An incomplete, ever-changing list of what Brenda Bowen is looking for.

Right now, I’m eager to read adult historical fiction, specifically:

Women-centered stories, especially those that show the female perspective of world events typically associated with men.

• Stories set in18th century-America. I’d love to see a book from the point of view of an indigenous woman at that time.

• LGBTQ historical, and historical fiction from the POV of the marginialized.

• Historical stories told in verse, such as The Age of Phillis, by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers.

• Historical figures reimagined, as in Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell

• Anything involving women, midwifery, birth control, and abortion access in a different place and time.

With apologies to pic book writers, I’m no longer accepting picture book text submissions.

If my taste in literature were a poem, this would be it:

And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough. When I say what things are like
Everyone’s heart must be torn to shreds.
That you’ll go down if you don’t stand up for yourself
Surely you see that.

— Bertolt Brecht