Notable Nonfiction Written by Women

BY MARTIN KICH

Writing for New York magazine, Ann Friedman has provided the following list of “The Queens of Nonfiction: 56 Female Journalists Everyone Should Read.” The list is organized chronologically by the illustrative selections from the authors’ work and includes links to those selections which seem to have been chosen at least partly because they are available online.

Jan Morris, The World of Venice, 1960.

Martha Gellhorn, “The Arabs of Palestine,” The Atlantic Monthly, 1961.

Rachel Carson, “Silent Spring,” The New Yorker, 1962.

Gloria Steinem, “A Bunny’s Tale,” Show Magazine, 1963.

Lillian Ross, “Dancers in May,” The New Yorker, 1964.

Elaine Dundy, “Can a Simple Welsh Lass of Thirty-Six Find Happiness?”Esquire, 1965.

Joan Didion, “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream,” The Saturday Evening Post, 1966.

Renata Adler, “Letter From the Palmer House,” The New Yorker, 1967

Mary McCarthy, “Hanoi—1968.” The New York Review of Books, 1968.

Ellen Willis, “Up From Radicalism,” US Magazine, 1969

Nora Ephron, “Helen Gurley Brown Only Wants to Help,” Esquire, 1970.

Lucy Eisenberg, “The Politics of Cancer,” Harper’s, 1971.

Gail Sheehy, “Inside Grey Gardens,” New York, 1972.

Frances FitzGerald, “Can the War End?” The New York Review of Books, 1973.

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, 1974.

Sara Davidson, “The Man With Ten Wives,” Rolling Stone, 1975

Loretta Schwartz, “The Forgotten Children,” Philadelphia, 1976.

Elizabeth Vorenberg, “The Biggest Pimp of All,” The Atlantic Monthly, 1977.

Mimi Sheraton, “A Gastronomic Miracle in the Midwest,” Esquire, 1978.

Moira Johnston, “Hell on Wheels,” New West, 1979.

Flora Johnson, “The Intelligence Question,” The Chicago Reader, 1980.

Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, “What Do Women Want? Feminism and Its Future,” Harper’s, 1981.

Shana Alexander, “The Patriot Game,” New York, 1982.

Debby Miller, “The Secret Life of Prince,” Rolling Stone, 1983.

Lynn Hirschberg, “The Fifty-Two Days of Alfre Woodard,” Esquire, 1984.

Alice Steinbach, “A Boy of Unusual Vision,” Baltimore Sun, 1985.

Edna Buchanan, “Miami, It’s Murder,” Miami Herald, 1986.

Sara Suleri, Meatless Days, 1987.

Svetlana Alexiyevich, War’s Unwomanly Face, 1988.

Katie McCabe, “Like Something the Lord Made,” Washingtonian, 1989.

Connie Bruck, “The Deal of the Year.” The New Yorker, 1990.

Gayle Pemberton, “Do He Have Your Number, Mr. Jeffrey?” The Threepenny Review, 1991.

Jane Kramer, “Whose Art Is It?” The New Yorker, 1992.

Lucy Grealy, “Mirrorings,” Harper’s, 1993

Susan Orlean, “Figures in a Mall,” The New Yorker, 1994.

Mimi Swartz, “Not What the Doctor Ordered,” Texas Monthly, 1995.

Lisa Pollak, “The Umpire’s Sons,” Baltimore Sun, 1996.

Hanna Rosin, “The Madness of Speaker Newt,” The New Republic, 1997.

Jennifer Egan, “Uniforms in the Closet,” The New York Times Magazine, 1998.

Jennifer Gonnerman, “The Supermax Solution,” The Village Voice, 1999.

Pamela Colloff, “The Sins of the Father,” Texas Monthly, 2000.

Penny Wolfson, “Moonrise,” The Atlantic Monthly, 2001.

Elizabeth Gilbert, “Lucky Jim,” GQ, 2002.

Katherine Boo, “The Marriage Cure,” The New Yorker, 2003.

Samantha Power, “Dying in Darfur,” The New Yorker, 2004

Marjorie Williams, “A Matter of Life and Death,” Vanity Fair, 2005.

Wendy Brenner, “Life and Death in the Cape Fear Serpentarium,” The Oxford American, 2006.

Rebecca Solnit, “Detroit Arcadia,” Harper’s, 2007.

Vanessa Grigoriadis, “The Autumn of the I-Banker,” New York, 2008.

Sheri Fink, “The Deadly Choices at Memorial,” The New York Times Magazine, 2009

Charlayne Hunter-Gault, “The Third Man,” The New Yorker, 2010.

Alma Guillermoprieto, “In the New Gangland of El Salvador,” The New York Review of Books, 2011.

Mac McClelland, “I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave,” Mother Jones, 2012.

Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, “If He Hollers Let Him Go,” The Believer, 2013.

Rachel Monroe, “Fire Behavior,” The Oxford American, 2014.

Taffy Brodesser-Akner, “Searching for Sugar Daddy,” GQ, 2015.

Danyel Smith, “When Whitney Hit the High Note,” ESPN the Magazine, 2016

Ann Friedman’s complete article is available at: http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/04/queens-of-nonfiction-56-women-writers-everyone-should-read.html.

I like to think of myself as a literary generalist, rather than a specialist: that is, I like to believe that I have read the work of a fairly wide range of authors, especially contemporary authors. But I have read the work of only about twenty of the authors on Friedman’s list, and that admission, sadly, provides further support, albeit personal and anecdotal support, that these writers have not received the attention that they deserve–that there is still a bias in favor of male writers in terms of recognition.

And addressing that imbalance is the reason that Vela Magazine exists. It is devoted to nonfiction written by women, and its website [http://velamag.com/] includes two lengthier lists that complement Friedman’s: