Although the novel Frankenstein, written in 1818 by Mary Shelley, has been called the first science fiction novel, there is a persistent but false belief that women did not enter the field of science fiction writing until the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, authors like Leigh Brackett, Katherine MacLean and Idris Seabright had been writing science fiction almost from the genre's birth in 1926. Some, like Andre Norton or C. L. Moore were amongst the most popular writers in the field, using masculine pseudonyms or initials to disguise their female identity. Judith Merril was another key female figure central to the American science fiction scene throughout the 1950s and 60s, a writer and editor whose catalytic Year's Best anthology series of science fiction stories ran from 1956 to 1967. Pamela Sargent edited two of the first anthologies of women sf writers: Women of Wonder (1974) and More Women of Wonder (1976). The 1960s in science fiction mirrored society as a whole. Thanks to the New Wave, championed by Judith Merril, old taboos were broken and a new generation of female writers entered the field. In the late 1960s and 1970s writers such as Joanna Russ, Ursula K. Le Guin and Marion Zimmer Bradley began turning their attention toward gender issues and writing explicitly feminist science fiction. New writers such as James Tiptree Jr., Suzy McKee Charnas, and Sheri S. Tepper entered the field in the 1970s and 1980s, also addressing feminism directly in their work. A plethora of female writers entered the field in the 1980s and 1990s, and in the early 21st century, publications by female and male writers appear to be numerically on a par.
List of women science fiction authors
Women authors in the science fiction field include:
