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2018 Australian women writers challenge wrap up

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As you probably saw from my previous post, 2018 I spent in something of a tailspin. I came nowhere close to completing on any of my intentions around reading, reviewing or challenges. I’m still a little sad about this, but I know it happens. I did read a bunch of books by Australian women writers though. I did not review any of them properly. But here’s a quick run down on how I did in hindsight, despite the year exploding in my face amidst exhaustion, burn out and my graduate year as a midwife.

Silhouette of a woman with an umbrella black on a rose background with text Australian Women Writers Challenge 2018

The goal I set initially:

Once again I’m throwing my hat into this challenge, I really love it and that it keeps me engaged with and reading new work by Australian writers, particularly women. This year I’m choosing my own level again and I’m going with my previous challenge of read and review 15 books.
In 2018 I’d really like to make sure they include some works by Indigenous and non-white authors, and works telling stories about diverse characters too. Hopefully I’ll be more successful with this – I earmarked a bunch of books last year already, so now to actually go forth and read them. I also want to finish reading through my Twelve Planets project if possible.

Reader, I did very little of this. However, looking back at the goal I’m proud of myself for setting the bar high. I utterly failed at it – but largely due to things that I couldn’t do much about. Breakups happen, and my grad year really did take more out of me than I had anticipated. Also, these things happened in combination and I started out the year in a state of burn out so… it’s not surprising. But go me for aiming high. This helps me consider what do I really want to aim for in 2019 (post forthcoming) as well.

Books by Australian women writers I read (and did not review properly):

This last book I’m including here is by an Australian genderfluid person rather than a woman writer. However, since the purpose of the challenge is to bring attention and reviews to people under-represented by mainstream reading and reviewing trends and publicity, I think it fits within the purview of the challenge without the need to misgender the author. Also, this book was everything I wanted from a paranormal romance in recent years and found a bit lacking much of the time. It. Was. Awesome.

In total, that’s 19 books for the challenge. If you click through the Goodreads links, you’ll find that I did put some short mini-reviews for some of them, but none of them got a full proper spread here on my main blog.

That’s honestly far more books relevant to the challenge than I thought I’d read, so I’m pleasantly surprised! And with that I’m going to draw a line under the challenge for 2018 and think about my plans for 2019.

AWW16: An Accident of Stars (The Manifold Worlds #1) by Foz Meadows

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Australian Women Writers Challenge 2016 BadgeAustralian Women Writers Challenge 2016: Book #8

Title: An Accident of Stars (The Manifold Worlds #1)

Author: Foz Meadows

Publisher and Year:  Angry Robot, 2016

Genre: fantasy, epic fantasy, queer fiction

 

An Accident of Stars - coverBlurb from Goodreads:

When Saffron Coulter stumbles through a hole in reality, she finds herself trapped in Kena, a magical realm on the brink of civil war.

There, her fate becomes intertwined with that of three very different women: Zech, the fast-thinking acolyte of a cunning, powerful exile; Viya, the spoiled, runaway consort of the empire-building ruler, Vex Leoden; and Gwen, an Earth-born worldwalker whose greatest regret is putting Leoden on the throne. But Leoden has allies, too, chief among them the Vex’Mara Kadeja, a dangerous ex-priestess who shares his dreams of conquest.

Pursued by Leoden and aided by the Shavaktiin, a secretive order of storytellers and mystics, the rebels flee to Veksh, a neighboring matriarchy ruled by the fearsome Council of Queens. Saffron is out of her world and out of her depth, but the further she travels, the more she finds herself bound to her friends with ties of blood and magic.

Can one girl – an accidental worldwalker – really be the key to saving Kena? Or will she just die trying?

 

My Review:

An eARC of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This review is presented as part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2016.

An Accident of Stars is a very solid debut novel from Foz Meadows, it truly brings epic and portal fantasy to life. This book is equal parts the start of an epic story and a coming of age story. This is also a story that disabuses you of the notion that nothing *truly* bad can happen to your heroe(s) in a novel, because there are consequences experienced by protagonist Saffron, and other key characters throughout the novel.  There’s a depth and realism to the story because of this commitment in storytelling, and yet it doesn’t ever approach ‘grim dark’ to me, just solid storytelling.

One of the things I love most about this book is the sheer diversity of characters in this novel, they come from so many different backgrounds, they have different experiences of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, skin colour, cultural backgrounds. Rather than being mashed together uncomfortably, these elements come together quite seamlessly in the central rebel compound where Saffron finds herself in the beginning of the novel. I loved that an older woman, who was far from perfect was the rebel leader. There are so many women in this book, and the male characters all came with personalities that I am interested in, with stories of theirs I wanted to explore – rarer than you  might suppose these days. This novel is a triumph to diversity – I’m sure there are improvements, nothing can be everything to everyone but I think this makes a good effort at doing so.

There is a lot going on in the story, as the readers we share in Saffron’s confusion as things unfold – twists and turns in how things affect the rebels, the potential impact on Saffron her self. There’s physical, emotional and political battles involved in this story – it’s multifaceted which gives the story depth, things happen do not happen in a vacuum or in isolation. The storytelling well thought out and executed, making this a satisfying read.

If I have one criticism it is that the book is a debut novel and the writing does reflect this, I found it clunky in places, and in others it threw me out of the reading experience. This is a minor criticism though as overall it is a well polished first novel, and everyone is allowed to grow over time. There is always a starting point – this is an excellent one. I also thought this book was nicely self-contained, you don’t *have* to read the next book if you don’t want to or don’t like series. There’s the opening and minor-cliffhanger for more story but you could absolutely ignore that without any issue. I am looking forward to the next book though because I’m interested to see where the characters go from here and how the broader story unfolds.

