Merry Wanderer of the Night + Winner

Weekly Geeks 2011-3: Women Writers

Please forgive me for this day late post - I completely forgot that it was my turn to post a prompt!! So without further adieu, I thought since this month there are many readers celebrating the Orange Prize winners and nominees over at the Orange Prize Project and on the related Facebook page, that it might be fun to carry the theme of women writers over to Weekly Geeks.

This is from the Orange Prize for fiction website:

It was in January 1992 that a group of journalists, reviewers, agents, publishers, librarians, booksellers, male and female, gathered together in flat in London, to drink, to talk about reading and publishing, reviewing and prize giving, floating the idea of setting up a new kind of literary prize: a prize that would celebrate women's writing from all over the world, one that would put readers centre stage, one that would have a programme of educational, literacy and research initiatives associated with it, one that would be fun!

The men and women at that first meeting expressed concern that, despite the ratio of books by men published to books by women, the leading literary Prizes often seemed to overlook accomplished, challenging, important fiction by female authors. Did it matter? Yes, since Prizes are one influential way of bringing outstanding writers to the attention of readers, we decided it did matter. If nothing else, it was likely that potential readers simply didn’t get to hear about fantastic novels, from all over the world, they might enjoy.


So here is what you task is for this week (You may do one or all or just some of the following):

  • What are your feelings about literary prizes regarding WHO gets selected? Do you think literary judges tend to be biased more toward men? If yes, why do you think that is?
  • Tell us about some of your favorite books written by women.
  • Do you tend to read more books authored by men or by women?
  • What are your thoughts about the label "chick lit?" Do you think it makes a difference what we call women's fiction? Are books written by women more likely to be labeled "light," or unimportant?
Be sure to come back here and give us a link to your post!!

fantastic, novel, TIME, weekly geeks, and more:

Weekly Geeks 2011-3: Women Writers + Winner