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Ten (youngish, white) women writers Flavorwire loves

Responding to the recent contretemps between Jezebel.com and The Daily Show, in which the former accused the latter of slighting its female correspondents, resulting in a blistering open letter from TDS‘s female staff members, the website Flavorwire has elected to post a list of 10 women writers they love. The 10 are:

Sloane Crosley
Aimee Bender
Kendra Wilkinson
Miranda July
Barbara Kingsolver
Heidi W. Durrow
Sarah Vowell
Jean Kwok
Erica Jong
Beverly Cleary

While the impulse is admirable, the list itself is, shall we say, narrow in its parameters. True, Flavorwire’s rubric stipulates that they “kept things simple, sticking to living authors only (sorry Louisa May Alcott)” and that the list is not meant as “a definitive list of the ‘best’ women writers.” However, a quick perusal shows that of the 10 women featured, only three – Kingsolver, Jong, and Cleary – were born before 1968 and only one – Jean Kwok – is not of Caucasian extraction.

Even a list restricted to women writers who have not yet shuffled off this mortal coil could do better in terms of breadth and diversity. Off the top of Quillblog’s head:

Toni Morrison
Mary Gaitskill
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Amy Tan
Alice Munro
Natsuo Kirino
Mavis Gallant
Joyce Carol Oates
Lionel Shriver
Zadie Smith
Yoko Ogawa
Margaret Atwood
Maya Angelou
Marie-Claire Blais
ZZ Packer

Now that’s a list that Quillblog can get behind.