I was asked if I would baby sit and I said, "Yes!", but to my astonishment, they brought 19 cats, two of which were female lionesses.

I was intimidated by the lionesses but they seemed peaceful enough and I shut them all in the garage for the time being.

Each cat belonged to a child which I was baby sitting. Here too, they were all girls.

While this was happening, my first boyfriend Roger was in one of the other houses working on a vehicle. He needed to go somewhere for parts and he said to his friends, "Dolores will drive me to 41st and Villard ",which was way on the north side of the city.

I said, "Sorry! I can't go. I'm baby sitting."

I went back towards my house and one of the little girls who looked quite frail said, "I'm hungry."

At first thought, I wondered if the other house had any food in it because I didn't. I hadn't planned to feed all these kids. If you feed one, you have to feed them all.

I told her, "Okay!" and we all went in the house, after making sure all the cats were safely in the garage. 

The little girl busies herself with coloring in a coloring book, and when I was ready to feed her, I went to get her from the coloring book.  She looked up and me and said, "I'm not hungry now."

I grabbed her by the hand and said, "When I say you're hungry , you're hungry1", and I took her to the kitchen to feed her.

I then started writing down the names of these girls, along with their birth dates.  The only date I can recall was 1875.

NOTE: I discovered this dream was about famous women writers by putting in the key words born 1875, women, lioness.  Once I had the first woman and saw she was a writer, then I knew it was about great female writers and changed the keywords to women lioness, writers, and once I had the second lioness reference, I could by then use just famous women writers.  By then, I already had the list someone else had posted.

I think what prompted this dream was my comment to Joe yesterday that I should start writing my fifth book. The time has come for that.

Without ever getting rid of his German accent, King Carol I had such a subtle command of the Romanian language that he would sometimes correct his ministers' papers. By means of its past as well, Romania has got a reason to prepare for European integration.  Queen Elisabeta, also known as Carmen Sylva, was herself a "cultural predecessor" of the European Union, on the basis of the 53 volumes she published in five European languages she spoke fluently.  At the time when Carmen Sylva translated Romanian folk songs and poetry into German, nobody knew this would later be called European unity through culture. European Romanticism reached Romania later than other countries on the continent, after 1829, and became established only in the 1840s.  

Queen Elisabeta, once settled in her foster country, contributed greatly to the Europenization of Romanian culture and to the promotion of European Romanticism in Romania. The succeeding queen of Romania, Queen Maria, born in 1875 as Princess of Great Britain, niece to Queen Victoria, was to achieve even more for Romania and for Europe.  She was called the "Mother of the Balkans", as she gave birth to three of the rulers of the area (Greece, Romania and Yugoslavia), and "Mother of the wounded", as she went to the battlefield and encouraged the Romanian soldiers during the First World War, while facing the plague, the cholera and starvation.  After the war, she went on unofficial visits to France and Great Britain, gaining a lot of sympathy for the Romanian cause.  In Paris, on the eighth of March 1919, she was invited to review the guard of honour at the Elysee Palace, which was an honour no queen had been granted before.  

That same day she was officially received as corresponding member of the Academy of Fine Arts, being the only woman among the men of that institution.  Yet, perhaps the Queen's most spectacular "European" and Romanian "victory" was that she obtained for her country the territories which had been taken away: her 1919 visit to the French Prime-Minister Clemenceau has become legendary.  In an age when women's involvement in politics or society was not valued greatly, Queen Maria dared to ask the French statesman for help in returning Transylvania (up to the river Tisa) and Banat to Romania, at the end of the First World War.  

One often cites a verbal exchange, which, however, no one can confirm: Clemenceau, also known as "the tiger", is presumed to have said to the Queen: "Madame, what you're asking is the lion's share!". To which Queen Maria allegedly replied: "It is what the lioness is asking from the tiger".  Queen Maria is also the author of a great number of writings, published in many widespread European languages.  
 
Romania's European voice in the year 2002 has one more unique chord. King Mihai I, the last head of state still alive who participated in the Second World War, the statesman who negotiated on equal grounds with Mussolini, Hitler, Churchill, Truman, Stalin, Vasinki and many more, who witnessed the Iron Curtain falling over his own people and crushing the hopes of his nation, is the man who is now militating in favor of NATO and the European Union, and hence sees the same curtain rise or melt away. One must observe the constancy and the abnegation with which the King's destiny offers lessons of eternity. Not only those who chased him away with their tanks, but also their offspring have disappeared.  And today, the only dark spots on the horizon of this national perspective are the moments of partial amnesia some historians exhibit when they cannot find the strength to write like a Romanian, that is to write the truth. They should be told that the great kings do not fight for white pages in history books. 

Taken from a page that has been taken off the internet.

Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)

Isabel Allende (Chilean writer of magical realism novels such as House of the Spirits)

Julia Alvarez (Dominican Republic immigrant novelist including How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and Yo!)

