In the spirit of Women’s History Month, we’re taking a closer look at female artists who’ve left their mark on the art world. From painters to sculptors to performance artists (and everything in between), we’re celebrating the women who’ve pushed the artistic boundaries of their time to forge their own paths. Without their contributions, the world that contemporary female artists find themselves in would surely be a different place.

To honor women artists everywhere, we’re spotlighting a handful of artistically daring women who’ve marked the way for everyone who’ve bravely come after them. Here are six of our favorite trailblazers.

Frida Kahlo

This beloved Mexican painter is best remembered for her somber and often haunting self-portraits. But it was really her rebellious, self-expressive spirit that made her such a revolutionary. Raw, honest and unashamed, Kahlo came to be an icon of a new kind of femininity—one of strength and sexual nonconformity. She was continually blurring the gender lines, living in a state of ambiguity that was incredibly unconventional for women of her time. The extraordinary body of work she left behind continues pushing the feminist movement forward today.

Annie Leibovitz

Leibovitz’s name may be synonymous with celebrity portraits and glossy magazine covers, but her work is so much more expansive—more transcendent—than that. The American photographer invited us into her personal life with the publication of “A Photographer’s Life: 1990-2005,” in which she shares beautiful, candid shots from this deeply emotional period of her life. The book spans everything from the birth of her children to the illness and death of her longtime partner, writer Susan Sontag; with Demi Moore’s famous pregnant nude photo shoot and the ruins of Ground Zero sandwiched in between. Leibovitz captures it all on camera; the grittiness and beauty of life, the quiet intimacies of grief, and what it means to be human.

Marina Abramović

Abramović is a prolific performance artist who has been elevating the medium for decades. Her signature style revolutionized the art form by breaking down the wall between observer and artist (essentially turning herself into the medium). For instance, shortly after 9/11, she spent 12 consecutive days exposed to the public in a New York City gallery, where she fasted, bathed, used the bathroom, and slept in full view of her audience—all as “a gift to the city about living in the moment in difficult times and in peace,” reported The New York Times. Opening up the channels of vulnerability, Abramović exposes herself as a means of connecting with viewers. In many of her works, she has invited the audience to directly participate in the experience. The Yugoslavian-born artist is still expressing today, continuing to redefine performance art as she evolves.

Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois is best known for her surreal and often confrontational sculptures, although she was reluctant to call herself a surrealist. (She actually preferred the term “existentialist.”) Many of her pieces played on sexuality and the physical form, as well as the breaking apart of traditional familial roles. Visceral and thought-provoking, Bourgeois’s work includes the famous “Maman;” a 30-foot-high sculpted spider made of stainless steel, bronze and marble.

Eileen Gray

Daring to imagine domesticity in a new light, Elieen Gray pushed the boundaries of expected architecture of the early 20th century—flipping Modernism on its head in the process. Her work, which also included innovative, forward-thinking furniture designs, represented unchartered territory. Perhaps her most celebrated project is a house on the French Riviera known simply as e.1027, which she designed with her then-lover in mind. Much drama ensued after the two parted ways in 1929, with e.1027 still a center of controversy even today. Alanis explored her work on a deeper level when she played a supporting role of Marisa Damia in the screen adaptation of Gray’s life, aptly titled “The Price of Desire.”

Georgia O’Keeffe

Even people who don’t run in art circles can easily identify Georgia O’Keeffe’s signature style. Commonly referred to as the “Mother of American Modernism,” the 20th-century painter is most remembered for her stunning landscapes, particularly ones that explore the vastness of desert terrain. And then there are her flowers; the sexually suggestive imagery is dripping in feminine overtones, though it’s worth mentioning that O’Keeffe herself said this was never intentional. All the same, her work set her apart as a female artist unlike any other.

Ray Eames

Ray Eames was one half of a husband-and-wife team that directly shaped modern design, specifically with regard to furniture design and architecture. Along with her husband, Charles Eames, Ray pioneered the modernist movement, playing a major role in the way in which Americans approached home and corporate décor. The spot-on Maria Popova of Brain Pickings describes her legacy best: “Today, we see Eames pervasive legacy in everything from the set of Mad Men to the pages of design history books to the streets of downtown L.A.”

International Women’s Day on March 8th is a global celebration of the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. Alanis shares her views on the modernization of the feminine movement in a new article titled “feminism needs a revolution” exclusively for Time.com.

Often when I’m being interviewed about my career and music, I’m asked whether I am a feminist. What the interviewer means depends on who’s doing the asking and what their take on the feminist movement is. Sometimes it’s rhetorical. Other times, a thinly veiled indictment. My answer is always yes. I have never been apologetic about this, but rather deeply passionate. It is an honor to be considered a feminist.

The concept of feminism to me is a mandatory link in a chain toward wholeness, cohesion, maturation and functionality—certainly the feminist movement is one of the most powerful means to this greater end. I do believe, however, that the definition of feminism needs some refocusing, redefining and updating for this modern time, and for this new generation, and that the movement deserves a reorienting, intentionality and re-envisioning for what is possible and how to get there. We need a revolution to the feminist revolution. And it needs to be brought to the fore of our awareness in order to heal what ails our times on this planet. Read More

By Joan Wages,

National Women’s History Museum President and CEO

How many women currently serve in Congress?

Name the first American woman to fly in space.

How many women serve as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies?

If you didn’t know the answer to any or most of these questions, don’t feel bad. The National Women’s History Museum has discovered that most Americans don’t know much about our nation’s heroines. In fact, if we had to grade Americans on their women’s history – the majority would get an ‘F.’ A survey of 1,000 American men and women asked how much they knew about women like Ida B. Wells, Sally Ride, and Elizabeth Blackwell and discovered that fewer than one in four Americans are familiar with major female historical figures as compared to male figures like Frederick Douglass, Paul Revere, and Neil Armstrong.

So what, you might ask?  As we celebrate national Women’s History Month, these survey results echo why this month’s designation is so important.

In the 21st century where gender stereotypes about women in sports, science, and on screen are being challenged and cracks are expanding in the traditional barriers that define the glass ceiling, women’s history is an important piece of helping men and women learn the complete story of EVERYONE who played a role in our nation’s evolving success. Women have contributed significantly to our country –yet, so few Americans know their names and what they have done.  Many people don’t know about Sybil Ludington, an extraordinarily brave young woman who in 1777 rode tirelessly through the night to warn about the arrival of the British to Boston and to rally her father’s militia, riding further than her more popularly known historical counterpart, Paul Revere.

Then, there is Sally Ride, the first American woman to fly in space, or Ida B. Wells-Barnett, an ardent opponent of lynching and a key figure in the civil rights and woman suffrage movement. Although Sally and Ida were more easily recognized by respondents, on average still fewer than one in four Americans were familiar with these and other major female historical figures.

That should not be surprising since only 15 percent of figures in history textbooks are women.  Our country’s practice has been to overlook and in some cases, even omit the contributions of women from our nation’s history. Men have thousands of years of history and more than two-thirds of Americans know it.  

Scholar Janice Law Trecker said, “The fact of the matter is not that women haven’t made important contributions, but that their history has not been recorded.” Women have been left out for too long and it’s time to correct that.

As we commemorate National Women’s History Month, this is the perfect opportunity to take a moment to learn more about women’s long history of accomplishments to our country. It is also the perfect time to show your support for an effort underway to build a women’s history museum in Washington, DC on or near the National Mall that would display the breadth and scope of women accomplishments in American history. That’s why we at the National Women’s History Museum are leading a social media campaign, #helpusbuildit, to encourage everyone, including young boys and girls, to help us in this task of building a women’s history museum. We encourage everyone to join at www.helpusbuildit.org.

America has wonderful museums on everything, from automobiles to zoology,– isn’t it time that women’s history also had a home? Imagine how much our young girls and boys can learn and what inspiration they can gain from visiting a place that shows that that both men and women played a part in our country’s rich history.

About the National Women’s History Museum

Founded in 1996, the National Women’s History Museum, currently located online at www.nwhm.org, is a nonpartisan, nonprofit educational institution dedicated to preserving, interpreting, and celebrating the diverse historic contributions of women and integrating this rich heritage fully into our nation’s history. The Museum’s goal is to build a world-class, permanent museum on the National Mall that will herald and display the collective history of American women. In December 2014, legislation passed Congress to create a Federal Commission to study and produce a plan for a women’s history museum on or near the Mall.

