2021 is the 10th year of the Australian Women Writers Challenge and the sixth year I’ve taken part.
This year I’m planning to read at least 10 and review at least six books by Australian women writers – “Franklin” level. (To find out more about the levels, and to sign up yourself, head to Sign up for #AWW2021).
One of the many benefits of being the Diversity Editor for the Australian Women Writers Challenge is that I get to discover more fabulous books than I could ever possibly hope to read. It’s made putting together my list of 10 fairly simple.
If you’re looking to read more books by Australian women from diverse backgrounds, or with themes relating to diversity, check out my 2020 Diversity wrap up.
1. Sorrow and Bliss, by Meg Mason
This first one is cheating a little bit because I’ve just finished reading it. It is absolutely brilliant and I’ll share my full review with you soon.
Here’s the blurb:
This novel is about a woman called Martha. She knows there is something wrong with her but she doesn’t know what it is. Her husband Patrick thinks she is fine. He says everyone has something, the thing is just to keep going.
Martha told Patrick before they got married that she didn’t want to have children. He said he didn’t mind either way because he has loved her since he was fourteen and making her happy is all that matters, although he does not seem able to do it.
By the time Martha finds out what is wrong, it doesn’t really matter anymore. It is too late to get the only thing she has ever wanted. Or maybe it will turn out that you can stop loving someone and start again from nothing – if you can find something else to want.
The book is set in London and Oxford. It is sad and funny.
2. Growing up Aboriginal in Australia
Described by one reviewer as “mandatory reading for non-indigenous people in Australia”, this seems like a must-read for my list. Published in 2018 by Black Inc and edited by Anita Heiss, it’s part of a series of short stories or essays.
Here’s the blurb:
What is it like to grow up Aboriginal in Australia?
This anthology, compiled by award-winning author Anita Heiss, showcases many diverse voices, experiences and stories in order to answer that question. Accounts from well-known authors and high-profile identities sit alongside those from newly discovered writers of all ages. All of the contributors speak from the heart sometimes calling for empathy, oftentimes challenging stereotypes, always demanding respect.
Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia on Goodreads
3. Growing up Disabled in Australia
If you hadn’t already guessed it, this one is the 2021 release of the same series by Black Inc. Edited by Carly Findlay, it features poetry, graphic art and more than 40 original pieces by writers with a disability or chronic illness.
Here’s the blurb:
‘My body and its place in the world seemed quite normal to me.’
‘I didn’t grow up disabled, I grew up with a problem. A problem those around me wanted to fix.’
‘We have all felt that uncanny sensation that someone is watching us.’
‘The diagnosis helped but it didn’t fix everything.’
‘Don’t fear the labels.’
One in five Australians have a disability. And disability presents itself in many ways. Yet disabled people are still underrepresented in the media and in literature.
Growing Up Disabled in Australia is the fifth book in the highly acclaimed, bestselling Growing Up series. It includes interviews with prominent Australians such as Senator Jordon Steele-John and Paralympian Isis Holt, poetry and graphic art, as well as more than 40 original pieces by writers with a disability or chronic illness.
Contributors include Dion Beasley, Astrid Edwards, Jessica Walton, Carly-Jay Metcalfe, Gayle Kennedy and El Gibbs.
Growing up Disabled in Australia on Goodreads
4. Relics, Wrecks and Ruins
This incredible collection of short stories is due out this week. I’ve got my copy on pre-order. I call it incredible not just because it includes stories by some of the world’s most talented speculative fiction writers, but also because it’s possibly the last project that Australia’s own Aiki Flinthart will work on.
Here’s the blurb, before I start crying all over my keyboard:
Having been diagnosed with terminal cancer, Aiki Flinthart reached out for stories from as many of her favourite authors as would answer the call. And many did.
Between these pages you’ll find 23 stories by some of the world’s best science fiction, fantasy, and horror writers. Find new favourite authors and re-join old friends.
Their fabulous stories are threads woven with a sure hand into a tapestry of the weird, the worrying, and the wonderful that make up mankind.
A few of the stories:
The Names of the Drowned are These by Angela Slatter
A Malediction on the Village by Garth Nix
In Opposition to the Foe by Pamela Jeffs
16 Minutes by Jasper Fforde
American Changeling by Mary Robinette Kowal
Morgan of the Fay by Kate Forsyth
Heartbreak Hotel by Dirk Flinthart
The Movers of the Stones by Neil Gaiman
Relics, Wrecks and Ruins on Goodreads
5. The Dictionary of Lost Words, by Pip Williams
This one sounds fascinating and wonderful and has had rave reviews.
Here’s the blurb:
In 1901, the word ‘Bondmaid’ was discovered missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. This is the story of the girl who stole it.
Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the ‘Scriptorium’, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word ‘bondmaid’ flutters to the floor. Esme rescues the slip and stashes it in an old wooden case that belongs to her friend, Lizzie, a young servant in the big house. Esme begins to collect other words from the Scriptorium that are misplaced, discarded or have been neglected by the dictionary men. They help her make sense of the world.
Over time, Esme realises that some words are considered more important than others, and that words and meanings relating to women’s experiences often go unrecorded. While she dedicates her life to the Oxford English Dictionary, secretly, she begins to collect words for another dictionary: The Dictionary of Lost Words.
