I am an avid reader, I have always loved to read though there have been times in my life that I struggled to find the time to pick up a book. Thankfully I started writing reviews for Beauty and Lace and my reading is once more quite consistent.
In 2014 I participated in the Goodreads reading challenge and fell short of my goals, funny how a complete change in home routines and a baby can put a hole in my reading time.
This year I have decided to take part in the Goodreads challenge again, though I have dropped my goals to about what I read this year. I have also decided to take part in the Australian Women Writers Challenge.
Last year I thought about this challenge but didn’t commit. The more I have thought about it, and looked at my current reading habits, the more I decided I wanted to be involved.
The Australian Women Writers Challenge was established in 2011 to help raise awareness for Australian Women Writers and start to even up the gender bias in reviewing books by women. This was basically all I knew when I decided to sign up to the challenge but if you want to find out more about the challenge and it’s background the best place to get that information is the Australian Women Writers website. I have done a little background reading and I think this is a fantastic challenge to help increase the profile of our Aussie writers because there are some fantastic homegrown talents who deserve the recognition.
The challenge is about increasing our reading of Australian women but when I look at my recent reading history I find that reviewing for Beauty and Lace has certainly gone a long way to doing that for me already. If I was to compare my Australian reads now with those of a few years ago, the numbers would be very different.
The challenge levels are quite achievable but I have decided to really challenge myself and rather than starting with one of the set levels (Stella: read 4, review 3; Miles: read 6, review 4 or Franklin: read 10, review 6) I am going to hit it hard and have opted to read and review 50 books by Australian women in 2015.
Wish me Luck! I am off to a good start though, my first book of the year is by an Australian Women Writer.
The Australian Women Writers Challenge is not just for reviewers either. You can join as a reader only, the main thing is to get our women writers more widely read.
I devour books, vampires and supernatural creatures are my genre of choice but over the past couple of years, I have broadened my horizons considerably. In a nutshell – I love to write! I love interacting with a diverse range of artists to bring you interviews. Perhaps we were perfect before – I LOVE WORDS!
50 books!
Now that’s impressive.
I can’t wait to see what you come up with 🙂
Thanks Brona.
There are so many talented Australian women that I think the challenge will be finding the time not finding the books.
Thanks for joining us, Michelle. I look forward to reading your reviews. And thanks for the plug for the challenge! (You have a great looking website, by the way!)
Thanks Elizabeth 🙂
WTG Michelle….I could do 50 books in a year but there is no way i could do 50 AUstralian Woman writers plus all the other wonderful books I want to read….But I must say i understand what you mean with a change in home routine changing your reading habits. I used to have a routine that every night after dinner I would lie down on the bed and read but then my daughters started coming in and laying on the bed with me and they wanted to chat so of course my book was put down and i would chat with my girls instead and I ended up finding that it was taking me double the time to read a book that it used to.
My life is changing again this year with my youngest daughter starting Uni and talking about moving out of home so imagine all the reading time I will have. Plus I have an overseas trip planned in August and I always find that I get a lot of reading done while on planes and/or waiting for planes. Im away for 7 weeks and will take a pile of books with me. I tend to cast them aside once im done reading…they can then find a new home.
Thanks Meedee, I got off to a good start. Then school went back and the school run is a killer.
I think I’m going to have to make it my focus if I want to get there. Fingers are crossed and thanks for the moral support.