Farewell to novelist Shirley Hazzard

Earlier this month, Australian author (later turned American citizen) Shirley Hazzard (1931 – 2016) died at the age of 85. Hazzard was probably best known for her novel, The Transit of Venus, which won the National Book Critics circle Award in 1980. But for me, the book I most closely associate with Hazzard is the…

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Unfinished work for #Readwomen2014. Join #Readwomen2015!

Those of you who may have followed my blog this year know what a big fan I am of #Readwomen2014. Although there are more talented women authors out there than ever, writing from every corner of the globe, it’s clear women writers aren’t getting the amount of attention they deserve. Traditional media tends to favor…

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Shouldn’t women authors write whatever they want?

Back in September, I was attending the Matera Women’s Fiction Festival and I was at a lecture on self-publishing by romance writers Bella Andre and Tina Folsom. The talk was informative and inspiring, and the writers shared their experiences controlling their writing careers and their passion for their writing. When the question and answer session…

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Earth to female authors? The Booker Prize 2014

The longlist to the Booker 2014 has been released, and what a white-male-dominated list it is. I’ve already written about innovative social media campaigns such as #Readwomen2014, created because talented, female authors are largely ignored by mainstream literary journals. I also read excellent  sites such as The Writes of Women and VIDA , both of which bring…

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#ReadWomen2014

I read about this great initiative, the #ReadWomen2014 Twitter campaign earlier this year. In recent years, a lot of attention has been focused on the gender bias in the publishing industry. Despite the fact that the overwhelming majority  of readers are women, male authors still enjoy the lion’s share of media attention, awards, covers of…

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