The AWW Challenge 2018 provides people keen to support and encourage Australian women’s writing with a platform on which to publish reviews of books. Given my poor record last year, I hope it is not too late to apologise and re-commit. I’ve taken up the challenge since 2014, and it would be a pity to stop now.

A couple of severe – thankfully not life-threatening – illnesses, struck our house. My husband ended up in hospital for over a week  and spent time recuperating. Then a bout of a flu-like virus hit me really hard, in spite of taking preventative action and submitting to my annual vaccine. For a couple of months, I felt as if the stuffing had been knocked out of me.

Then my website got in on the act, and it too acted as if it was terminally ill. My blogs disappeared, many never to reappear. By the time the site was fixed, the year had almost ended.

But we are gluttons for punishment, my dear man and me. By October, we had put our house on the market and bought elsewhere. There was even less time to think about blogs and the AWW Challenge. I didn’t keep count of how many books I’d reviewed. I didn’t sign off.

Here we are, already in mid-February. We’ve settled into our apartment, my website runs smoothly and I’m ready to commit to the AWW Challenge 2018. Through the challenge, reviewers help to redress the balance of reviews which numerically tend to favour male writers in Australia. That must be good for everyone!

Many readers of my blog will know that there are different levels to the challenge, and that men and women are invited to review books. The AWW Challenge website provides information about the challenge including useful hints for reviewers. You can check it out here.

While you are there, perhaps you would like to read a review or two about books by your favourite Australian women writers. Perhaps you might like to look at these reviews, which are among my most popular blog posts (that is, most accessed) have been reviews of Joan London’s The Golden Age, and Helen Garner’s ‘Killing Daniel,’ a short piece in her book, rue Stories.

I love to read reviews by my friends and acquaintances, so if you haven’t reviewed before, why not join me? Like I said, it’s not too late. You can find the website here.

Levels of the AWW Challenge 2018

• Stella: read 4 – if reviewing, review at lea,st 3
• Miles: read 6 – if reviewing, review at least 4
• Franklin: read 10 – if reviewing, review at least 6
• Create your own challenge: nominate your own goal e.g. “Classic challenge”.

This year I plan to read six books, and review at least four. That’s less than I committed to last year, and I hope to meet the challenge by November.