Fall 2022: A Note from Hope Katz Gibbs, publisher, Inkandescent Women magazine — In this issue, we are celebrating the significant trend reversal where the book publishing industry is no longer run from the very top by a small group of men. This fact isn’t lost on journalists such as The Guardian’s Johanna Thomas-Corr and Irish Times reporter Finn McRedmond, who believes the reason for the shift is that women make up about 80% of those novel buyers.

“It follows, then, that it is perhaps likely that women like buying books written by women,” Finn muses, noting the increasing democratization of the publishing industry has also got something to do with it. “Publishing is no longer run from the very top by a small group of men. It is abundantly obvious (and stop me if you’ve heard this one before) that an industry dominated solely by men is more likely to favor the work of men, seeing them preferred over their female counterparts. But that women writers are enjoying such sustained prominence in the fiction market at the same time that more women are entering the publishing industry is further proof of this.” Click here to read more from Finn.

So we dedicate this issue of Inkandescent Women to the female authors I’ve had the privilege of writing about for Costco’s magazine, The Connection.

• Click here to read the most recent interview I did with bestselling authors Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan about their latest novel, “Mad Honey,” featured in the October 2022 issue of The Connection.
• Be sure to read the sidebar articles in this issue, where you will meet additional award-winning women authors whose books are as remarkable as they are.
• And click here to learn more about writer and artist Stephanie Ponder, who in 1996, hired me to become a freelance writer for Costco’s Connection. It has been an honor and privilege!
• Those articles can be found here.

Here’s to the next book you read — may it be filled with ideas that transport you and birth fabulous new ideas. — Hope