Murasaki Shikibu, novelist, 978-1016
Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battuta, traveler, 1304-1377
Martin Luther, theologian, 1483-1546
William Shakespeare, playwright and poet, 1564-1616
Write to film: screenplays
Maria Merian, naturalist and scientific illustrator, 1647-1717
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, poet, dramatist, and religious writer, 1651-1695
Phillis Wheatley, poet, 1753-1784
Wang Zhenyi, mathematician and poet, 1768-1797
Sequoyah, anthropologist, 1776-1843
Write to declare: the United States Declaration of Independence
Sojourner Truth, abolitionist and women's rights activist, 1797-1883
Louis Braille, inventor and educator, 1809-1852
Charles Darwin, naturalist, 1809-1882
Ada Lovelace, algorithm writer, 1815-1852
Frederick Douglass, abolitionist and orator, 1818-1895
Write to abolish: the Reconstruction amendments
Florence Nightingale, statistician and founder of nursing, 1820-1910
Ida B. Wells, investigative journalist and activist, 1862-1931
Nellie Bly, undercover reporter, 1864-1922
Qiu Jin, revolutionary, 1875-1907
Mary McLeod Bethune, educator, 1875-1955
Zitkala-Sa, writer, translator, and advocate, 1876-1938
Helen Keller, author and activist, 1880-1968
Zora Neale Hurston, novelist and anthropologist, 1891-1960
Langston Hughes, poet, 1902-1967
George Orwell, novelist, 1903-1950
Rachel Carson, marine biologist and environmentalist, 1907-1964
Mary Garber, sportswriter, 1916-2008
Hans and Sophie Scholl, social activists, 1918-1943 and 1921-1943
James Baldwin, novelist, 1924-1987
Malcolm X, activist, 1925-1965
Jan Morris, author and historian, 1926-2020
Patsy Takemoto Mink, lawyer and politician, 1927-2002
Anne Frank, diarist, 1929-1945
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., minister and activist, 1929-1968
Audre Lorde, poet, feminist, and activist, 1934-1992
Octavia Butler, science fiction author, 1947-2006
Sandra Cisneros, novelist and poet, 1954-
Write to illustrate: comic books and graphic novels
Gene Luen Yang, cartoonist and graphic novelist, 1973-
Sonita Alizadeh, rapper and activist, 1996-
Malala Yousafzai, activist, 1997-
Sophie Cruz, activist, 2010-
Write to change: speeches at March for Our Lives
Write to advise: advice from writers on writing.