When we released our documentary “The Business of Being Born” in 2008, it would have blown us away to know that eight years later we would be taking a tour of the maternity ward at Henrico Doctor’s Hospital in Richmond, VA with an amazing midwife named Amber Price. In response to the growing trend of women seeking more personalized birth options, the hospital had shrewdly recruited Price to restructure their entire approach to labor and delivery. As we toured the ward, one gushing new mother told us how she had only met Price in the final stages of labor, after her doctor was called away to an emergency cesarean.  Having been told that she would definitely require an episiotomy, she gave the midwife permission to perform the procedure but Price merely smiled and said, “Oh no, we don’t cut women here,” before calmly coaching her through the delivery. The young mother felt so respected and empowered by her care, it was clear she would be sharing her positive birth story far and wide.  Not too long ago it was unthinkable that midwives could actually be as good for business as they are for normal birth, yet there we were in Richmond witnessing a movement come to fruition.   

“The Business of Being Born” was originally inspired by Ricki’s simple desire to create the film that she wished she had seen before giving birth for the first time. Knowledge is power, but when it comes to vaginas, uteruses and ovaries we often find that knowledge can become buried under layers of fear, oppression, shame and the agendas of those institutions who stand to profit from women remaining “illiterate” about their bodies and their fertility. In these days of “body positive” and “sex positive” activism, we noticed that when it came to women’s reproductive health issues the evolution of ideas seemed slower. With our latest project, “Sweetening the Pill,” we turn our attention from birth to birth control, from the care of women during pregnancy and birth, to the care women receive during the larger part of their lives, when they’re trying to avoid pregnancy. Again we find ourselves inspired by the personal stories of women who wish they knew more about their bodies and their choices before making important reproductive health decisions with lasting effects. This project is riding the wave of the pro-period movement that is encouraging body literacy.

In the final month of last year, NPR declared 2015 “the year of the period” pointing to social media campaigns like #PeriodsAreNotAnInsult and the viral celebration of musician Kiran Ghandi’s choice to “free bleed” while running the London Marathon as indicators that the once taboo topic had entered the mainstream. Although this might have appeared hyperbolic to some, it’s hard to deny that the intersection of key menstruation moments has brought about this burgeoning pro-period movement. Long overdue and with much still to be done, this movement appears to have no intention of stopping its flow from small trickle to flooding the cultural landscape.

If in 2015 the focus was on bringing periods out into the open, allowing women to show their blood like poet Rupi Kaur on Instagram and share their stories with Tracy Clayton’s #livetweetyourperiod hashtag, 2016 will be the year that this new honesty shines a light on where our culture holds anti-period practices – that fear, shame, oppression and agenda, again – and how this affects women’s health and healthcare. Clayton asked for “communal commiseration” and now it seems that women are asking if it’s acceptable that many of us experience periods as something to commiserate over – as painful, difficult and life-stopping. High-profile and highly discussed – Lena Dunham publicly announced her need for a break from work as the result of endometriosis. The movement has not only brought periods out into the open, it has revealed the issue of period problems.

In this Women’s History Month, we see this growing new women’s health movement as a reflection of the original, spearheaded by Barbara Seaman in the ‘60s and ‘70s. It’s a movement formed by consciousness-raising groups (now hosted online instead of in homes), feminist organizations, patient advocacy groups, independent researchers, naturopaths, health coaches, and, as a new addition – technology start-ups. The origins of that original women’s health movement can be found in Seaman’s suspicion of the over-medicalization of women’s bodies –  the medications and medical treatments she believed were developed to deal with the perceived “disease of being female,” the medical establishment’s one-size-fits-all approach, and the lack of informed consent for all stages of well women’s lives – from menstruation to pregnancy to birth to menopause. About the then newly released birth control pill, Seaman wrote her first book, “The Doctor’s Case Against the Pill,” which became the instigator for an investigation into the safety and side effects, and then the reason for the Nelson Pill Hearings in 1970.

