Being a woman oriented site I tend to focus on women authors more than men authors, mostly because I'm a woman and because they have had a hard go of it for the last century in the world of book writing. Writing books, like most things in the 1800s and early 1900s was left to men.

When women first entered the profession of writing and publishing they did so under an alias because it was frowned upon to have women write, let alone be successful at it. It was often thought if a women wrote novels she did so because she was impoverished. Today if a woman chooses to use a pseudonym she does so for privacy or because she writes in a number of genres and doesn't want to confuse her audiences.

While women authors are accepted more for their writing talents than they were a century ago they are still paid less for their words than men. That's just another reason I like to make an extra effort to promote women authors. Despite J. K. Rowlings being paid the obscene amount of $300 million in one year, this is not an industry standard. Not even for men. The highest paid male is James Patterson at $50 million. The next highest paid woman is Danielle Steel at $30 million followed by Janet Evanovich at $17 million. As you might expect a literary fiction author doesn't tend to overflow their bank account.

Here are thirteen of my favorite women writers that this literary fiction site has supported in the past. Please pop over and read their interviews, visit their websites and of course buy their books.

Writer Carson McCullers Buy From Art.com

* Ursula Le Guin

* Teresa de la Caridad Doval

* Tamar Yellin

* Sally Cooper

* Pearl Luke

* Patricial Wood

* Marsha Mehran

* Lisa See

* Kathy Page

* Indu Sundaresan

* Gail Godwin

* Caroline Leavitt

* Albyn Leah Hall

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M. E. Wood lives in Eastern Ontario, Canada. If you are going to find this eclectic reader and writer anywhere it is probably at her computer. For more information visit her official website.