Australian Women Writers

[helloladies]

We're happy to welcome Elizabeth Fitzgerald to Lady Business today to give us the rundown on all the amazing women writers who helped carve out space in the literary scene of Australia and the women currently writing today. Thanks, Elizabeth!

Australian Women Writers

What makes a good list? On episode #44 of Fangirl Happy Hour, you probably heard special guest Gin Jenny of Reading the End offer her criteria: time period, tone, race, and gender. I have one other that I like to add to that: nationality. Being biased, this usually means I’m looking for Australian authors.

Being an Australian reader and fan is an interesting thing. We have such a strong SFF scene and I find it disappointing how little that gets recognised on an international scope. As a book blogger, I try to counter this by keeping a focus (mostly) on home-grown work, and I always keep an eye on Australian representation in award nominations and recommendation lists.

So when I recently ran across a list of 100 SFF novels written by women, I scanned it eagerly for familiar names. After all, Australia has an excellent tradition when it comes to female SFF writers—particularly in fantasy, as author and critic Tansy Rayner Roberts has noted. I was disappointed to see that in this list of 100 there were just two: Juliet Marillier and KJ Bishop. Both are brilliant authors (and Kirsten is an amazing sculptor to boot), but there were dozens of deserving names that could be added.

I realise no list can be definitive. More than anything, they should serve as a starting point for further exploration of a topic. With that in mind, I offer you my own list.

If you’re a reader looking for a general introduction to Australian women SFF writers, the Twelve Planets series from Twelfth Planet Press is a good place to start. These are short, single-author collections by some of Australia’s finest writers. Each book contains four stories and are a great way to dip in and get a feel for whether this author is for you.( Read more... )

20/08/16: Minor corrections have been made to this post since it went up. Trudi Canavan's fantasy is not YA as previously stated, and Lisa Hannet's "Lament For The Afterlife" is a novel not a collection of short stories.