Audre Lorde is one of the great essayists of the twentieth century. She writes with clarity and passion in these essays about sexism, racism, and power as well as about the transformative powers of sexuality.

Adrienne Rich is another great essayist of the twentieth century. In this collection, Rich writes about writers from the past including Jane Eyre and Anne Sexton as well as contemporary reflections on women's lives.

Minnie Bruce Pratt is best known as an award winning poet, but her collection of essays should not be overlooked. Rebellion is the sharp analysis of a feminist who grew up in the south and rebelled against the patriarchy and racism she learned while still loving the people around her.

In this gorgeous collection, Segrest writes southern wisdom with new insight and resistance. Like Pratt, Segrest writes from the space of rebellion against patriarchy and racism and asserts her lesbian identity in important ways.

Writing from Minneapolis, Borich crafts beautiful essays of domesticity and change about her lesbian relationship.

Another southerner, Allison's essays are as well-written and painfully insightful as her novels. Skin shouldn't be overlooked as an important collection of lesbian essays.

We owe much to Joan Nestle who has been working for lesbian rights, freedom, and liberation for decades. This essay collection, originally published in the late 1980s is now available to a new generation of readers and is just as compelling as it was when the essays first appeared.

The forty-three Septembers of the title of this book are the number of years Jewelle Gomez had lived when she wrote this book. These intimate, personal writings from Gomez are beautiful and provocative.

Lorde is the only writer represented twice in this list; a necessary condition because her essays are so powerful and continue to be more than a decade after her death. This collection of essays and speeches is as powerful as the first.

This collection by Sarah Schulman is a gathering of her writings during the Reagan years and the AIDS crisis. Now it may be more of a text of history, but these pieces are crucial to understanding identity formation and the creation of ACT UP and other radical activism from New York in the years leading up to the collection.