Maya Angelou (any of her autobiographies and her poetry, especially I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings)

Margaret Atwood (Canadian writer; I recommend The Handmaid’s Tale or any of her novels, essays, poetry)
 Author Links (1): Atwood
http://www.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/eng104/authors1.htm 

Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice  or any of her novels) 

Anne Bradstreet (18th Century poet, one of the first published women poets in the US)

Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre)

Emily Bronte (1818-1848) - Wuthering Heights (1847) 
Wuthering Heights Study Guide (ENG 103 & ENG 109, Cora Agatucci)
http://www.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/eng103/bronte.htm  

Gwendolyn Brooks (African American poet) 

Taylor Caldwell - novelist

Willa Cather (My Antonia, O, Pioneers! or any of her novels and short stories)
See also Cora's Eng 104 Author Links (1): Cather
http://www.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/eng104/authors1.htm 

Sandra Cisneros (Mexican American poet, and author of House on Mango Street  and Woman Hollering Creek)
See also Cora's Eng 104 Author Links (1): Cisneros
http://www.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/eng104/authors1.htm 

Kate Chopin (The Awakening  and short stories)
See also Cora's Eng 104 Author Links (1): Chopin
http://www.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/eng104/authors1.htm 

Amanda Cross (mystery writer---mysteries tend to take place in a college setting with a woman detective)

Maria Cummings (The Lamplighter– 19th century novel may be out of print)

Tsitsi Dangarembga ~ Nervous Conditions 
See also Cora's  African Authors: Tsitsi Dangarembga & Nervous Conditions:
http://www.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/hum211/dangarembga.htm 

Rebecca Harding Davis (“Life in the Iron Mills” –early story about the effect of 
Industrialization on the human soul)

Emily Dickinson (19th Century poet)

Louise Erdrich (“Love Medicine” and any of her novels; most take place on the 
Chippewa Indian Reservation)
See also Cora's Eng 104 Author Links (1): Erdrich
http://www.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/eng104/authors1.htm
Louise Erdrich, Voices from the Gaps: Women Writers of Color
http://voices.cla.umn.edu/authors/LouiseErdrich.html 

Penelope Fitzgerald

Hannah Foster (18th century writer of “The Coquette” (The Flirt)…similar story to 
“The Scarlet Letter” written 50 years later)

Margaret Fuller (19th Century essayist, feminist, travel writer)

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (“The Yellow Wall paper” and “Herland” –the latter is a 
Feminist utopian novel)

Nadine Gordimer (white South African novelist)

Mary Gordon (her early novels are about the effects of an orthodox Irish-
Catholic background on women (i.e. “Final Payments” and “In the 
Company of Women”) and her later novels are about being a 
Woman and an artist (“Men and Angels” and “Spending”)

Lorraine Hansberry (African American playwright, “A Raisin in the Sun”)

Lillian Hellman (20th C. playwright, “The Children’s Hour” and also wrote memoirs 
such as “Pentimento”—she was a major figure during the McCarthy era; 
also had a long term relationship with noir writer Dashiell Hammet)

Zora Henry - poetry

Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins (“Life Among the Paiute”—Native American writer)

Zora Neale Hurston (“Their Eyes Were Watching God”—Harlem Renaissance 
Writer)

Shirley Jackson (earlier Stephen King-type writer of short stories such as “The 
Lottery”)

Harriet Jacobs (wrote the slave narrative “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”—in 
the style of of 19th Century women’s literature)

Sarah Orne Jewett (Major figure in local color/realistic fiction in the 19th century, 
author of short stories and the novel “In the Country of Pointed
Firs”)

Maxine Hong Kingston (Asian American writer of novels such as “Woman 
Warrior”)

Jamaica Kincaid (b. 1949; Antigua)
Annie John
Jamaica Kincaid, Voices from the Gaps: Women Writers of Color
 http://voices.cla.umn.edu/authors/jamaicakincaid.html 

Nella Larsen (Harlem Renaissance writer of “Passing”---the story of a black 
Woman who ‘passes’ as white—and “Quicksand”)

Ursula LeGuin (Oregonian science fiction writer)

Doris Lessing (author of one of the 1960s/70s feminist novels, “The Golden 
Notebook”)

Katherine Mansfield (British short story writer)

Bobbie Ann Mason (Kentuckian short story writer—“Shiloh” is a favorite. She also
Wrote “In Country”, a novel about a girl growing up with her uncle, a 
Vietnam Vet).

Mary McCarthy (Famous for her “flying diaphragm scene” in “The Group”, also 
For other novels and short stories about the 1940s intellectual, urban 
Woman).

