Columbia University professor and writer Helen Benedict and the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Whitney Terrell have skillfully illuminated the experiences of women in war.

Benedict explores the wounds inflicted on soldiers, refugees, and their families in her new novel Wolf Season. An earlier nonfiction book, The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq, triggered a class-action suit on behalf of women and men who’d been sexually assaulted in the military and inspired the Oscar-nominated documentary The Invisible War.

Terrell, an assistant professor at UMKC, revolved his most recent novel, The Good Lieutenant, around a female Army officer in Iraq. It was named a best book of 2016 by The Washington Post and The Boston Globe.

Together, they discuss their novels and war's impact on female soldiers and their families.