for her self-titled syndicated talk show

and a 2024 NAACP Image Award;

the 2004 death of her sister Renata has caused her to become an

anti-domestic violence activist.

Rupi Kaur

Rupi Kaur (1992 -     )

Indian-Canadian poet, illustrator, photographer, and author;

she rose to fame via Instagram;

her self-published debut poetry collection, Milk and Honey (2014),

was re-published by a mainstream publisher and

became an international blockbuster sensation.

Judy Blume

Judy Blume (1938 -     )

American writer of children's, young adult, and adult fiction;

has published more than 26 novels including 

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (1970),

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (1972), Deenie (1973), and Blubber (1974);

one of the first YA authors to write about controversial topics like

masturbation, menstruation, teen sex, birth control, and death;

because of these mature themes, she is one of the most frequently

challenged authors of the 21st century.

Pat Parker

Pat Parker (1944-1989)

African American poet and activist;

her poetry and activism both drew from her experiences

as a Black lesbian feminist and also encompassed

reproductive rights, civil rights, anti-racism and

the struggle against domestic violence.

Emma Donoghue

Emma Donoghue (1969 -     )

Irish Canadian novelist, screenwriter, playwright and literary historian;

her best-known novels include Room (2010) and Slammerkin (2000),

winner of the Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction (2002);

her new novel is The Paris Express (2025).

Dame Agatha Christie

Dame Agatha Christie (1890 - 1976)

English mystery writer and playwright

known as the "Queen of Crime;"

best-selling fiction writer of all time;

creator of notable detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple;

her works have been widely and repeatedly adapted

for the movies and television.

Elaine Pagels

Elaine Pagels (1943 -     )

American professor, scholar and historian of religion;

expert in early Christianity and Gnosticism;

her best-selling book The Gnostic Gospels (1979)

examines the divisions in the early Christian church,

and the way in which women have been viewed

throughout Jewish and Christian history.

Peach Momoko

Peach Momoko

Japanese comic book artist and writer;

exclusively under contract with Marvel Comics

to produce comics for Momoko-verse and Ultimate X-Men.

Colette

Colette (1873 - 1954)

French author, woman of letters, actor, journalist;

best known novels include the Claudine novels (1900-1903),

La Vagabonde (1910), Chéri (1920) and Gigi (1944);

infamous for her sexually liberated lifestyle with women and younger men.