Twelve Female Hero Authors Who Influenced Me to be an Author

In honor of Women’s History Month, I decided to share twelve female authors who changed my life forever and who influenced me to try my hand at writing. Some are not widely popular so you might want to try them out.

1.   Charlotte Bronté – English – Her plotting and characters - Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester – are immortal. 

2.   Louisa May Alcott – American – I loved how she created a family of Little Women that reminded me of my sisters. 

3.   Jane Austen – English – Another author who knew how to build immortal characters. Two words:  Mr. Darcy. Two more words:  hubba hubba.

4.   Emily Dickinson – American - What a poet! Her innovation was pooh-poohed at first, but now we owe her for breaking all those punctuation barriers.

5.   Beverly Cleary – American – She created a little girl in Ramona that reminded me of me when I was a little girl.  I wish I had met Ms. Cleary’s books sooner instead of when I was in my 30’s.

6.   Judy Blume – American - Her female characters said all the outrageous things I thought. (Another author I didn’t discover until I was in my 30’s.)

7.   Laura Esquivel – Mexican - When Like Water for Chocolate came out in 1989, I turned green with envy.  Her book and the movie that followed broke all kinds of records. 

8.   Julia Alvarez – Dominican-American – Her book How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents was innovative and fun to read. 

9.   Isabel Allende – Chilean-American – Her books are a strong voice for feminism and social justice, not just fluff.

10.Cynthia Rylant – American – She tells stories in her simple poetry for children and teens.

11.Pat Mora – Mexican American – Writes many lovely stories and poems for children and adults. 

   

12.Judith Ortiz Cofer – Puerto Rican – Writes strong poetry and short stories.