Review: Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

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Every Heart a Doorway - coverARC Review:

Title: Every Heart a Doorway

Author: Seanan McGuire

Publisher and Year: Tor, 2016

Genre: fantasy, young adult, new adult

 

Blurb from Goodreads:

Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children
No Solicitations
No Visitors
No Quests

Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere… else.

But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.

Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced… they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.

But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter.

No matter the cost.

 

My Review:

An eARC of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

How have I not read any of Seanan McGure’s work before?! Especially given my love of urban fantasy?! In any case, this was my first foray into McGuire’s work and I could not put the book down. Every Heart a Doorway is simply magnificent and is an instant favourite for 2016, without question.

Every Heart a Doorway has one of the most interesting fantasy premises I’ve come across in a long time and it’s beautifully executed. The world building for the story is sublime and I want to read so many more stories set in this universe! Not only were the setting and world building engaging, the characters leapt off the page and brought the story to life for me. I could imagine their voices, the way they looked, everything so clearly.

My heart went out to Nancy and I was particularly taken by her experience having tumbled into a world that wasn’t sunshine and rainbows, as some of the worlds in the books were described, but one that is more silent, deeper and a bit darker. I am absolutely a fan of sunshine, unicorns and rainbows without question, but my experience of that is enhanced when there is shadow and darkness to the lightheartedness. I also love how well McGuire demonstrates that sunshine and rainbows do not inherently equal benevolence or fairness, and that the darker or creepier worlds are not necessarily malevolent or evil.

What especially struck me about this novella, and I think it’s an aspect that makes this particularly good reading for young/new adults is the way in which Nancy experiences isolation and difficulty with her family after she returns from her world. Nancy’s experience parallels the experience of many who are struggling personally with something that their families don’t or can’t understand. Across the experiences of other characters in the novel like Kade, Jack, Jill and Sumi, the concept of family and the relationship with family as being complex, fraught and difficult on several levels is explored including having family, not having family, being loved and wanted, or unwanted and misunderstood by family.

Additionally, the novella includes a spectrum of characters with different experiences, not all of them are white, one is asexual and another is transgender, and this too mirrors the experience of people reading who want to see themselves in fiction, and see how other characters think about their lives, feelings and experiences and process them. I sincerely wish I had a book like this for when I was growing up, I needed this book growing up and I needed it now to look back on my past and growing up and the impact of being misunderstood and out of place on me. That profound sense of not belonging so much that you lose yourself in fantasy trying to cope – for the characters in the story that’s more literal than metaphorical but it really hit home for me. Wanting to belong and trying to find that place, finding it and losing it, trying to find a new sense of home and belonging afterwards. This story is profound on several levels.

I also love the overt feminism of the story in considering why there are so many more girls than boys who go through secret doors into hidden worlds. The idea of boys being too loud to be easily missed, and the expectations and assumptions about how boys play and what will happen to them versus the way in which we seek to protect girls, but also how we impose upon them a silence and stillness that means that it is easier for them to be misplaced, should they find a door and go wandering. This is a pointed commentary and it draws on the generalisations bound up in traditional gender roles reflecting not only a bitter truth contained within, but also the constraint that is imposed upon people to be, to not be, to conform a certain way.

I have no criticisms to level at this novella, as one reviewer put it: it’s damn near perfect. It packs an emotional punch, it’s beautifully written, the length is accessible – it’s neither too long nor too short and it leaves you wanting more. I am my own doorway, I am the only one who gets to choose my story and I make the decisions that govern my narrative. Every Heart a Doorway will stay with me for the rest of my life.

 

 

Reviewing the 52 Acts of Cyberfeminism Blog Project

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I’ve been recently engaged in a fun skyping project with two of my dear friends. As part of her doctoral thesis, Sajbrfem started a blog project called ‘52 Acts of Cyberfeminism‘ involving lots of art projects, subversion, exploration of feminism, hacking new media with playful and creative misuse not to mention inviting people to conspire and collaborate on the project.

Twice a week for the past couple of weeks we’ve spent a couple of hours discussing art works, known as ‘Acts’ for a month and reflecting on what we got out of it, how the Act was received and the response to it. We also explore the context of it’s original inspiration and consider it’s continued relevancy and accessibility.

One of the interesting aspects I have found personally in revisiting this blog and looking at the Acts is the ongoing narrative. In the original year in which the project ran, the blog was updated weekly and every update was a surprise and something brand new. Reflecting back upon the Acts with some familiarity and knowingness opens up new avenues of enquiry.

The project covered key aspects of feminism but explored them in a different way than I have traditionally seen in the blogosphere, representation wasn’t discussed in text but explored in visual photo quilts which brought to light aspects of how words have cultural association and understanding alongside their conventional language meanings.

Another project that came out of the blog was Act 10 which started the Hollaback Australia blog in collaboration with the feminist blog Hoyden About Town joining an international network of blogs calling out people who engage in sexual harassment in public spaces.

It also considered the ‘open source’ aspect of the infamous Open Source Boob Project by questioning the way in which the idea of ‘open source’ had been applied: “My thought process went something like this: Open source boob project? Hardly. Now if they were handing out instructions on how to make your own boobs then maybe…” This inspired the Real Open Source Boob Project which provided a tutorial for people to create their own boobie, open source instructions open to all.

The journey is varied and interesting, one I’m enjoying a lot and learning much from, particularly given the undergraduate I’m pursuing. Sajbrfem is an inspiration to me and I value her contributions to the web and to feminism, value her playful subversion of traditional mediums and underrated mediums such as craft. She has a talent for seeing art in most anything, and I admire this.

I highly recommend taking a look through the 52 Acts blog project and trying out some of the art for yourself.