It's not easy being a physically attractive writer.  In fact, it's almost impossible.  Leafing through portraits of great writers is the visual equivalent of sifting through dog shit looking for a wedding ring when you haven't even lost a wedding ring.  The chances that you'll find anything other than dogshit are almost nil.  Maybe you'll get worms.  Just stick with their books, man.

Still, I have a theory.  It's that a trend exists.  A trend which is best represented by this incredibly official-looking graph:

Note that this trend isn't meant to only represent female writers.  Sure, Virginia Woolf was cartoonishly ugly, but have you seen portraits of Shakespeare?  These aren't even photographs, they are painted portraits -- the 17th century equivalent of copious photoshopping -- and the guy still looks like a buzzard with a clown collar.

It goes without saying that I am smoking hot.  Such is life.  Now, this isn't 100% foolproof; you can be a good writer and be attractive (you can, I can not), but you're the exception that proves the rule.  On with the picks:

Marisha Pessl

You know an author is uncharacteristically hot when the literary world bubbles with rumors that she only got her book deal due to her looks.  Now, I'm not going to defend Pessl's literary chops, as I've never read her book and likely never will, but it'd be interesting if somebody could make any fucking sense out of that claim.  Exactly how will a hot author sell more books, unless those books are mostly filled with pictures of herself in enticing positions?  To my knowledge, Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics contains zero of those pictures, rendering such arguments moot.  She looks kind of like Mary Louise Parker, though, which in the world of authors is analogous to having 8 senses in the land of the blind.

Amber Benson

Is it cheating to include an actress who has dabbled in co-writing a few comic books and novels?  Absolutely not.  Take another look at the chart, because this is a great example.  What does it mean to co-author a novel with a real author?  I'd like to think it means the author sits at a typewriter typing a novel while Amber Benson sits at one of those Fisher Price typewriters -- you know, the kind that I might have just made up? -- and writes nothing, but occasionally looks up at the actual author and says, "How am I doing?"  And the real author replies, "You're doing great.  You really are."  Aaaaand then the book sucks anyway.

Zadie Smith

Almost certainly the most accomplished writer on this list, Smith, something of a prodigy who published her first novel at age 24, doesn't have the obvious good looks of the above Buffy actress turned quasi-writer.  What she does have, though, is a hypnotizing set of eyes that ooze insight, a calm, sexy air about her, and that aforementioned prodigiousness, which is always a hot trait.  It implies a range of actions unaccomplishable by the common woman.  She's just a good looking woman who seems fairly cool and writes well in spite of all that.

Cecilia Ahern

Chick lit alert.  Cecilia Ahern is the cute Irish lass responsible for the travesty that was P.S. I Love You.  Yes, it was a book before it was a movie, and no, I don't know which one was better, because I have better things to do than read/watch either, like, for instance, writing this article in which I judge the author's looks.  They're good.  Like I said, she's cute.  She's no Eudora Welty, but she's cute.

Stephanie Adams

Not only is Stephanie Adams shockingly hot for an author, she's also constantly in Playboy.  If that's not a ridiculous enough confluence of traits, she's also a lesbian.  Eat your fucking heart out, Virginia Woolf.  Of course, Ms. Adams mainly writes astrological trash.  I don't want to constantly tout the merits of that graph, but if astrological and new age mysticism writing isn't a zero on the writing scale, I don't know what is.  I'd rather read The Babysitter's Club.