Latina/o Literature and
Literature of the Americas at the
University of Northern Colorado

"Southern Women Writers"

Here are a few more responses to the query on Southern women writers, including a summation and reposting of a reading assembled from the first round of postings. I think we all really appreciate it when we hear back from people with a synthesis or followup of responses. RB

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From: IN%"asalas@adrian.adrian.edu"

Subj: RE: SYL: Southern Women Writers (responses)

How about Anne Tyler?

Angela M. Salas

Adrian College

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From: IN%"lieber@storm.simpson.edu"

Subj: RE: SYL: Southern Women Writers (responses)

A writer I've had a lot of success teaching is Ellen Glasgow. Barren Ground is a wonderful, if somewhat sombre, agrarian and, for Glasgow, feminist novel. This semester I taught The Romantic Comedians, which provides a nice view of the mood of the twenties and the contrast of pre-war and postwar generations, and the origins of modernism. *********************

Professor Todd Lieber

Department of English

Simpson College

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From: IN%"Paul.Lauter@mail.trincoll.edu"

Subj: RE: SYL: Southern Women Writers (responses)

It's worth thinking about whether one wants to do any of the ante-bellum, essentially racist novels like THE PLANTER'S NORTHERN BRIDE (of which there's an excerpt in the Heath). I have mixed feelings myself, but there's an argument to be made that it's helpful for students to see what a writer like Harper is writing IN to.

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From: IN%"titus@stolaf.edu"

Subj: southern women writers

I want to thank the many people who sent me helpful suggestions for a Southern Women Writers class. Below is a list compiled from their messages and below that the texts I chose for my course--a four week intensive interim class for first year students. Mary Titus, St. Olaf College

"...of course Welty, O'Connor, Porter..."

Growing up in the South (anthology, Signet)

Signet Classic Book of Southern Short Stories

Weaks and Perry, eds. Southern Women Writers: Colonial to Contemporary Suzie Mee, ed. Downhome: Southern Women Writers

Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina

Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Tina McElroy Ansa, Baby of the Family

Doris Betts, Souls Raised from the Dead

Blanche Boyd, The Revolution of Little Girls

Maureen Brady, Folly

Rita Mae Brown, Rubyfruit Jungle

Olive Burns, Cold Sassy Tree

Alice Childress (playwright, novelist)

Kate Chopin

Ellen Douglas, Can't Quit You Baby

Fannie Flagg, Fried Green Tomatoes...

Kaye Gibbons, Charms for the Easy Life

Shirley Ann Grau

Melissa Faye Greene, Praying for Sheetrock

Doris Grumbach

Frances Ellen Harper (poet, novelist, lecturer)

Josephine Humphreys

Zora Neale Hurston, Dust tracks on the Road

Florence King, Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady

Pinkie Gordon Lane (poet)

Bobbie Ann Mason, Spence and Lila

Shelley Fraser Mickle

Minnie Bruce Pratt (poet, essayist)

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Dori Sanders

Mary Lee Settle

Lee Smith, Fair and Tender Ladies; Me and My Baby View the Eclipse (stories) Elizabeth Spencer, The Voice at the Back Door

Lillian Smith, Killers of the Dream

E.D.E.N. Southworth, The Hidden Hand

Margaret Walker (poet, novelist)

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Southern Women Writers--January term 1997

"Southern women" from the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture film/video: Gone With the Wind; Ethnic Notions

Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Kate Chopin, The Awakening; "Desiree's Baby"

brief selections from Gerda Lerner's Black Women in White America Katherine Anne Porter, The Old Order: Stories of the South Lillian Hellman, 'The Children's Hour"; "The Little Foxes" Carson McCullers, The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and Other Stories essays by Alice Walker, Lillian Smith, Minnie Bruce Pratt

Alice Walker, Meridian

Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina

Suzie Mee, ed. Downhome: An Anthology of Southern Women Writers