Australian Women Writers Challenge 2014

The Australian Women Writers Challenge 2014 has been set up to overcome the gender bias in Australian writing.  

     Life is pretty tough as a writer mainly because it's difficult to earn a sustainable income.  Annual incomes are half what they were in 2001 and I refer to this in an earlier post, Email from a reader.  

     Last financial year I scraped together the equivalent of coffee money from my writing.  In fact, in my first two days of teaching last year, I earned 25% of the total income I'd earned from writing in the previous five years.  I know. I am new to the craft.  I also know the one cruel reality about pursuing writing as a career - I may never be able to earn a full-time income.  That's fine, sniff, sniff, I would be happy earning a part-time income.  Actually, I'd be very grateful if I could continue deriving funds for coffee and, perhaps the odd slice of cheesecake.
     Breaking things down, it's harder being a woman writer mainly because male writers are more recognised in terms of book reviews.  Check these stats  This is not surprising since Australian women receive less recognition and pay for the same jobs done by men.  Yes, I need to find that research.
      The AWW Challenge has been established to bring attention to this 'gender bias', recognise female writers in Australia and promote their writing.
     You can join and review books even if you are not a writer.  
     I have joined and set myself a task of reviewing only books I buy from second hand shops.  That way, I'll be in a position to buy the books with the money I earn from my writing.  In fact, I might even be able to buy a coffee as well!