The Gate to Womens Country (Cover image via Tor Books)
11. Sheri S. Tepper
Unlike other writers, Sheri S. Tepper began publishing her work fairly late in life. Her first novel came out when she was 54, in fact, though she had sporadically written poetry and children’s stories earlier. Before that, she had a life that included being a single mother of two and more than 20 years working for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains (where she eventually became its executive director). It was only in retirement that she began her career as a novelist.
But previous life experience isn’t wasted or useless when someone switches careers. It certainly wasn’t for Tepper, who channeled her feminist ideals and strong environmental advocacy into her work.
Over her lifetime, Tepper published nearly 40 sci-fi and fantasy books, along with numerous short stories, poems, and other works. She might be best known for The Gate to Women’s Country, a standalone novel published in 1988. At the very least, it may be her most notorious, depending on who you ask. It focuses on a society of women who live in enclaves and interact with ultra-patriarchal groups of men living beyond their city walls. It’s later revealed that the women are enacting a kind of eugenics program. Sending warlike men to fight with other groups of men does tend to thin the numbers.
Few would have called Tepper’s work subtle, exactly. Take 1989’s Grass, the first book in a trilogy that sometimes feels like it’s hitting you over the head with an ecological message. But for all the obviousness that pops up in her work, the energy and conviction of Tepper’s writing is something to behold.