Today, women are once again questioning the prescription of the birth control pill for any and all so-called “women’s problems” as well as the lack of research into women’s reproductive health that has held back the development of effective solutions beyond the Pill. Taking on the grassroots methodology of feminist pioneers like Gloria Steinem, The Fifth Vital Sign project, headed up by New York-based doula Emily Varnam and nurse Kelsey Knight, kicks off a 3 month-long tour of the US this week, with the aim to provide free classes in contraceptive options, menstrual cycle awareness and charting, and menstrual hygiene products to anyone who needs this knowledge. Varnam and Knight hope these classes will allow women to “feel more secure, safe, and connected to their bodies.”

For some years, menstruation activists have argued for the medical necessity of seeing our periods as “the fifth vital sign” to be monitored alongside blood pressure and heart rate. If this were standard practice amongst young women and their healthcare providers, as it was prior to blanket prescription of oral contraceptives from teen years onwards, not only would we know more about reproductive health issues, but also have the possibility of early and successful treatment.

This view of the menstrual cycle has found its own terminology in the movement as “fertility awareness” and “body literacy.” Just as women in the pro-period movement are choosing Thinx pants, cloth pads, organic cotton tampons and menstrual cups over commercially mainstream femcare products with questionable safety and side effects, they are also thinking critically about their birth control choices. The birth control pill suppresses the menstrual cycle, replacing it with a stream of synthetic hormones and producing “withdrawal bleeds” as opposed to periods. These synthetic hormones also block our body’s own hormone production, as a consequence impacting our metabolic, endocrine and immune systems. Research has shown this disruption has an affect that is vast and varied – including changing your choice of partner, your psychological state, your brain development and your overall physical health. Our relationship to our periods, to our bodies, is inextricably linked to the birth control pill.

The popularity of the Pill developed in conjunction with the proliferation of anti-period messaging. The creation of the monthly bleed break to simulate the menstrual cycle gradually evolved into a propagated belief that women don’t “need” real periods, even in the face of the health recommendations of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Women are now seeking alternative to hormonal birth control for treating reproductive health issues like PCOS, endometriosis, cramps and heavy bleeding long term and finding solutions in the holistic health training of naturopaths, online video courses and Skype consultations, private Facebook support groups and in using new technologies like cycle-tracking apps and devices.

The technology industry has stepped up where the pharmaceutical industry has failed to offer anything more than variations in delivery of the same synthetic hormone-based treatments. Apps such as Kindara and Clue provide the opportunity for women to monitor their periods, their symptoms, and their sex lives. Women can share this detailed information with their healthcare provider to assist with diagnosis and treatment. They are also utilizing their data, basal body temperature and cervical fluid changes, to practice the Fertility Awareness Method for planning or preventing pregnancy. Medically-certified fertility computers like Lady-Comp, and the company’s latest upgrade Daysy, are helping women to take control of their health and also get their fertility status at a glance (green light: infertile day, red light: fertile day), with a hassle-free efficiency and simplicity that rivals popping the Pill.

With a body literacy sourced in menstrual cycle awareness, women can better make fully informed decisions about their choice of birth control and their reproductive health as a whole. The more they know about their cycles through fertility awareness, the better equipped they are to avoid unplanned pregnancies and plan wanted pregnancies, a skill that becomes more essential with every new closure of a women’s health clinic. As the home-diagnostics industry gains momentum, fertility monitoring technology is providing women who have experienced misdiagnosis and misdirection at the hands of their healthcare providers. As research shows, establishment healthcare providers are prone to put women’s physical pain down to psychological distress and class their symptoms as psychosomatic. Plus, all the pooled data from fertility tracking apps and devices may provide answers to reproductive health issues, like endometriosis, that are still considered to have no known cause or cure.

And it doesn’t stop there – in the years since the release of “Sweetening the Pill” (the book that originally inspired our documentary) when author Holly Grigg-Spall discussed the growing interest in the menstrual cycle as a life coaching tool, the concept has taken hold in the mainstream with Dr. Julie Holland’s book “Moody Bitches” arguing for an acceptance of women’s inherent changeability in the workplace and Thinx CEO Miki Agrawal advocating for mapping our work and personal lives around to our menstrual cycle phases (the ovulation phase is the best time for giving a presentation, the luteal phase is the best time for doing your taxes, the follicular phase is the best time to learn a new skill – as outlined in Alisa Vitti’s “WomanCode” and Gabrielle Lichterman’s “Hormonology”). Women are starting to see their menstrual cycle as having the potential to better their lives – both personal and professional, rather than as an obstacle to their success. They are re-examining their assumptions about their cyclical nature through the lens of new awareness of the anti-period culture.  In fact, this month sees the launch of Zahra Haji’s social media campaign #NotPsychoPeriod which aims to challenge the view of women as “hormonal” and cultural beliefs around PMS.

