WOMEN IN LITERATURE
      Kristen's Guide to On-Line Resources

      Finding your way through the multitude of of Internet resources is a complicated task regardless of your point of interest. Literary resources--on-line texts, criticism, essays, bibliographies, biographies, anthologies, etc.--are among the most numerous, growing as large or even larger than any print library. I've compiled here a list of useful and interesting sites on Women's Literature, ranging from specific women's groups and time periods to more general search engines and book review pages. I hope this page can help readers in narrowing down some of the many sources that are out there.

      Getting Started

      I think it's best to start one's search with some motivation. To fully understand the importance of reading women's literature, of truly focusing on the stories of women's experiences, one must seek out the best examples. Take a minute to read this poem by Maya Angelou, entitled Phenomenal Woman. The "fair sex" never seemed so fair...

      For those interested in women's literature on a general level, or for those just wanting to browse around literary resources, I suggest checking out Yahoo's literary category and site list, Yahoo's women in literature listings (as you can see, I'm partial to Yahoo) and the Voice of the Shuttle page. These are good places to do basic and advanced searching in any literature category. Yahoo also offers options to custom-fit your search techniques.

      If you have a more specific piece or author in mind, the many meta-search engines--such as Dogpile and Mamma--offer a quick way to narrow down the myriad of resources you'll find on this and other topics. These sites will browse all the other search engines to find web pages related to your topic.

      From the Stanford Library: Beginning Research on Women Writers, a catalog and resource list for the general researcher.

      I must extend my thanks to FEMINA, a search engine devoted to finding "female-friendly sites on the web." It was very helpful in finding many of these sites.

      Find women's resources by Category:

      • General Sites
      • Time Periods and Movements
      • Ethnic Groups and Countries
      • Recent Works, Book Reviews, and On-line Magazines
      • Miscellaneous
      • Virginia Woolf

      General Sites


      Sylvia Plath

      In addition to basic Internet search engines such as Yahoo, there are a number of sites that that allow access to resources on many popular women writers. (A lot of these sites come from universities.)

      The Women's Resource Project at UNC has a brief site with a selection of popular women authors. A short biography of the author links to selected works. There isn't much material here, but this is a good place to start if you're looking for short snippets of information. There are some audio presentations by the authors that you can listen to (including one by Maya Angelou), which are a nice touch. Readers can also add to the site's list.

      A Celebration of Women Writers allows access to many links in conjunction with The On-Line Books Page. In this very useful site you can browse by author, time period, or country. They offer information on new titles and author and allow readers to get involved. They are in the process of putting many books (including rare titles) on-line.

      Roger Blackwell Bailey, Ph.D has put together an index of American Women writers that is longer than, for example, the Women's Resource Project above, but it also only offers a list of the author's major works. This site is not very well-suited for comprehensive research, but it is a nice place to browse if you're not quite sure what you're looking for. (The site is still under construction).

      Sunshine for Women has a comprehensive bibliographic site of women writers from before the 12th century to the present. It includes lists of the major works of famous authors as well as selected anthologies.

      Women of Word: A Salute to Women Writers is a site created by Worldbook Encyclopedia that contains information about a variety of popular and incredibly talented women authors from various time periods. Included are novelists, short story authors, dramatists, poets, biographers and essayists, and writers of children's literature, as well as links to related web sites.

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      Time Periods and Movements


      Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

      Middle Ages

      For a great site on women in the Middle Ages, check out the      Women Writers of the Middle Ages site. This is a very comprehensive listing of both secular and religious women in this time period. It contains hypertexts, essays, and bibliographies.

      Medieval

      Interesting (and ultra-specific) articles can be found on ORB: The Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies, including Medieval German Women Writers and a guide to other online women's studies resources for this time period.

      Search the Medieval Feminist Index for journals, essays, and other related information.

      Romantic Period

      Women of the Romantic Period is another interactive site that uses hypertext as a tool for research. Here, the site aims to use a poem by Richard Polwhele to introduce students and readers to famous women authors of this period.

      Victorian Age

      The Victorian Women Writers Project is an large site that offers a collection of on-line texts for viewing and downloading. Many of the texts include illustrations. The hypertexts allow one to research particular passages of interest in a document.

