The Color Orange or Why I'm Reading Women Writers

Several years ago, smack dab in the middle of my doctoral program, I somehow got the bright idea that I'd download the list of nominees (long and short lists) of the Orange Prize and confine my reading-for-fun to only those titles.  In looking for a complete list of the nominees, I stumbled upon  The Orange Prize Project blog and was inspired by its founders commitment to reading and reviewing the nominated titles.  So with my list in hand, I got reading and, eventually, reviewing.  Then writing deadlines for my doctoral project began to hover on the horizon like a storm cloud and I knew I'd have to abandon the sunny world of literature to chase the storm of academic writing. 

But this past May I updated my list and set to  ticking off books from the spreadsheet that now includes 349 titles-- the long list nominees as well as the list of new author nominees that the committee awarded for a few years. 

There area few reasons I'm committed to reading as many of these books as I can.  One is simply that it challenges me to read things I would probably never read on my own because the books would never come to my attention, such as Australian writer Chloe Hooper's A Child's Book of True Crime.  Another reason is the list of authors is so diverse-- novelists from all corners of the globe, writing in all genres.  It challenges me to read writer's who offer a perspective outside my own social location and experience while at the same time allowing me to indulge in good British mystery when I feel like some comfort food reading.        

Mainly though, I read the Orange Prize books to show my solidarity and support for women writers.  There's been a lot of discussion, much heated, in recent years about the status and treatment of women authors in the public arena.  Some feel that the "Chick-Lit" label and all that entails has creeped in to contaminate literature written by women, as Diane Meier describes in the Huffington Post.  The whole label gets into issues of marketing and gender equality that are fascinating but more than I want to tackle in this blog post.  Suffice to say, as I often do, that's it's interesting to note that you don't see publishers branding Chris Ryan or Daniel Silva "Dick Lit." 

Other writer's have pointed out that prominent publications such as The New York Times show a bias towards male authors.  Both The New Republic and Slate have interesting articles that give background on the history of the "Franzen Feud" that sparked the observations and subsequent discussion as well as looking at the facts. And the fact is that women authors are less often reviewed in The New York Times and far less often given two reviews. 

So in my teensy weensy effort to counteract the New York Times and the mainstream press (cue music for illusions of grandeur here), I am presenting a new regular offering, your monthly dose of Vitamin C.  My review of an Orange Prize nominated book.  I think this post is long enough for today, however, so I'll post the first does of Vitamin C tomorrow.