A bit of background.
I'm Lauren. I'm twenty, living in Melbourne, struggling with mental illness and only studying my BA part-time because of that.
Last year, in an effort to make myself read more, I made a New Year's resolution to write a list of all the new books I read. It was the first New Year's resolution I'd ever stuck to, and I read thirty-one books. I've been doing the same this year, and so far I've read ten. But last night I came across the Australian Women Writers Challenge, and although it's already June, I've decided that it is going to be my reading goal for the year.
The AWWC began in 2012, the National Year of Reading, as an attempt to address the gender bias in literary reviews. The challenge it poses is reasonably simple: read and/or review a given number of books by Australian women writers. There are three levels: Stella (read four, review at least three), Miles (read six, review at least four), and Franklin (read ten, review at least six). Participants can also design their own challenge, whether they aim to focus on a particular genre, or to read as many books as they possibly can within the year.
The key element of the AWWC, which sets it apart from other public reading programs I have completed, is its requirement that the books be reviewed, in order to get more reviews of women's writing out into the public sphere. Hence this blog, on which I will be reviewing ten books over the course of this year, beginning with Annah Faulkner's The Beloved, in my next post.
Happy reading/joint destroying/patriarchy smashing, everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment