Talk:List of women writers

Untitled
This list is overwhelming focused on 20th century American women novelists; I've added several earlier writers, a bunch of poets, and a number of women from other countries, but the list is still very short. Smawnmahlau —Preceding undated comment added by A Musing (talk • contribs) 21:42, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I've just added quite a few...thinking of more... --Regeane Silverwolf 01:43, 21 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I recently added names from the List of early-modern women playwrights (UK). Still Eurocentric, but from an earlier period, and from the UK. scribblingwoman 18:04, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm adding in feminist authors...Just as a note, I know some of the links are dead at the moment; I'm putting all the names in and then I'm going to go back and write articles for all of those who need them. Also, thanks to HMSaccount for putting in nationalities and dates! That does make the list easier to browse. Foreverfreebird2 17:05, 19 December 2006 (UTC)foreverfreebird2


 * You're welcome! Will do more later. I won't remove any of the dead links. HMAccount 20:42, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Ann M. Martin, Ann Brashares, Holly Lisle, to name a few. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.192.94.145 (talk) 19:15, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

working towards wikipedia list guidelines
Hi scribblingwoman and Foreverfreebird2. This note to let you know I do plan to complete adding the dates, nationalities and type of writing, it just may take several days. After (or during) that though, would anyone be interested in making this list even more useful in line with List guideline? I'm thinking that would mean (1) creating an article about women writers which would at least include why there is interest in women as writers (as opposed to men), and who some of the towering/significant figures in this area are. (2) reorganizing the list itself on some principle other than the alphabet, based on how people are most likely to use it – I suspect by date is key? Or nationality? (Maybe it should even be several lists). (3) possibly formatting the list as a table (see the format at List of famous people who died young). Some column headings might be: Name, Dates, Nationality, Type of writing (novels, poetry, etc), Genre, Known for (major work or contribution). I always have more ideas than I succeed in carrying out, so help/ input would be great. Thanks for your thoughts. HMAccount 14:06, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi HMAccount! You ask some good questions here. I am finding lists difficult; useful, certainly. But how to organize them? I have two smaller lists on the go -- early modern women poets and early modern women dramatists -- and have been waffling about the organization. The dramatist list is shorter right now so it works chronologically I think, but the poets list quickly grew enormous so I shifted it to alphabetical and it seems more manageable. Ideally I guess lists would be able to be accessed in a couple of different ways (by date; by genre; &c.) but I don't think we can do that with the software. So short answer: I don't have any quick or useful answers about the format of the list. Maybe the answer is a series of shorter, more specialized lists linked to the giant list. I started my lists because I was interested in a particular focus. To your first point: the idea of an article is a good one, and I would certainly be interested in contributing to that. Possibly even drafting it, if no-one has started it by the time I have some spare time. scribblingwoman 14:52, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi scribblingwoman, thank you for responding. I won't touch the format for now but I like your idea "Maybe the answer is a series of shorter, more specialized lists linked to the giant list. I started my lists because I was interested in a particular focus." I'm still learning the formats here but category templates might be the way to achieve that, and this giant list could stay alphabetical as a sort of browsable master list. But I agree, having the links to all the shorter lists in one place would be terrific. Am also glad you agree about the article and might even be able to draft it. HMAccount 14:31, 8 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It is now possible to make sortable tables, clicking on the arrow icons will order the list alphabetically or numerically (chronologically). For full dates use RFC 3339 formated dates, e.g: yyyy-mm-dd.


 * {| class="wikitable sortable"

!Family name !Given name !Born !Died !Nationality !Type !Notes
 * Xiao
 * Hong
 * 1911
 * 1942
 * Chinese
 * novelist
 * Also short story writer.
 * Yamamoto
 * Hisaye
 * 1921
 * Japanese American
 * short-story writer
 * Yearsley
 * Ann
 * 1753
 * 1806
 * English
 * poet
 * Also novelist and playwright.
 * Yezierska
 * Anzia
 * 1883
 * 1970
 * Polish American
 * novelist
 * Also short-story writer.
 * Yosano
 * Akiko
 * 1878
 * 1942
 * Japanese
 * poet
 * Yoshimoto
 * Banana
 * 1964
 * Japanese
 * novelist
 * Young
 * Olivia Rudolph
 * 1894
 * 1974
 * American
 * poet
 * Also teacher. Poet Laureate of California.
 * Yourcenar
 * Marguerite
 * 1903
 * 1987
 * French
 * novelist
 * Zayas y Sotomayor
 * María de
 * 1590
 * 1661 c
 * Spanish
 * novelist
 * Zitkala-Sa
 * 1876
 * 1938
 * American
 * writer
 * Gertrude Simmons Bonnin
 * Zürn
 * Unica
 * 1916
 * 1970
 * German
 * poet
 * Also painter.
 * Zwicky
 * Fay
 * 1933
 * Australian
 * poet
 * Also academic.
 * }
 * 1938
 * American
 * writer
 * Gertrude Simmons Bonnin
 * Zürn
 * Unica
 * 1916
 * 1970
 * German
 * poet
 * Also painter.
 * Zwicky
 * Fay
 * 1933
 * Australian
 * poet
 * Also academic.
 * }
 * poet
 * Also academic.
 * }


 * scribblingwoman, sorry for the Austen comment - it just seemed like very strange list criteria. -- Jeandré, 2007-11-18t21:45z

Women's writing as an area of study
As some of you will have noticed, "Women writers" has been removed as a category. Here is the discussion. I posted something here, but so far, no-one has responded. I looked at the article " Categorization/Gender, race and sexuality" and it says:


 * Dedicated group-subject subcategories, such as Category:LGBT writers or Category:African American musicians, should only be created where that combination is itself recognized as a distinct and unique cultural topic in its own right. You should be able to write a substantial and encyclopedic head article (not just a list) for the category — if this cannot be done, then the category should be seen as not valid. Please note that this does not mean that the head article must already exist before a category can be created, but it must be at least possible to create one.

So, I have begun to draft such an article. It's not quite ready for prime time, but when it is, people friendly to the project of expanding Wikipedia coverage of women's writing are invited to stop by and help. (So far it's just a pile of links, many if not most of which I intend to discard but which link to items that might be helpful in drafting the article and arguing the case that "women's writing" is a legitimate area of literary study.) scribblingwoman 19:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Ugh, semantics. I agree with you, scribblingwoman, and have said as much on the discussion page.  I wonder if we should perhaps advertise it elsewhere to attract more attention from various sources?  WikiProject Gender Studies, perhaps? María: ( habla  ~  cosas ) 20:59, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Good idea, María. I just left a message over there, on the Talk page. scribblingwoman 01:00, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


 * María, if you (or anyone else reading this) wants to stop over and take a look at the draft-in-process on women's literature in English, I would appreciate the extra eyes (and brains!). scribblingwoman 03:36, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Update: I just (finally) submitted the category for review for reinstatement. Fingers crossed. scribblingwoman 15:03, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Category "women screenwriters" up for discussion
Thought people interested in this area might like to know that Category:Women screenwriters is being considered for deletion. — scribbling  woman  02:55, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Women writers v. Female writers
Can we leave this as women writers? I realize that "women" is not an adjective, but the term "women writers" can be a compound noun. A quick google search will confirm that "women writers" is preferred. Portia1780 (talk) 21:33, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Rationale for existence
This is one of those pages that I am pretty positive would be deleted at WP:AFD, and the only reason I'm not nominating it is sympathy for the people who put so much work into it. But honestly, this list is totally useless, and would be useless even if it did approach a semi-reasonable level of completion; I searched for five writers off the top of my head (Philippa Gregory, Ann M. Martin, Caroline B. Cooney, Tracy Chevalier and Judy Blume) and only the last of them was included. Theoldsparkle (talk) 18:49, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Please spare us for another three months and see if it's improved. Still, 13,253 hits in the last 30 days mean it's helping or disappointing quite a lot of people. Did you add the five, or shall I? Bmcln1 (talk) 19:10, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not planning to make the nomination; I posted mainly as a warning to those who are still putting effort into the list that I suspect it would be deleted if someone else nominated it for such. (Granted, I could certainly be wrong.) I haven't added the ones I mentioned, and you're free to add them if you haven't already. But I don't think making the list more complete is going to resolve the bigger problem of the information's value. That's just my view. Theoldsparkle (talk) 20:13, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Author of 24 publications keeps getting removed by one person...
...who, judging from his edit history, has a "conflict of interest" here. Stephanie Adams is listed as a model and author on Wikipedia and according to her biography as well as Amazon and other sources, she is the "author of two dozen publications" so what's going on here? She was listed as a writer for a while now and is definitely a writer. 74.101.6.200 (talk) 17:00, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I think Stephanie Adams has notability, as a former Playboy centrefold, an astrologer and seer, and a Lesbian activist, perhaps. But I don't think those qualities add up to notability as a writer, particularly as her publications seem to be almanacs with a shelf-life of a year. So I would support the person who removed her from this list. Still, why don't you register as a Wikipedian and join us in trying to make this list more complete? Bmcln1 (talk) 20:18, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 4 April 2012
Purpose: To correct the format in 'W' list.

