Challenges

Monday musings on Australian literature: Australian Women Writers’ Challenge 2012 Round-up

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Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012 Badge

(Design: Book’dout – Shelleyrae)

It seems fitting that my last Monday musings for 2012 be devoted to the Australian Women Writers Challenge, partly because it turned out to be quite a significant event in Australia’s literary calendar for the year, and partly because I introduced it in my first Monday musings of the year. The challenge was instigated by Elizabeth Lhuede in response to growing concern in Australian literary circles about lack of recognition* for women writers here. This concern resulted in several tangible actions, besides this challenge, including the creation of the Stella Prize and the first Meanjin Tournament of Books being dedicated to novels by Australian women.

Elizabeth, I know, had no comprehension when she started the challenge of just how successful it would be. Not only did it end the year with around 350 participants, who wrote around 1500 reviews for over 550 authors, but it received significant recognition from multiple quarters, including:

  • Huffington Post, for which Elizabeth was asked to write an article
  • ABC Radio National, on which the challenge was mentioned at least once
  • The National Year of Reading, 2012, which recognised it as an activity in their program
  • Many bookshops, libraries and authors (too many to list), who got behind the challenge and promoted it on their blogs/sites

The challenge has infiltrated social media. It can be found on Facebook, Twitter (@auswomenwriters), and GoodReads, as well as on its dedicated website and blog. It has built up such momentum that it will continue in 2013, with a team to help Elizabeth manage it. I have agreed to be part of that team, with responsibility for the “Literary” area. If it sounds like the sort of challenge for you, please sign up here: Australian Women Writers Challenge 2013.

As I explained in yesterday’s highlights post, this is my first ever challenge. I’ve discovered that it is normal to do a round-up post at the end of a challenge, so here’s mine. I signed up for the Franklin-fantastic Dabbler level, that is, that I’d read (and review) at least 10 books by Australian women writers in more than one genre. I’m therefore listing them by category/genre (but please understand that the groupings are very loose and pretty arbitrary! They are indicative only).

CONTEMPORARY FICTION

HISTORICAL FICTION

CLASSIC FICTION

NON-FICTION

ESSAYS

SHORT STORIES AND POETRY

What did I learn from the challenge? Principally that there’s a whole world of Aussie women writers out there that I knew little or nothing about. They are beavering away in genres I tend not to read and they have big followings, many of whom posted their reviews on the challenge site. The existence of this band of writers was one of the reasons Elizabeth started the challenge, because she knew they were scarcely known outside their specialised fields. I suppose this is the case with all reading categories: we tend not to know what’s going on outside our sphere of interest. But, I’m glad to have had my eyes opened, even if I’m unlikely to greatly change my reading habits. So much to read … and all that, eh?

* Somewhat ironically, this year two books by Australian women – Anna Funder’s All that I am and Gillian Mears’ Foal’s bread – pretty well scooped our top literary awards. While I like to see awards spread around a bit because there’s a lot of quality out there, it was good to see these two wonderful writers receive such clear recognition.

Finally …

A big thanks to all you readers who add so much to my blogging experience. I truly appreciate the encouragement you give me by visiting, by “liking”, and best of all by commenting. I hope you have all had a satisfying 2012 and wish you every good thing, bookish and otherwise, for 2013.

Highlights of 2012: Blogging and the Reading Life

/ Whispering Gums / 28 Comments

It’s been a busy year chez Gums and so I’ve decided to write two highlight posts – one listing some favourite reads, and this one for other blogging and reading highlights. Here, in no particular order, they are …

The challenge to do when you don’t do challenges

I decided when I started blogging that I wouldn’t take part in challenges, much as some intrigued me. I wanted to be mistress of my own reading choices and not get drawn into “having” to read something to comply with a challenge. But then, along came the Australian Women Writers Challenge, and I couldn’t say no. It’s a bit of a cheat, really, to say I’ve engaged in a challenge because reading Australian women writers is not a challenge for me. It’s what I do anyhow, it’s my reading preference. And so, readers, I completed the challenge – and will take part again next year. Look for tomorrow’s Monday Musings for my challenge wrap-up …

Other blogging activities

This year I took part in two other blogger-initiated literary activities. One was the Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize team (which actually started in late 2011 but ran through the first quarter of 2012). With a team of 6 (Lisa, Fay , Matt, Stu and Mark), we reviewed the full longlist and chose our winning book, Kyung-Sook Shin’s Please look after mother, which was also chosen by the official judges. It was a great experience, and some of the books I read will be among this year’s reading highlights. However, I have not joined the team this year because I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up. I’m missing reading some great books though, I know.

The other activity was the Bah-Humbook virtual gift exchange instigated by Guy Savage and Emma. My exchange partner was Stu (see Shadow Man Asian team above!). Stu chose two fascinating sounding books for me, so you can expect reviews of these in the coming months!

Blogging highlights

It has been a pretty exciting year for Whispering Gums blog. Firstly, I finally decided in October to buy my own domain name so that I’m now the proud owner of “whisperinggums.com”. It doesn’t mean much really – except that Google “lost” me for a few months – but it somehow feels more authentic. I’m still hosted by WordPress, giving me, for my needs, the best of both worlds.

Around the same time, an excerpt of my review of Gillian Mears‘ wonderful novel Foals’ bread was included, along with those from another blog (Reading Matters) and several newspaper/magazine reviewers, in the front pages of the “C” paperback edition of the novel.

And then, in December, my blog was added to the Pandora web archive by the National Library of Australia, meaning that, if I ever disappear, my blog will be available online in perpetuity (or until a librarian decides to deselect it!).

