via She Writes, who tells us that Publishers Weekly included ZERO female authors in its list of best books of 2009. The blog encourages us women writers to participate in SHE WRITES DAY OF ACTION. Here’s what they ask us to do, including my replies:
“By Friday, November 13th, please do three simple, but enormously powerful, things:
1) Post a blog on She Writes responding to the exclusion of women on PW’s list. Make your own list, as many of you have done already, or take this opportunity to reflect more broadly the ramifications of its women-cook-the-food-but-only-men-get-Michelin-stars message, and share your thoughts with us all. (More ideas on this to come.)”
Here is my contribution:
At my personal blog, Knitting Clio, I review the books I read with my book club. This year’s female authors and their books were:
A.S. Byatt, The Children’s Book
Gin Phillips, The Well and the Mine
Jennifer Scanlon, Bad Girls Go Everywhere
Lily Koppel, The Read Leather Diary
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half a Yellow Sun
Joyce Carol Oates, Wild Nights
Kate Walbert, A Short History of Women
All of these were excellent books, and Adichie’s was the best of all of them. Need I add she also won a prestigious MacArthur Award (aka the “genius” award)?
My book club has also read just about everything by Geraldine Brooks, and even got to hear give a fabulous lecture at a local synagogue earlier this fall.
I should also mention books published by my colleagues:
Mary Collins, American Idle: A Journey Through Our Sedentary Culture.
Karen Ritzenhoff and Katherine Hermes, Sex and Sexuality in a Feminist World.
Briann Greenfield, Out of the Attic: Inventing Antiques in Twentieth-Century New England.
Leah Glaser, Electrifying the Rural American West: Stories of Power, People, and Place.
“2) Buy a book written by a woman in 2009. Take a photo of yourself holding it. Post its cover on your page. Tell us what book you bought, and why.”
I just bought Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna because I love her work and can’t wait to read this latest novel.
“3) Invite five women writers you know to read your words and join us on She Writes.
Once you have posted your blog, send me the link at kamy@shewrites.com. We will send these links to entire community (5000+) on Saturday. We will send out a press release then too. If you are a well-known writer, you know how greatly we need your response, your leadership, and your help in spreading the word. If you aren’t, we greatly need your response and your leadership too. Use this platform as a platform of your own. What else is She Writes for?
Let’s make a statement that no one can ignore. Join us, BY FRIDAY, in our first-ever day of action, and we will do the rest. I’d like to see hundreds, if not thousands, of posts, and hundreds, if not thousands, of purchases. Vote with your voice and with your wallet. Push back. Make it good. Make it right.”
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