Details:

Please change to
 * [[Wallada bint al-Mustakfi (ولادة بنت المستكفي‎, 1001–1080), Andalusian poet writing in Arabic.
 * Wallada bint al-Mustakfi (ولادة بنت المستكفي‎, 1001–1080), Andalusian poet writing in Arabic.

Redneck2u (talk) 15:13, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ Done. Thank you for pointing it out. I think you should be able to do this instead of having to take all the time to post here, though. -- JoannaSerah (talk) 15:37, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Damage repaired, I hope
I've just managed to reverse about 70 changes made overnight by an editor. There was not much rhyme or reason in them. They included omitting the nationality of some authors and adding the full birth dates (presumably as an aid to astrologers), and in several cases omitting the bracketed name in the original language, where different. Anyway, perhaps it's time to set a standard. Let me begin by suggesting the following:

'''Given name(s) and surname (other names where important for idetnification or where the English is spelled variously, year of birth - year of death), national affiliation plus claim to writership (novelist, poet etc.), language in which she wrote, where different, one or perhaps two seminal works that have Wikipedia pages of their own.

I suggest no "red links", but candidates for which there is a page being prepared could be stored in Discussion. I suggest NO information not in the articles to which the links refer, otherwise we will have to reference the whole thing, which is bureaucratic work and a pain and a sorrow.'''

I do hope others will join in expanding the list. I think it's still about a third of the length that it should be. Bmcln1 (talk) 08:48, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I added birth and death dates in a uniform and standard way. I corrected grammatical errors and spacing. I removed foreign names because they're not uniform: there are many Russian and Soviet authors on the list and Ukrainians whose foreign names aren't given. This list was a bare blank list with no author info or birth and death dates when I first started working on it. I didn't omit the nationality of any authors. Your comments about "rhyme and reason" and "astrologers" sound alot like a personal attack, and were quite rude imho.  INeverCry   18:46, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I've rolled back your edits because you re-introduced mistakes in spacing and you erased the additions of birth dates and death dates which are a standard feature of the list. All authors on the list should have birth and death dates (and most lists do include them) because it gives a reader of the list an idea of when these writers were active. If you want to have foreign language names for all of these authors they should be added to every foreign author. Again, alot of my edits were corrections of spacing and punctuation, and additions of birth and death dates which there are no reason for rolling back. The vast majority of authors on the list have birth and death dates included in their entries, why would you reverse me when I add more of them? INeverCry   18:58, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Another question I would ask is why do we need names in foreign languages when this is a list on en.wiki, and the foreign language names are already part of the article for each of these writers? What does it clarify and what is the informational value for viewers of an English language list? What other lists include foreign langage names with entries? INeverCry   19:23, 23 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes adding the dates in the lists is very common,but not the names in different scripts.Actually there is totally not needed adding the foreign language script,it will be appropriate to add in the articles.About it should not be problems,I hope.Thanks guys.Justice007 (talk) 19:28, 23 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I have to agree with INeverCry, here. I didn't see his edits as radical and reverting his edits did re-introduce errors. Bmcln1's reasons for reverting were not exactly correct. Looking back at the edit history, INeverCry's edits actually ADDED nationality and REDUCED full dates to just years, not the other way around as Bmcln1 suggests. They did remove the foreign language names. That is something we can discuss, but the other edits were proper and should stay.
 * As far as setting standard listing format, that is fine. I would agree with nearly all of Bmcln1's suggestions except that I don't know that listing some works is necessary. I mean, I wouldn't take it out if it was in there, but I wouldn't generally put it in unless that was the only thing the author was known for. As far as foreign language spellings, I'm not certain on that, yet. But I see Justice007 just answered that before I pressed enter. Thank you. -- JoannaSerah (talk) 19:37, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I'll leave you all to do as you see fit, then. Bmcln1 (talk) 19:45, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your compromise.Justice007 (talk) 20:12, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Scope
Is this supposed to list all women writers from every country that have an article? Because if it is, it will get very long and so maybe it should be split by letter (ex: List of women writers: A).--Cattus talk 15:47, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

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"Sukanya Venkatraghavan" listed at Redirects for discussion
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Abbreviations
Is there a standard that the country abbreviations are following, or was it invented just for this page? If the latter, I think there are a few mistakes: pburka (talk) 22:19, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Ancient Sumeria and Austria/Austria-Hungary are both (A)
 * Saudi Arabia and Somalia are both (Sa), and South Africa is (SA)
 * Salvador and Slovakia are both (Sv) (and Sv is a common abbreviation for Sweden)
 * Salvador (Sv) should be El Salvador
 * Byzantium (By) gets its own code: Why not just use Ancient Greece or Turkey?