Literary events

I attended a number of literary events this year … though never as many as I’d like to! The highlight was probably the inaugural Canberra Readers’ Festival. With writers like Kate Grenville, Anita Heiss and Frank Moorhouse speaking, it had to be a winner, and it was. We Canberrans hope it continues next year.

I also attended the Prime Ministers’ Literary Prize post-announcement panel, and the launches of The invisible thread anthology, Nigel Featherstone’s novella I’m ready now and Suzanne Edgar’s poetry collection Love procession.

Reading goals

This heading is a bit of a misnomer, as I don’t set formal reading goals. However, I do have in my mind works and authors I’d like to read, and this year I achieved an important one, Gerald Murnane. He’s been on the Australian literary scene for a few decades but I had never managed to read him until now. And why now? Because of Text Publishing’s new Text Classics series – the publication of which is another highlight of my reading year. Text has made available, at a good price, a wonderful and diverse collection of Australian classics. I’m glad I finally met this goal, and look forward to more Murnane in my reading future.

Red Dog

I wrote a post in September about the number of ways people were reaching my blog by asking about the film Red Dog, particularly by asking whether Red Dog dies in the movie. Three months later – and some sixteen months after my review – my Red Dog post is still in my top five posts for the year. That movie seems to have really hit a chord. This doesn’t mean I am now going to tell you the answer, but I’m sorry to tell you that Koko, who played Red Dog in the movie, died this month. He was only 7 and had, apparently, won awards for his role. I didn’t even know there were awards for animal stars but apparently there are. All I can say is, Vale Red Dog, oops, I mean Vale Koko!

And that’s about it from me for my blogging/reading life highlights of the year. I’d love to hear if you have any highlights of the literary or blogging kind that you’d like to share …

Australian Women Writers 2012 Challenge completed

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Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012 Badge

Australian Women Writers Challenge (Design: Book’dout – Shelleyrae)

I am not a blogger who takes part in challenges, until, that is, this year when Elizabeth Lhuede set up her Australian Women Writers 2012 Challenge. It didn’t take me long to break my non-challenge rule, because this challenge focuses on my two main reading passions: Australian Literature and Women Writers. This was the challenge for me!

And so I signed up for the top level: Franklin-fantastic. This required me to read 10 books and review (at some depth) at least 4 Of them. I decided that I would also attempt the criss-crossing Genre Challenge of Dabbler which required me to read “more than one genre”. I can’t pretend that I actively pursued the “top” Genre Challenge of Devoted Eclectic which required reading “as many genres as you can read”.

This week I posted my 10th review and became the 30th person to complete the challenge (at least, my name is the 30th on the Completed section of the challenge page). I will continue – of course – to read Australian women writers and will add those reviews to the Review section of the challenge page, but in the interests of formal closure, here are my 10 books (with links to the individual reviews):

See! More than one genre, but I’d be cheeky to claim Devoted Eclectic. I hope, however, that Elizabeth (a true devoted eclectic) is happy. I certainly thank her for this great initiative. It’s been fun and has certainly attracted a lot of interest. If you haven’t taken part, there’s time yet: Australian Women Writers 2012 Challenge.

Monday musings on Australian literature: Some Australian Literature online events for 2012

/ Whispering Gums / 18 Comments

What better way to kick off Monday Musings in 2012 than by heralding some exciting Australian Literature initiatives from around the ‘net. Here they are, in no particular order:

Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012 Badge

Badge (Design: Book'dout - Shelleyrae)

Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012 by Elizabeth Lhuede. Her aim is to promote women writers across all fields and genres of writing. The challenge involves signing up to read books – in any genre – by Australian women writers. You can focus on one genre or many, you can choose a level that suits you. I don’t usually do challenges, but this one is a no-brainer for me since I always try to read a goodly quantity of Australian literature each year and I love to read books by women. Last year I reviewed at least 14 Australian women writers and, in addition, wrote several posts on specific women writers and women’s literature issues. My aim will be to achieve a Franklin-fantastic Dabbler, that is, I’ll read (and review) at least 10 books by Australian women writers in more than one genre.

Australian Literature badge, by Reading Matters

One of the Australian Literature Month badges (by Reading Matters)

Australian Literature Month by Kim of Reading Matters. She plans to read lots of Australian books during her cold northern January (she would leave Australia!) and encourages readers of her blog, to do the same. As an incentive she has created several gorgeous badges for bloggers to attach to their posts reviewing Aussie books. Since seeing a platypus in the wild is on my bucket list, I have chosen her platypus badge for this post.

Australian National Year of Reading 2012 by WeLove2Read. This project is “a collaborative project joining public libraries, government, community groups, media and commercial partners, and of course the public. As well as creating specific new campaigns for the National Year of Reading, we’ll be using our joint efforts to bring together and showcase the wonderful projects and organisations across Australia which already exist to promote reading and literacy”.  (From the website) Keep an eye on the website for activities and events as they occur during the year.

2012 Aussie Author Challenge by Booklover Book Reviews. The challenge is to “read and review books written by Australian Authors – physical books, ebooks and audiobooks, fiction and non-fiction” (from the blog). There are two challenge levels and, like most challenges, a badge to add to your site. (I added this challenge after the post was published, as the result of Tony‘s recommendation. Thanks Tony.)

And so …

As you start your 2012 reading, do consider including some Aussie Lit into the mix and please let the people above know when you do. They will appreciate knowing that their work has hit some paydirt.

If there are other initiatives that I haven’t listed here, please let me know in the comments below and I will update this list.