The Australian Women Writers Challenge #AWW2016

2016 AWW Badge

There’s no point in throwing your hands up and saying you believe in gender equality, you actually have to go out and look for it.

Rob Spillman, Editor Tin House, The Guardian 7/4/15.

Another year, and I debate with myself as to whether to do another reading challenge. In 2015 I attempted the 2015 BookRiot Read Harder challenge, and did…ok. Not perfect, but not bad. I briefly considered doing the BookRiot challenge again this again, but I want to do something a bit different, whilst still diversifying my reading. I decided I would read more Australian authors, and more women authors, and with this in mind…this year I am doing the Australian Women Writers Challenge for 2016.

This is an interesting challenge, designed to help address the imbalance between critical reviews of male and female authors work (with an added Australian focus). I increased the number of Australian authors I read and reviewed last year; Ben Peek, Rjurik Davidson, Stephen Orr, Sean Williams, Alan Baxter…all men. The only Australian women author I read and reviewed last year was Amanda Bridgeman. So I figure this year will be different! In the meantime of course, I hope to continue to improve my book reviews.

If you’re interested, I recommend you follow this link to read through the background to the challenge.

As this is my first year, I’m aiming pretty low: Miles level (I expect named after Miles Franklin)- read 6 books by Australian women, review at least 4 of them. Shouldn’t be too tough (I hope), considering that I’ve already got one review down and another on the way.

Anyway, enough said. If you have any suggested authors or books, leave a comment and let me know and I’ll add them to my list.

Cheers

KT