Bmcln1 (talk) 23:38, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your help.
 * I haven't found any standard Wikipedia country codes so made them up. I'm reluctant to use more than two letters as the page is getting so big.
 * I haven't found any Swedens marked as Sv, but I'll keep looking.
 * I can't find any Ancient Sumerias, but I'll keep a lookout and I've altered its code.
 * Byzantium was an empire for almost a thousand years before being bonked by the Ottomans in 1453. I think it should stay separate. It's medieval rather than Ancient.
 * The big and small letters are used in codes for different countries, I'm afraid.
 * I've given Somalia a different code but haven't found any yet.
 * I hope I've sorted Salvador (Sl) and Slovakia (Sv). I've moved Salvador to El Salvador as you suggest.


 * If we don't have any ancient Sumerians, then the list must be missing Enheduanna (fl. 23rd C. BC)! pburka (talk) 23:47, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
 * So you put her in? Bmcln1 (talk) 23:56, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
 * She was already there, in fact. I updated her A to AS. pburka (talk) 00:01, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

It would be a lot easier for readers to spell out the full country names rather than rely on abbreviations. This isn't paper (usually), so space is not really a constraint. -- Beland (talk) 01:20, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Absolutely, I'll make that change. For reference there is a standard, ISO 3166.  All the best: Rich Farmbrough 16:17, 30 December 2020 (UTC).


 * What's the ISO 3166 code for Byzantium? :) pburka (talk) 16:47, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Replace living with fl.
For many living authors, we know their birth date, so the list has something like (b. 1999). But for others we're missing that information, and the list simply says (living). This is going to be a challenge to maintain: if we don't know their birth date it's likely that their death might not widely reported, either, and we don't even have a clue in the list as to how old they might be. I propose that we replace any (living) entries with (fl. 19xx–), where 19xx is the date of their first known significant publication. If they're retired, or their last publication is more than a couple of decades ago, we might wish to add a closing date, as well. This is essentially what we would do for historical authors whose birth and death dates are unknown, it provides more relevant and accurate information than (living), and it seems like it will better stand the test of time. I've already done this to the E section, but can revert it if there are objections. Should I start making this change the remainder of the list? pburka (talk) 23:13, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

I quite like the fl. 19xx– idea, but "living" is used on so many other lists. To be frank, I haven't heard of any "living"s who are long dead, but the same could happen with fl. 19xx–s. Could we leave it for now? I'm still working through country lists for additions. Glad you're spotting some of the mistakes. Bmcln1 (talk) 23:56, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

fl should only be used in a historical context. It's unlikely to be appropriate for many 20th century authors. I would suggest following the article on the author - if you happen to have better information, update the article (with references) first. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 16:15, 30 December 2020 (UTC).

Young adult vs. youth vs. YA
Regarding the recent change from "young adult" to "youth": this does make the list more succinct, but it may be less precise. Young adult fiction is a recognized category in publishing, while youth is somewhat ambiguous. What about using the abbreviation "YA" instead? It's widely used in publishing, it's more precise than "youth," and it's even more concise. pburka (talk) 00:09, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Good idea, thank you. I think I'll just do it, it's fairly easy to change back if someone objects.Bmcln1 (talk) 00:14, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Time to split
This article is currently the third largest on enwiki, at just under 520k, and needs to be broken down. I propose splitting it into articles covering A-C (~120k), D-H (~107k), I-M (~115k), N-S (~112k), and T-Z (~62k). pauli133 (talk) 13:42, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I think there's a real question about whether this is a tenable list at all. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:49, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree. I think there's a real case the article will never be complete / ultimately satisfactory. User:Heyoostorm_talk! 21:28, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Splitting is certainly a good idea. It seems worth expanding a lot of the other abbreviations before doing this.  The only ones I would keep are 'b' for born, c. for circa, and fl. for floruit.   All the best: Rich Farmbrough 20:21, 3 January 2021 (UTC).


 * I think splitting is best, if the article is being kept. User:Heyoostorm_talk! 21:28, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I have split the article in two, but the article may still be split further. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:45, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

List of "notable" women writers
Should the word "notable" not be added to the titles of the articles? Obviously, the articles don't contain every woman writer in history, and Wikipedia bases its inclusion of articles off notability, so shouldn't the word be logically added in the titles? Of course, I could be missing something. User:Heyoostorm_talk! 18:25, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * No, firstly because WP defn. of notable is a technical definition.  Secondly it's fairly obvious that there is some kind of filter.  Thirdly, while lists of people generally follow WP notability criteria, they don't always, and not all notable people have articles, at any given time.
 * All the best: Rich Farmbrough 20:56, 9 January 2021 (UTC).