Curated playlist
American feminist writers
- Barack ObamaObama rejected a plan to bomb a compound in Pakistan and sent Navy SEALs instead. The 2011 raid killed Osama bin Laden.
- Salman RushdieA fatwa ordering Salman Rushdie's execution was broadcast on Radio Tehran on Valentine's Day 1989.
- Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin was eleven years old when she mailed her first short story to Astounding Science Fiction. The magazine sent it back. She then submitted nothing else for ten years. Nearly sixty years of publishing lay ahead of her after…
- Rashida JonesRashida Jones was still a teenager in 1994 when she answered one of the best-known rappers in America in print. Tupac Shakur had made scathing remarks in The Source about her parents' interracial marriage. Her open letter in reply drew…
- Diane KeatonDiane Keaton was born Diane Hall, but she gave up that surname before her career took off, because another actress was already registered under it. She chose her mother's maiden name instead. The new name would be credited in films across…
- Gillian AndersonGillian Anderson was arrested on her graduation night. She had broken into her own high school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, hoping to glue the locks of its doors shut. Her classmates had voted her "class clown," "most bizarre girl" and "most…
- Joss WhedonJoss Whedon earned more from a web musical than from directing The Avengers.
- Robert E. HowardRobert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, died at thirty with almost none of his work in a book.
- Audre LordeAudre Lorde answered questions about her feelings by reciting a poem. She was a nearly blind child in Harlem.
- Angela DavisAngela Davis was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, then acquitted by an all-white jury.