There are not a lot of books about women in space! Roughly 100 women have been there (out of roughly 700 total—roughly because there is disagreement on where “space” begins). Now compare that to the roughly 8 billion of us alive today. And yet, astronauts loom large in our collective imagination.
To the Moon and Back, my debut novel, is about the singular dream of Steph Harper: to become the first Cherokee astronaut, no matter what. But over my own more than decade writing this novel—while reading all the space books I could find—stories of people on earth loom large.
Steph’s story isn’t hers alone. It’s about the complex women she might leave behind—a celebrity activist younger sister, an ex-Mormon college girlfriend, and a devoted mother harboring a painful secret. To the Moon and Back is, at its heart, the story of one astronaut’s love for life on earth.
To love and understand space, I no longer think of it as a question of just women in space – but also women and space. How, in literature and in life, does space touch us? What does that touch teach us about ourselves and our world?
I read books about girls and women who are scientists and stargazers. Who lay awake worried about extraterrestrial life, or about the future of life on our own planet. I wondered, how does space challenge our understanding of time and…well…space? What does it say about our responsibility to this planet, and to one another?
In compiling this list, I hope to share not just books about women astronauts, but books about what space might mean to women on earth.
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