Just as “The Business of Being Born” inspired many women to investigate their choices, take control of their birth experience, and even become doulas and midwives themselves, “Sweetening the Pill”  seeks to inspire women to seize power over their periods through body literacy. Finding initial funding via a successful grassroots Kickstarter campaign last year, this documentary is coming in with the tide of period positivity, towards its 2017 release. This new project is already inspiring some to meet the growing need for more options, more self-knowledge, and more agency. We’ve already seen the development of a whole new category of doula – a birth control doula. We can only imagine where, over the coming years, this movement might take us.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Ricki Lake

Emmy Award-winning television host Ricki Lake is a pop culture icon who has built a career on her graciously candid sensibility and her authentic, relatable nature. At the age of 24, Lake became one of the youngest daily talk show hosts in history with the debut of “The Ricki Lake Show.” After 11 successful seasons, “The Ricki Lake Show” wrapped in 2005 but returned in 2012, garnering Lake the Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host. In recent years, she has channeled her nurturing spirit and drive for social change into passion projects that are altering the way society views birth, breastfeeding, childhood obesity and birth control. Lake’s legacy and perhaps her greatest love is her role as independent filmmaker, launched with her 2008 documentary, “The Business of Being Born” and 2011 follow-up series “More Business of Being Born.”  Under their joint venture BOBB Films, Lake and partner Abby Epstein served as Executive Producers of the 2014 documentary “Breastmilk” and the upcoming, “The Mama Sherpas.” BOBB Films is also in production on two new feature documentaries: “Weed the People” and “Sweetening the Pill.”

Abby Epstein

Abby Epstein produced and directed the celebrated documentary “The Business of Being Born,” with her longtime producing partner, Ricki Lake. The success of the film inspired Abby and Ricki’s book “Your Best Birth,” and their follow-up DVD series “More Business of Being Born” was released in 2011. Abby made her film directing debut at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival with the documentary, “Until the Violence Stops” which premiered on Lifetime Television and received an Emmy and a Gracie Allen Award. Under their joint venture BOBB Films, Abby and Ricki served as Executive Producers of the 2014 documentary “Breastmilk,” the upcoming “The Mama Sherpas,” and are in production on two new films: “Weed the People” and “Sweetening the Pill.” Prior to her film work Abby directed theater, helming National Tours and international premieres of RENT and “The Vagina Monologues.”

Holly Grigg-Spall

Holly Grigg-Spall is the author of “Sweetening the Pill: Or How We Got Hooked On Hormonal Birth Control” (Zero Books, 2013). Her work on women’s health issues has featured in Marie Claire, Elle, Cosmopolitan, New York magazine, the Sunday Times, the Guardian, the Independent, the Washington Post and on BBC and CBC radio, amongst others. She also writes weekly for LadyClever.com. Holly is currently working on her next book.

In schools across the nation, students will be donning red and white striped hats and eating green eggs and ham today—all to honor one of the most beloved children’s writers of our time. But “Dr. Seuss Day,” officially known as Read Across America Day, isn’t just for our little ones. It serves as a beautiful reminder to us all that books are indeed magic portals into different parts of our imagination, heart and souls. When done beautifully, they whisk us away to other places. They invite (and often demand!) us to question our world view and reexamine our perspectives. And, in rare cases, they stay with us as we move through life….long after the last page.

Here we celebrate 10 female authors who’ve reshaped the literary world with their work.

1. Cheryl Strayed

Cheryl Strayed is known best for penning “Wild,” a dazzling memoir in which she makes sense of her mother’s death by wandering over 1,000 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail on her own. The piece explores the transformative, healing power of solitude, particularly when set within nature. But what really sets Strayed’s voice apart throughout all her work is that it’s continually asking the essential questions about self-acceptance, surrender, and returning to our truest self. She’s also an outspoken artist when it comes to balancing motherhood and creativity, asserting that the greatest gift she can give her children is a mother who “pursues her passions like a motherfucker.”

