6. Alice Walker
Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker has been living in California since the 1970s. As a social activist, poet, short story writer, and influential novelist, Walker has a long list of best-selling novels and is one of the most important women in the history of American literature. Walker is also the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her book The Color Purple.
Besides creating literature that touches lives on the daily, Walker has also been a participant in most of the major movements in social and planetary change such as the Human and Civil Rights Movement, the Hands Off Cuba Movement, the Women’s Movement, and the Native American and Indigenous Rights Movement.
7. Amy Tan
Amy Tan is another awesome female author from California, whose novels and stories introduced the struggles of Chinese Americans to the mainstream. A native of Oakland, Tan turned to fiction writing in her 30s, and it only went uphill from there.
This famous woman’s honest and engaging storytelling opened a window into the Chinese American experience, particularly the dynamics between mothers and daughters. Over the past five decades, Tan’s writings have been translated into 35 languages and adapted for both the stage and the screen. Amy Tan resides in Sausalito today, and while she hasn’t published anything in almost a decade, her influence as one of the most important female historical figures in modern literature remains unchallenged.