We’re Taking The Australian Women Writers Challenge

Imagine the number of people who browse bookshops and online book retailers, wondering what to read next. Now imagine the pool of potential readers who are interested in books by Australian authors. Now imagine an even smaller pool of readers willing to choose books written by Australian women.

If you happen to be an Australian woman writer – as I am – you might begin to feel disheartened at the idea that if you publish a book, very few people might read it. There’s just so much else out there, and few incentives to celebrate Australian women’s writing.

Of course, this isn’t because Australian women don’t write as well. As we’ve noted in the past, women are diminished in everything from children’s book protagonists to the ways books are marketed, reviewed and awarded.

In a valiant effort to correct that last disparity, a group of Australian women authors, publishers and booksellers has created the Stella Prize, a $50,000 annual award for Australian women’s writing. Despite my own suggestion that it be called the “Mango Prize” (as Australia’s answer to the UK’s Orange Prize), the award takes its name from author Stella Miles Franklin, whose estate funds a literary award that in recent years has been dominated by men.

But it’s also up to us – as readers, book groups and critics – to champion a wide and balanced range of reading, whether that be fiction and non-fiction, literature and genre, new releases and classics, and books by authors of various demographic and cultural backgrounds.

At the end of 2011 I blogged a sort of inventory of the books I read last year. Twenty of those 46 books were by women authors. But only six of those 20 books were by Australian women authors. I can definitely do better.

So in 2012, the International Year of Reading, I’m pledging to take up the Australian Women Writers Reading and Reviewing Challenge. Run by the advocacy group Australian Women Writers, it encourages participants to set themselves a target of books to read, reflect on and review over the year.

There are three levels in the challenge: “Stella”, which involves reading three books and reviewing at least two; “Miles”, which involves reading six and reviewing at least three; and “Franklin-fantastic”, in which ten books are read and at least four reviewed. The latter two categories require full-length reviews.

Naturally, The Enthusiast has signed up to become Franklin-fantastic. Look out for our challenge book reviews – you’ll be able to spot them by the black-and-white badge – and perhaps consider signing up for the challenge yourself.

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