Winners and What Makes a Badass

Congrats to Vee Signorelli, Shveta Thakrar, and Cecilia no-last-name, who won books in the "Badass Ladies You Should Know" kick off giveaway!

Naturally a project like this begs the question: what, exactly, is a badass? Well, I asked for definitions, and here are the terms that came up the most:

yourself, being, staggering, goals, fear-facing, passionate, work, true, odds, embraces, against, want, live, unapologetic, trying, needs, cause, wake, time, knows, unapologetically, speaking, rise, inspire, world, dream, writing, remarkable, see, help, hard, take, art, bold, small, life, believe, ways, ahead, own, willing, funny, without, honest, femininity, able, sees, good, brave, say, eloquently, active, love, change, stand, wants, awesome, fearlessly, works, presence, think, passion, determined, dismantles, expect, want, others, all, doing, expectation-shattering

A few more definitions:

One thing they all seem to share is passion-- for life, for art, for their cause or maybe even all of the above.

Doing good shit and not worrying what the hell other people think.

Somebody who doesn't take crap from the people trying to drag them down and works to help other girls/women rise up. Passionate women.

Knows what needs to be said, and says it - every time, eloquently, and leaves trolls staggering in her wake.

Honest, brave, willing to say the hard things (and be hysterically funny doing it), being awesome to Other Ladies.

Someone who "gets" it? Who embraces girls of all kinds (trans, poc, queer, fat, disabled, etc) and who isn't ashamed of femininity, but isn't boxed in by it either? Someone who's doing awesome work, who's speaking up about things (even if it's just through their writing, or other small ways). Someone who dismantles things. Someone who could kill you with their awesome presence.

Someone who sees the odds are stacked against her but goes ahead anyway, determined to be the change she wants to see in the world.

So who fits the criteria? Well, so far...

corinne duyvis, laini taylor, melissa anelli, emily winfield martin, kaye @gildedspine, nicole beharie, amy spalding, katie coyle, courtney summers, sarah kennedy, tatiana maslany, noelle stevenson, veronica roth, roxane gay, cindy pon, laura ruby, anne ursu, rachel fershleiser, NK jemison, julie sondra decker, julia rios, rachel gold, laura lam, nandini bajpai, kacy catanzaro, malina lo, rae carson, sarah mccarry, zetta elliott, marieke nijkamp, raina telgemeier, libba bray, kelly barnhill, tess sharpe, sarah j mass, patty templeton, amanda palmer, melissa marr, allie brosh, ellen oh, aisha saeed, neesha meminger, christa desir, jennifer walkup, tiffany trent, sarah stumpf, elizabeth wein, mallory ortberg, margaret atwood, jaclyn dolamore, alaya dan johnson, maureen johnson, eugenie c. scott, carrie mesrobian, stephanie kuehn, swaiti avasthi, maggie stiefvater

I can't promise I'll get to interview them all (OMG Margaret Atwood) but you gave me a fantastic place to start. I'm getting details ironed out, and I'm hoping to share the first Badass Lady You Should Know in the next few weeks! And if you'd still like to nominate someone, feel free to do so in the comments here or on the form.

Thank you for nominating (and being) such amazing women!

blogKate Hartauthors, badass ladies, blog, giveawayComment