by Lisa Yaszek
First published 2016
Lisa Yaszek presents the forgotten women who built science fiction during its pulp magazine era. This collection gathers stories, poems, essays, and artwork from female creators who worked alongside their male counterparts in the early twentieth century. Yaszek showcases established figures like author C. L. Moore and artist Margaret Brundage, while recovering lesser-known contributors including poet Julia Boynton Green, science journalist L. Taylor Hansen, and editor Mary Gnaedinger. The anthology includes critical commentary that connects these women's creative output to broader patterns of female literary work in turn-of-the-century America. Author biographies reveal how these writers and artists participated in the pulp magazine community that gave birth to modern science fiction. Kathleen Ann Goonan contributes a closing essay that links this early female participation to women's roles in science and engineering, then traces connections to today's science fiction landscape. Readers discover how women helped invent the genre through diverse forms of expression.
Genres: literary-criticism, 20th-century, gender-studies, feminism, biography-memoir, 21st-century, academic, history-of-science
Vibes: thought-provoking
Tropes: forgotten-history, recovered-voices
Period: Early 20th Century, Turn of the Century
432 pages · Paperback · Wesleyan University Press