Lindiver@aol.com
For her time, Louisa May Alcott. She portrayed women as strong and capable.

hawki75@juno.com
My choice would be Willa Cather. I first read a book of short stories by her that had a prominent place in my mother's bookcase when I was about 12 or 13 years old. Having read and reread this and many of her other books over the decades since then, it's my opinion that she depicted especially the Midwest in much the same masterful way that John Steinbeck depicted the West.

Nono203@aol.com
Maya Angelou. She has made the pain and joy of life come alive in her writing. She has changed my thought about poetry. She has had an affect on an entire generation. She has made me think about others and about my life, and the value of life. She has suffered much in her life yet she celebrates each day. She reminds us of where we have come from, our ancestors suffering, to achieve a level of freedom for our generation. She is an inspiration to me.

ZMEFLYHI@aol.com
Louisa Alcott

ASirkin@aol.com
Mary Wollstonecraft who was one of the first writers to use her own name and was a feminist and opened up that area for discussion.

BOELDESUET@aol.com
Katherine Anne Porter for her flawless short stories and novellas.

SheilaRum@aol.com
Jane Austen; Barbara Kingsolver

Sblokzyl@aol.com
I don't know how much influence Pearl Buck had on the literary scene, but I still remember her books and I read them 30 years ago. I just reread The Good Earth again about a year ago and enjoyed it as much as I did the first time. I emailed Oprah about Pearl Buck's books, hoping she would reintroduce her writings to today's reader. I guess there are just so many good books out there it is hard to choose.

NancyKWilson@aol.com
I have to side with Virginia Woolf. At times she seems to stretch, but I can overlook that. If one has the talent for words, why not play? I feel that she demonstrated there is a place for women in writing, especially those who strive to write with sophisticated abandon. She remains an intellectual woman of words and buoys confidence in women writers who do not want to fall prey to the trendy or the trite. It is a struggle to be a writer of substance, to engage a reader in a cerebral exercise that entertains while at the same time confirms any of the deepest of human sensitivities. This is the ultimate discipline for any writer. I consider Woolf a fine example for women writers who do not want to settle for less than maximum literary achievement.

rnameroff@earthlink.net
Three women poets have substantially influenced American literature: Emily Dickinson, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. Dickinson's mysterious yet highly charged emotional shorthand was just as important as Walt Whitman's generous and inclusive catalogues . They set the basic paths of American poetry, and addressed questions of how does the self belong to the world, using American rather than British speech cadences. Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath changed American poetry by using personal and domestic experience in their poems. The critics labeled them "confessional," but this reduces what they did. Decades later feminists would say "the personal is the political." Sexton and Plath (along with Allen Ginsberg and James Wright) helped begin this understanding of our lives.

VABryden@aol.com
Bronte sisters...

Dwarfie4@aol.com
Harriet Beecher Stowe

JEarh13191@aol.com
Kate Chopin

BLM221@aol.com
Virginia Woolfe, Emily Dickinson, Anne McCaffrey for fantasy and science fiction.

Briarred@aol.com
Judy Blume. She has a very easy going way of telling a story. Just tales about people who could even be someone you know or even yourself. I think in that respect her influence is that she shows the great art of storytelling. How people, some with interesting personalities, make it through life. In either her children's, young adult or adult books she has the same basic approach of captivating you with her characters. She just gives you a chance to sit back and enjoy.

JUSPPAW@aol.com
Pearl S. Buck

Jao41@aol.com
My pick would have to be Kate Chopin for writing The Awakening.

Gaildona@aol.com
Marge Piercy may be my all-time favorite but there are so many others, too...Marian Zimmer Bradley, Mary Gordan, Marilyn French. And the list goes on.

Bengtabks@aol.com
I was working in NYC as a radio programing assistant in 1970 when SEXUAL POLITICS by Kate Millett came out. In the sixties, all of the men that I met were always giving me explicit novels such as Mailer's The American Dream or Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, and I was expected to read them and think they were great and cool. Kate Millett discussed SEXUAL POLITICS on the show and it blew my mind to see someone finally say these were just a male fantasy. It was a brilliant book, and even though it is dated in parts, the literary section is still very relevant and I wish someone would reissue it. Last year was the 30th Anniversary! It is a book that should be studied and analyzed and the discussion furthered.

Kaybeth2000@aol.com
Pearl S. Buck. She exemplified women's style of writing, taught the world about China's culture, and wrote a tale where a repressed woman had quite an influence.

KJ4FM@aol.com
Agatha Christie

Fgiitter@aol.com
Agatha Christie significantly influenced the mystery genre forever after.

AMYASL100@aol.com
Mary Higgins Clark

BSch195680@aol.com
Jane Austen, because she is timeless in her appeal --- her impact is profound.

Indigo6126@aol.com
I believe Kate Chopin, author of the Awakening and other stories, played a significant role in women's literature. Her work is timeless and affords true insight into the deepest significance of being a woman who lives in a world run by the rules of culture, class and men. Even though the Awakening was written over a hundred years ago, and women today have much more freedom then ever before, there are still unwritten rules that bind women to the structures of a male dominated world.

KLASSLESS@aol.com
I think Virginia Woolf had a tremendous influence beginning with writers of her generation and continuing through today. She was honest and constrained only by society. It is heartbreaking to consider all she endured in her life.

dbelk105@adelphia.net
My answer would have to be Pearl Buck, one of the first really significant women authors.

MOMACALADA@aol.com
Erica Jong's first book was really influential in it's day. Fear of Flying was the first book to really open up women as human beings instead of "politically correct" robots. Also Marilyn French.

LA999@aol.com
Female who made significant influence --- Isabelle Allende.

RAVEN0555@aol.com
Mary Shelly, second only to Poe, for the creation of science fiction...

Kasey5a@aol.com
The female author that I think had a significant influence on literature is Flannery O'Connor? Her prose is fantastic. Her stories evoke emotion, memory and dreams of writing such incredible stories myself. She was one of the best and she changed the art form of the short story.

DancerRUs@aol.com
Nora Roberts has had a large influence on literature. Why? She has connected with readers by bringing them well-written books, with both suspense and romance. What else could we ask for? She has made popular the genre of romance and given it new characteristics. It is very rare for a Silhouette novel to make it to the New York Times Bestsellers list, yet Nora does it! This makes her great in my mind and a large influence, too!

BookmRita@aol.com
Jane Austen.

Kaesar1@aol.com
I think that Edith Wharton has influenced writers in the past centuries. Her exposures of moral behavior on different groups was very revealing, especially about how single women were treated...and the snobberies of class distinctions.

BLhasdogs@aol.com
Margaret Mitchell. Although she only wrote one book she was a part of the transition of the book to movie.

BISAIAS@aol.com
I think Maya Angelou

Cairo1953@aol.com
To name a few...Margaret Mitchell, Charlotte Bronte, & Jane Austen.

KVogelbaug@aol.com
Ayn Rand. She not only told wonderful stories, but her philosphy on the way society should function came through loud and clear.