Mayor’s picks

According to Chandra Mayor, the kinds of characters she writes about don’t often make it into print because, “Poor women with kids don’t necessarily have a lot of time to sit around writing books!” But it doesn’t mean they’re completely absent from literature. When asked for a list of favourite books, Mayor mentioned several by female authors, about women who lead outside-the-mainstream lives:

• Bastard Out of Carolina, by Dorothy Allison
• Code White, by Debra Anderson
• Flesh for Fantasy: Producing and Consuming Exotic Dance, edited by R. Danielle Egan, Katherine Frank and Merri Lisa Johnson
• Home of Sudden Service, by Elizabeth Bachinsky
• The Emily Valentine Poems, by Zoe Whittall
• Dangerous Angels, by Francesca Lia Block
• This is a Small Northern Town, by Rosanna Deerchild