Australian Women Writers 2012 Challenge

Australian Women Writers website and 2012 Reading and Reviewing Challenge was created by Elizabeth Lhuede in response to the gender bias debates of 2011, to participate in the National Year of Reading and to raise awareness for The Stella Prize.

I hope that my participation will encourage me to write more book reviews. In my limited experience they are hard work. They involve judgement of a writers work and that always calls into question the role of the writer and the reader in evaluating the worth of a piece of writing. It brings with a responsibility and the necessity of fairness; of a balanced account. It is important, I think to do a book justice, even if you don’t like it, or you think it is lacking as a book.

There are three levels to the challenge and I have set myself the modest target of the Stella level (geddit?) which is to read at least three books and review two.

I have reviewed Charlotte Wood’s Animal People. I plan to read at least All That I Am, Anna Funder and Gillian Mear’s Foal’s Bread. I am going to try to sneak in a few more, of course, I won’t be able to help it, but at least here is my line in the sand. Feel free to leave comments with suggestions. I will add them to my very long, unfinishable list.