Celebrating International Women’s Day!

March 8 is International Women’s Day, a celebration of the social, cultural, political and economic achievements of women around the world.

Here at Booktopia, we’ve created a collection of books in honour of International Women’s Day, covering activism, history, feminist fiction, and personal stories, as well as a whole section for kids.

In that vein, we thought we’d also take the opportunity on the blog today to shine a spotlight on women’s voices and highlight some of our recent Q&As with amazing authors like Clare Bowditch, Tara June Winch and Bri Lee, along with announcements, reviews, podcasts, and lots more fun stuff.

Read on!

In the news

The 2020 Stella Prize longlist

The Stella Prize is Australia’s biggest literary award that champions women’s writing, aiming to recognise the literary contributions of Australian women and bring their work to a wider readership. See all of the books that made it onto the 2020 longlist!

The Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist

Akin to Australia’s Stella Prize is the U.K.’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, which will be celebrating its 25th year as a literary prize in 2020. Previous winners have included Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles) and Tayari Jones (An American Marriage). See all of the books that made it onto the 2020 longlist!

Interviews

Clare Bowditch answers our Ten Terrifying Questions!

“My memoir is not about my success, it’s about the stories we tell ourselves and what happens when we believe them. I wrote this book because I promised my childhood self (age 21) I would one day have a better story to tell than the one I had lived to date, and that turned out to be true.”

Q&A with Vivian Pham, debut author of The Coconut Children

“I wanted to tell a story about our community from the inside out, not the outside in. Because of the crime and violence that characterised Cabra in the ’80s and ’90s, a time before I was born, its history has always felt like folklore to me, a little like being Vietnamese feels. What I mean is that, you feel there is a history that belongs to you, but which you don’t yet know, and don’t know how to know. So my intention in setting this novel in Cabramatta, in 1998, was to have some sort of grasp over the past, even if that meant fictionalising it.”

Sally Rugg on How Powerful We Are and LGBTQIA+ activism

“Change doesn’t happen because the powerful suddenly have a change of heart and decide to afford rights to the marginalised and oppressed. Change happens because we make it happen, because we fight for it.”

Q&A with Bri Lee, author of Beauty and Eggshell Skull

“Writing the book made me ask some hard questions about my own complicity in the system I was trying to critique. It also asks some questions about other people’s complicity in the system that hurts people. To paraphrase from The Beauty Myth, I don’t want to question what makes people feel good, only what makes them feel bad in the first place. It’s a fine and difficult line to balance.”

More interviews:

• Q&A with Annabel Crabb on Men at Work
• Helen Garner on Yellow Notebook
• Ellyse Perry on Perspective
• Favel Parrett on There Was Still Love
• Tara June Winch, author of The Yield, answers our Ten Terrifying Questions
• Charlotte Wood on The Weekend
• Heather Rose on Bruny
• Melissa Ashley on The Bee and the Orange Tree
• Emily Maguire on This is What a Feminist Looks Like
• Chloe Higgins on The Girls
• Val McDermid on crime fiction and How the Dead Speak
• Fatima Bhutto on The Runaways
• Georgie Dent on Breaking Badly
• Stephanie Wood on Fake

Reviews

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

Review by Ben Hunter: “Like its precursor, The Testaments is a superbly articulated speculation on the means by which a modern society could regress into totalitarian theocracy. Atwood vividly imagines how women could survive in this world of extreme misogyny, how they could be transformed into its custodians and enforcers.”

The Good Turn by Dervla McTiernan

Review by Sarah McDuling: “Tightly written and expertly crafted, The Good Turn lays out several seemingly separate strands of story and then proceeds to tangle them up in the most intriguing ways.”

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

Review by Olivia Fricot: “In My Dark Vanessa, readers will find a remarkable novel about a young woman in turmoil, written in unflinching prose that dares you to look away.”

More reviews:

• Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
• A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende
• The River Home by Hannah Richell
• Three Women by Lisa Taddeo
• The Confession by Jessie Burton
• The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
• Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
• Whisper Network by Chandler Baker
• City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
• Expectation by Anna Hope

Fun Stuff

Handsome, clever and rich … The new Emma film reviewed!

Review by Olivia Fricot: “Emma. is utterly delightful and resplendent with screwball charm from start to finish. With all respect to Clueless, I think this one might actually be my new favourite version!”

Feminist book trivia with Virginia Trioli, author of Generation F!

We decided to test Virginia Trioli with some feminist bookish trivia. See how she fared!

RECIPE: Chocolate cupcakes with coconut frosting by the Monday Morning Cooking Club

Lisa Goldberg, Merelyn Frank Chalmers, Natanya Eskin and Jacqui Israel from Sydney’s Jewish community came together almost 15 years ago as a sisterhood with a shared desire to uncover their food-obsessed community’s heirloom recipes. Check out their recipe for delicious chocolate and coconut cupcakes, straight from their new cookbook, Now For Something Sweet!

Listen to our podcast about Greta Gerwig’s Little Women adaptation!

Olivia, Sarah and Shanu discuss the new film – why we love the book so much, the casting of the March sisters, the performances, the costume design, THAT contentious ending, and why Amy March is the most underrated March sister.

More fun stuff:

• 10 exciting Australian novels coming soon (8 of which were written by women).
• Step Into Paradise with Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson!
• Tea Cooper: The story behind The Girl in the Painting
• Heidi Sze on motherhood and Nurturing Your New Life

Kids & Teens

Bronwyn Eley, author of Relic, on strong female characters

“Having strong female characters is one of the most important things to me when I’m writing young adult fiction … By “strong” I don’t necessarily mean the cut-throat, physically-capable, sword-wielding, tough-as-boots protagonist that you’re all probably picturing. I’m talking about women with flaws, women who struggle, women who overcome, women who challenge. Representing real women in my writing is what I mean, and real women are often strong not because they can wield a sword or because they shove their boldness or strength in other people’s faces. Women are strong because they have a rainbow of emotions and characteristics – some good, some bad – and can still work day-by-day to be a better person.”

Read a Q&A with Astrid Scholte, author of The Vanishing Deep

Astrid: “For The Vanishing Deep, I wanted the world to be essentially deceased, as the story is about life and death. With the current issue of climate change, I thought it would be timely to create a fantastical world with environmental issues that parallels our own.”

Yumi Stynes and Dr Melissa Kang on Welcome to Your Period!

Author Yumi Stynes teamed up with former Dolly Doctor Melissa Kang to create a one-stop-shop resource for the weird and messy world of reproductive health for teens. Welcome to your period!

More for kids & teens:

• REVIEW: Chain of Gold by Cassandra Clare
• Read a Q&A with Lisa Harvey-Smith, author of Under the Stars
• REVIEW: A Heart so Fierce and Broken by Brigid Kemmerer
• Sami Bayly, author of The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Ugly Animals, answers our Ten Terrifying Questions!
• REVIEW: The Magnolia Sword by Sherry Thomas
• REVIEW: Chasing the Shadows by Maria V. Snyder
• Is it ‘octopuses’ or ‘octopi’? We interviewed Claire Zorn to find out!
• Lynette Noni on Weapon and The Medoran Chronicles!
• Emily Rodda on The Glimme
• Read a Q&A with Lisa Fuller, author of Ghost Bird

Find out more about International Women’s Day here

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