Carson McCullers (“Member of the Wedding” and other short novels that take
place in the southeast)

Edna St. Vincent Millay (20th century poet)

Marianne Moore (20th century poet)

Toni Morrison (Pulitzer Prize & Nobel Prize winning novelist: “The Bluest Eye”; “Beloved” and
“Sula” are my favorites)
Beloved Study Guide, by Jim Hawes and Wendy Weber (WR 316/ENG 339 Term Project, Spring 2002):
http://www.cocc.edu/beloved/ 
The Bluest Eye Project, by Daryl Ivie (WR 316/ENG 390 Term Project, Spring 2002):
http://www.cocc.edu/daryli/TermProject/index.html 

Bharati Mukherjee (East Indian-American writer of short stories on the immigrant 
Experience)

Gloria Naylor (author of “Women of Brewster Place” and “Mama Day”)

Joyce Carol Oates (prolific author of dozens of novels, short stories and essays.
Her novels tend to depict the family or individual in crisis)

Flannery O'Connor (Southern writer of short fiction—usually highly symbolic. The 
main theme of her work is the foolishness of self-deception, and the lack 
of faith she found accompanying this self-deception)

Tillie Olsen (activist, working class writer of short stories like “I Stand Here 
Ironing” and a collection of essays I love called “Silences”)

Grace Paley (writer of short stories such as “A Conversation With My Father”)

Dorothy Parker (1940s writer for New Yorker magazine—poetry like “Men don’t 
Make passes at girls who where glasses”---and fiction. Movie based on 
Her life is excellent: “Dorothy Parker and the Round Table” starring 
Jennifer Jason Leigh)

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (novel about a woman doctor, “Dr Zay”—1882)

Marge Piercy (feminist poet and novelist. “The Women’s Room” depicts the 
changes in the lives of women during the height of the women’s movement in the 70s; “Women on the Edge of Time” is a science fiction novel on a similar theme).

Sylvia Plath (1950s poet and author of “The Bell Jar”, semi autobiographical work 
on being a young writer suffering from depression)

Katherine Anne Porter (author of many short stories and the novel “Ship of Fools”)

Adrienne Rich (feminist poet and essayist, best collections are “Of Women Born”-
About being a mother; and “On Lies, Secrets and Silences”)

Mary Rowlandson (17th century writer of one of the early captivity stories---also 
used as a justification for the annihilation of the northeast Native
Americans)

Susanna Rowson (author of the 1791 novel “Charlotte Temple” about a woman 
tempted by a man)

Mary Anne Sadlier (Irish American writer of novels warning immigrants about the 
dangers of American life, such as “Bessy Conway; or, The Irish Girl in 
America”..1861 novel available online)

Anne Sexton (feminist poet)

Mary Shelley (author of “Frankenstein”)

Bapsi Sidhwa (Pakistani author of "Cracking India")

Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna author of “Ceremony”) 

Harriet Beecher Stowe (author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”)

Amy Tan (author of “The Joy Luck Club” and “The Kitchen God’s Wife”) 

Alice Walker (author of “The Color Purple” and other novels, stories, poems. Her
best collection of essays is “In Search of Her Mother’s Garden”) 

Edith Wharton (author of works depicting the restrictive world of the upper class 
during the turn of the century in such works as “The Age of Innocence” and “House of Mirth”; also wrote “Ethan Frome”)

Phyllis Wheatley (18th century African American poet)

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941, U.K.)
--A Room of One's Own first published in 1929, based on 1928 lectures on "Women and Fiction" )
--Professions for Women  (an essay first published posthumously in 1942).  Rpt. The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: The Tradition in English.  Eds. Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar.  New York: W. W. Norton, 1985.  [Excerpt read is from p. 1385]

Anzia Yezierska (Polish-Jewish immigrant author of “Breadgivers”—a semi 
autobiographical depiction of her life)

Contemporary Women Poets

Simone Muench - Dogwood

Elsa Gidlow - Is She Found?

Catherine Faber - The Word of God

Elinor Wylie - Pretty Words

Christine McAuliffe - Hymn to Albaro

Lola Haskins - Sleep Positions

Linda Sue Park - Handstand

Dorianne Laux - The Shipfitter's Wife

Marilyn Krysl - Summer Solstice

May Sarton - Leaves before the Wind

Jan Struther - The Last Adventure

Maya Angelou - Caged Bird

Stella Padnos - Start/The Stopping

Omololá Ijeoma Ògúnyemí. - Whispers

Alice Walker - Expect Nothing

Jennifer Michael Hecht - September

Susan Berlin - Request Denied

Naoshi Koriyama - A Loaf of Poetry

Lucille Clifton - Wishes for Sons

Jean Nordhaus - Posthumous

Spanish Language
Famous Women Poets

Carilda Oliver Labra - Eve's Discourse

Gabriela Mistral - Decálogo del Artista

Blanca Varela - Professional Résumé

Isabel Fraire - Mi amor descubre objetos - My Love Reveals Objects

OTHER FAMOUS WOMEN