The Dictionary of Lost Words on Goodreads
6. The Year the Maps Changed, by Danielle Binks
This one’s technically middle grade fiction, but whatever. I’m just a big kid at heart, so I’m happy to roll with it. And as Cate McKinnon Alexander said in her (5-star) review: “I know this is technically a middle grade book, but it is bigger than that. Not once did I feel like I was reading a book for children or young adults (and I love YA books), I was simply reading a book about people.”
Here’s the blurb:
‘I was eleven when everything started and twelve by the end. But that’s another way maps lie, because it felt like the distance travelled was a whole lot further than that.’
Sorrento, Victoria – 1999
Fred’s family is a mess. Fred’s mother died when she was six and she’s been raised by her Pop and adoptive father, Luca, ever since. But now Pop is at the Rye Rehabilitation Centre recovering from a fall; Luca’s girlfriend, Anika, has moved in; and Fred’s just found out that Anika and Luca are having a baby of their own. More and more it feels like a land-grab for family and Fred is the one being left off the map.
But even as the world feels like it’s spinning out of control, a crisis from the other side of it comes crashing in. When 400 Kosovar-Albanian refugees arrive in the middle of the night to be housed at one of Australia’s ‘safe havens’ on an isolated headland not far from Sorrento, their fate becomes intertwined with the lives of Fred and her family, as she navigates one extraordinary year that will change them all.
The Year The Maps Changed on Goodreads
7. The Erasure Initiative by Lili Wilkinson
This one sounds like good fun. I started reading it late last year but got distracted and haven’t quite gotten back to it yet. I want to keep reading it though!
Here’s the blurb:
I wake up, and for a few precious seconds I don’t realise there’s anything wrong.
The rumble of tyres on bitumen, and the hiss of air conditioning. The murmur of voices. The smell of air freshener. The cool vibration of glass against my forehead.
A girl wakes up on a self-driving bus. She has no memory of how she got there or who she is. Her nametag reads CECILY. The six other people on the bus are just like her: no memories, only nametags. There’s a screen on each seatback that gives them instructions. A series of tests begin, with simulations projected onto the front window of the bus. The passengers must each choose an outcome; majority wins. But as the testing progresses, deadly secrets are revealed, and the stakes get higher and higher. Soon Cecily is no longer just fighting for her freedom – she’s fighting for her life.
The Erasure Initiative on Goodreads
8. Stone Sky Gold Mountain, by Mirandi Riwoe
I’ve seen reviews of this shoot past my feed many times in 2020, so I plan to dive into it in 2021 to see what all the fuss is about.
Here’s the blurb:
Family circumstances force siblings Ying and Lai Yue to flee their home in China to seek their fortunes in Australia. Life on the gold fields is hard, and they soon abandon the diggings and head to nearby Maytown. Once there, Lai Yue finds a job as a carrier on an overland expedition, while Ying finds work in a local store and strikes up a friendship with Meriem, a young white woman with her own troubled past. When a serious crime is committed, suspicion falls on all those who are considered outsiders.
Evoking the rich, unfolding tapestry of Australian life in the late nineteenth century, Stone Sky Gold Mountain is a heartbreaking and universal story about the exiled and displaced, about those who encounter discrimination yet yearn for acceptance.
Stone Sky Gold Mountain on Goodreads
9. The Long Shadow, by Anne Buist
I came across this one by scrolling through the Australian Women Writers Review database – a great source of inspiration if you’re in a reading rut. It sounds interesting so I’ve added it to my list.
Here’s the blurb:
Write down something about yourself, as a mother, that worries you.
Psychologist Isabel Harris has come to the outback town of Riley because her husband Dean is assessing the hospital—the hub of the community—with a view to closing it down. Isabel, mostly occupied with her toddler, will run a mother–baby therapy group. But on the first day she gets an anonymous note from one of the mothers:
The baby killer is going to strike again. Soon.
Then a series of small harassments begins.
Is it an attempt to warn Dean off? Or could the threat be serious? A child was murdered in Riley once before.
As Isabel discovers more about the mothers in her group, she begins to believe the twenty-five-year-old mystery of a baby’s death may be the key to preventing another tragedy.
10. Silver and Stone, by Felicity Banks
I read the first in this series, Heart of Brass, in 2020 and loved it. I just haven’t quite managed to get around to reading the rest of the series! So this is my pledge to read at least book number two.
Here’s the blurb:
Getting into prison is easy.
Getting out is hard.
Getting away is nearly impossible.
Getting the power to control your own destiny might cost everything you have.
Emmeline, Matilda, and Patrick are sworn to rescue Patrick’s mother from the infamous Female Factory prison, but when a vengeful police officer tracks down their hideout, things get worse fast.
Soon they’re framed for a double murder and fighting a magical monster in the eerie and unfamiliar island of Tasmania. Patrick’s mother hides crucial papers in a tin under her prison smock, and her best friend Fei Fei is dying in the overcrowded prison.
More than one woman’s life hangs in the balance.
I hope you’ve found a couple of books to add to your 2021 reading list from this post. To follow along with how I’m going with my challenge in 2021, feel free to:
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