International Women’s Day 2018

We usually like to celebrate International Women’s Day bookishly at The Little Contemporary Corner. You can see one of our past posts HERE which i really enjoyed creating. This year to celebrate i wanted to pull together a list of women authors that i love and admire.

There are plenty of authors at the moment that are championing diversity, social issues and feminism, there are a lot of women authors to look up to at the moment. The one thing i really love about celebrating authors on International Women’s Day is that we can talk more about the way books can impact on young people and the way they learn.

Many female authors are popular, but not necessarily pushing forward the development of women in society. I wanted to talk about all of the women that i feel are writing in order to improve girl’s sense of themselves in society and pushing younger people to be the best they can be.

One of the women that i wanted to talk about is Hannah Witton. She started out as a YouTuber that talked about sex and promoted safety and respect. She’s always been a woman took look up to, and that only became more apparent when Doing It was released. I picked up Doing It because i’d seen a few video’s of Hannah, but i was no expecting such a wonderful read about everything sex related. If there is one woman for young girls to look up to it’s Hannah. She champions respect in the bedroom and the confidence that all women should have for themselves. She’s such a wonderful lady.

Juno Dawson is easily one of the most inspirational women to me. Although i love her novels, it’s her non-fiction writing that i find incredibly important. This Book Is Gay, Mind Your Head and The Gender Games all discuss very different but very wonderful topics. Not only done Juno champion the importance and normalcy of sexuality, she has also delved in to talking about mental health. Writing about these topics for a YA audience is not very talked about at the moment and to have someone talk so openly about mental health, gender and sexuality i find very inspirational. I adore Juno as a person, however as an author i find her one of the most talented and uplifting people the UK has to offer.

Holly Bourne is an author i never thought i’d include in a post about International Women’s Day. I was never overly fond of her writing or the way her stories were constructed. That was until i read It Only Happens In The Movies. The whole premise of It Only Happens In The Movies is that the main character is showing her own identity within a relationship and promoting feminism among young women. I’ve heard her other novels are similar in content. I really appreciate what Holly Bourne is doing for women in literature.

I mentioned Nicola Yoon in last years post, however i think she deserves a second mention. Everything Everything and also The Sun Is Also A Star are some of the most diverse YA novels i’ve had the pleasure of reading. Her characters are from different backgrounds and cultures and it gives a very positive insight in to what is happening in YA at the moment. Without a doubt Nicola has been the lead of the change in diversity in YA in the last few years, and i love her books for that. All that aside, she’s an incredible author who is telling very well written and thought out stories. She’s definitely a woman to be looked up to.

I wanted to give a quick mention to Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu and also Things A Bright Girl Can Do by Sally Nicholls. These two novels that were released in the last year have been two of the most talked about feminism books in YA. They both have very different stories but highlight strong independent women of different ages and in different situations. Both books are absolutely lovely reads, and are very important for International Women’s Day. Make sure you pick them up.

As a side note, i’d like to mention the women from A Change Is Gonna Come anthology. This anthology was released last year and has so many wonderful women in it that are making big changes in the diversity of YA. We held a read-along last year for A Change Is Gonna Come and i loved the stories written by so many inspirational women. I also really loved the fact that some authors were given a platform as an unagented author to write for such an important anthology. This definitely deserves a mention on International Women’s Day.

 

I hope you have a wonderful International Women’s Day and celebrate the women in your life that make it absolutely incredible and push you to be the best you can be. I’m very lucky to have such incredible women around me day to day and also get to read from such inspirational people. Go celebrate everything that women have achieved.