Our favorite quote: “It was my life—like all lives, mysterious and irrevocable and sacred. So very close, so very present, so very belonging to me. How wild it was, to let it be.”

2. May Sarton

May Sarton was a seeker in every sense of the word. A central theme that runs through much of her work explores what it means to really be alone with oneself, to confront all the old ghosts of our past. Her writing, which spans fiction, poetry and memoir, is also celebrated for questioning the male-dominated literary structure of her time. (“Half the world is feminine—why is there resentment at a female-oriented art?”)

Our favorite quote: “We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.”

3. Anais Nin

Anais Nin is arguably one of the most prolific essayists and memoirists of the 20th century—female or otherwise. Her exploration into interconnectedness, joy and creativity are illuminated in her now-famous journals, which she began keeping at age 11. Many speculate that her works of fiction, particularly “A Spy in the House of Love,” were thinly veiled attempts to make meaning of who she was in relation to her sexual self. Like the story’s protagonist, Nin revealed in her diaries that she yearned for wholeness ; to bridge her sexual identity and desires with her true self. This desire is familiar even to modern women today. (The journey of unifying the many fragmented parts of ourselves is a big part of what we care about most at Alanis.com.) Nin did so by living as presently as she could; using her senses, deep sensuality and space around her as portals inward.

Our favorite quote: “All of my creation is an effort to weave a web of connection with the world; I am always weaving it because it was once broken.”

4. Maggie Nelson

Maggie Nelson put heartbreak front and center with her 2009 book “Bluets,” which explored the depths and nuances of aloneness by way of the color blue. An out-of-the-box subject, the color became the pathway for which isolation and sadness to be explored. Nelson spins the idea into a book-length essay that exposes emotional loss at its rawest.

Our favorite quote: “Loneliness is solitude with a problem.”

5. Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson is often regarded as one of the best female authors living today. The British novelist has been known to draw on her own upbringing to spin autobiographical tales centered on sexual identity and nonconformity. Many argue that her signature work is the 1985 novel “Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit,” in which Winterson explores female adolescence as it relates to same-sex relationships and the church.

Our favorite quote: “Book collecting is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, an absurdity, a fate. It is not a hobby. Those who do it must do it.”

6. Sylvia Plath

Is it possible to discuss influential female authors without giving a nod to Sylvia Plath? While the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet led a tortured life, her writing reflected an all-too-real relationship between creativity and mental illness; one that’s mirrored in her only novel, “The Bell Jar.” After a fierce, lifelong battle with depression, Plath eventually took her own life in 1963, but the exquisite body of work she left behind continues to touch readers to the core.

Our favorite quote: “I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.”

7. Dorothy Parker

Razor-tongued and sharp-witted, Dorothy Parker led the charge for intellectual young women of her time. As a founder of the Algonquin Round Table, this forward-thinking writer was one of the first to grace the pages of The New Yorker. She also had an illustrious screenwriting career to boot. Still, she’s perhaps best remembered as an unapologetically witty woman unafraid of speaking her mind and offering a sense of sisterhood to the more sensitive among us.

Favorite quote: “The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.”

8. Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood has been putting out one best-selling book after another for decades, with titles like “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Alias Grace” and “The Heart Goes Last” under her belt. As fans and critics await her next release, the award-winning author also wears the hat of an environmental activist. Atwood delightfully intertwines these two loves, claiming that each can empower the other.

Our favorite quote: “The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them: there ought to be as many for love.”

9. Harper Lee

The news of the recent passing of Harper Lee touched many with great grief. The beloved author spun “To Kill A Mockingbird,” the bestseller turned Academy Award-winning film that’s now rumored to hit Broadway next year. Lee herself was quite private, despite having started a decades-long, national conversation about racial equality. Her death spotlights the life of a female writer whose work lives on.

Our favorite quote: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

10. Shirley MacLaine

Most of us see Shirley MacLaine as star of screen and stage, but equally compelling within her pedigree is the fact that she’s also an accomplished author. Her approach to storytelling is one that explores inner life, divinity and the dynamic journeys of the human soul. With a free spirit and an open heart, MacLaine seeks to make sense of it all, in her inimitable way, in her writing.

Our favorite quote: “We are not victims of the world we see, we are victims of the way we see the world.”