If you haven’t read my W author, Jeanette Winterson, before… well, let’s just say you’re missing out on some seriously awesome lady authoring.

Jeanette is a writer from the UK whose debut, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, was an autobiographical peek into her childhood as the adopted daughter of some pretty conservative religious folks. If that weren’t bad enough, she discovers books (y’know, aside from “The Good Book”) and a passion for other girls (yes, that kind of passion). You can probably guess how well that goes over, or if you can’t, you most definitely need to pick up a copy to find out.

Throughout the years, she’s written a lot of excellent books that play with gender, sex, identity, philosophy, mythology, art, truth, lies and more. She deftly combines fact and fiction, piling allusion on allusion, mixing her metaphors and generally making some very beautiful books out of some very traditional tales of love lost, the cheating lover, etc.

But you can’t really do Jeanette’s work justice without reading it, so you should immediately pick up one or all of her books and just dive right in. I’m not sure which is my favorite, since they’re all so deeply layered and well-written, but I do quite enjoy the title essay in her book Art Objects. It’s about interacting with visual art, and she tells the tale of coming across a work of art in a privately owned gallery that struck her in a way that she had no words to describe, which launched her on a mission to learn more about visual art and how to talk about it. Some might say talking about visual art is like dancing about architecture or whatnot, but Jeanette very eloquently puts into words just how the writer can come to grips with a visual medium and, thus, begin to write about that which can hardly be described.

Having just read a thought-provoking piece about color and race by Jacqui Bryant on the WriteByNight blog, I thought of Winterson, who most certainly dislikes being labelled a “female writer” (or, worse, a “queer writer”). And who wouldn’t hate such sterotypes? To me, Winterson is an artist first and foremost. Her gender or sexuality are unimportant, because her characters are so mysterious and intriguing, often undefined until the last moment as male, female, trans or gay, straight, bi… they are ciphers, allowing the reader to project identity upon them. Are they white or black? Who knows? Who cares? It’s about their personality, not their skin tone. It’s all what comes from within that is ultimately expressed on the surface.

So, yeah, Jeanette Winterson is one of my favorite writers—male or female or trans, black or white, gay or straight or bi or queer. I’m just happy her books are out there in the world, and hope that more people will pick them up and give art a chance.

A great quote from Jeanette is something her mother said to her when she revealed she was a lesbian: “Why be happy when you could be normal?” And now, years later, this quote is the title of one of her books. I would equally well ask “Why be normal when you could be happy?”

Jeanette Winterson is on Twitter @Wintersonworld, if you’re curious. She also keeps a website with links to her newspapers columns, books and more at jeanettewinterson.com.

So, who’s your favorite W author?