      Brown University, home of hypertext theorist George P. Landow, is developing a project on Victorian Literature by Women (this link leads you to the project's overview). This site does not focus mainly on individual authors, but on the theory behind the women writers in this time period, as well as various other gender issues. The theory and literary criticism here are very good for research.

      Domestic Goddesses highlights the work of 19th Century women writers, inluding Louisa May Alcott, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Willa Cather, and Edith Wharton.

      Pre-1830's

      The Brown University Women Writer's Project provides a large database of women's literature dating before the 1830's. It allows the reader to browse excerpts of on-line texts, order hard-to-find texts, and request help in their own searches from the page's creators.

      Check out this lengthy Bibliography of works written by women and anonymous writers from 1770-1830.

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      Ethnic Groups and Countries


      Zora Neale Hurston

      The instructional site Voices From the Gaps focuses on African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic, and Native-American women writers. One of the goals of this site is to assist in research. This compilation allows access to information about many works by searching for the particular author's name, ethnicity, or place of birth. They also offer a discussion room for assistance and comments, as well as links to other sites of interest.

      The Orlando Project is a project using technology and literature to develop an "integrated history of women's writing in the British Isles." This site provides informations on a number of authors from this area.

      Literature Internet Resources has an extensive selection of links to various sites covering multicultural women's literature.

      African American Women Writers of the 21st Century contains a search engine that includes fiction, poetry, bibliographies, and essays searchable by author or subject. This site is sponsored by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library.

      Women in Canadian Literature is compiled by the National Library of Canada and contains both French and English editions.

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      Recent Works, Book Reviews, and On-Line Magazines

      The Women's Press, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, presents a large catalogue of women's works. It includes extracts from the books and many book reviews. Their literary subcategories include fiction, non-fiction, crime fiction, lesbian writing, and reissues.

      For comprehensive reviews, Women's Books On-Line--A Cooperative Book Review reviewed 55 new women's books this quarter. This site also offers access to all their past book reviews. Unique to this site is a link to women's book stores, showcasing outfits that deal only in women's and/or feminist literature. One particularly nice directory is The Feminist Bookstore Index.

      InterMountain WOMAN is an on-line magazine that showcases women writers and deals with women's issues in poetry, fiction, and essays. This site is very attractive and well put-together. The editors are attempting to go beyond the usual subject matter of standard women's magazines--sex, makeup, etc. They allow the reader access to both the print and on-line versions of their articles.

      Women Writers is magazine featuring original fiction, poetry, scholarship, book reviews, author interviews, links, and more.

      Kalliope is an on-line journal of women's lit and art based in Florida. It includes poetry, sound clips, and information on related events.

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      Miscellaneous

      WNBA--The Women's National Book Association (not the basketball players!) is an organization that supports not only female authors, but also publishers, librarians, and other women involved with literature. This site directs to chapters across the country.

      The Write Page, a site that links to many reading and writing genres, and which recently won an internet award, has a great site dedicated to Romance Novels and Women's Fiction. It includes a large list of both new and old authors, and links to other pages of interest.

      Dottie Dank's Diatribe is as on-line quarterly journal of women's literature. This very attractive site includes short stories, poetry, and essays, by both comtemporary and traditional authors. She has set up a forum to discuss literature issues and to raise questions.

      The Wise Women's Web Home Page is a magazine on women's literature and visual arts, and focuses on integral issues for women of all ages. This is a nice-looking site that has links to writing resources and programs in addition to literature.

      MysteryLadies is a site devoted to female mystery writers. The author of this page is compiling a list according to reader suggestions. She includes mystery writers from different ethnic and age groups.

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      Virginia Woolf


      She's one of my favorite authors, and there are a ton of sites dedicated ot her, too many to list in detail here.
      Here are just a few good ones:

      The Virginia Woolf Webring is the most comprehensive list of them all.
      Jacqueline's Virginia Woolf Links
      Virginia Woolf on Women and Fiction, on "distance learning" and technology in the field of literature.

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      Last updated Aug. 13, 2002. >