From Margaret Atwood to Edwige Danticat, Assia Djebar to Luisa Valenzuela, some of the world's most famous literary voices mediate on what it means to be a woman writer. Despite their increased visibility, women who write are still thought to be different—sometimes celebrated, sometimes viewed with suspicion and condescension. This fresh collection brings together an international host of women who explore, defy, and embrace "the woman writer": an indispensable muse to some, a troublesome burden to others, a defiant, even life-threatening identity to others still. Taking nothing—certainly not the meanings of "woman" or "writer"—as given, these writers explore the varied pleasures and dangers of writing as women in the contemporary world.