Revealing my secret project: Knowing Her Words and Worlds

I am going to embark on something: I am calling it Knowing Her Words and Worlds.

In short, I am going to attempt to read the entire back catalogue of female writers who I feel have shaped the Australian speculative fiction field.  This is why I was asking for “must reads” yesterday.

I have a small list of names.  Some who are personal favourites of mine, some who I’ve barely read and had suggested to me by others (and thank you to those who offered suggestions – more suggestions are welcome at any time).  I’m not going to reveal my list at this stage, since it will likely be something that will grow and change as time goes on.

I can reveal who I am starting with, and it’s Kirstyn McDermott (link goes to her bibliography).

I have several reasons for starting with Kirstyn.  First, it was listening to her being interviewed on Galactic Chat that gave me the idea.  I became a massive fan of Kirstyn’s work last year while reading for the Australian Shadows Awards (which she subsequently won in the short fiction section).  Kirstyn has also recently been awarded an Aurealis Award for her debut novel Madigan Mine.  I got thinking, and realised that I’d only read the most recent of Kirstyn’s published stories, and got the idea in my head to go back and read them all.

And frankly, Kirstyn is awesome, both on a personal and professional level

I don’t even know if this is going to be possible.  I’m willing to buy copies of anthologies and zines containing work, but many are out of print.  If the authors are willing to send me copies of any out of print work, that would be much appreciated (and I’m happy to pay for such as well).  I’m going to do my best to cover as much as I can, and post a series of reviews of the work.  And if I can pin down the writers at the end of reading their work, I’d like to interview them as well.

Overall, I have no firm plans, and will just see how things go.  And if anyone feels like joining in on this, then go right ahead.

Now I have to go and begin the task of collecting everything I need to read!

EDITED TO ADD: I also owe recognition to the amazing Galactic Suburbia for getting me thinking along these lines in the first place

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.