#readwomen2014: who will you read in 2014?

2014 has been declared as the year of reading women by the Guardian in an article. This article now went viral with the hashtag: #readwomen 2014, with more and more readers joining, and new notes and links appearing continually in the twitterstream. Here's the key line from the original article:

 "Female authors are marginalised by newspapers and literary journals, and their books are given 'girly' covers. Take action against this inequality by making sure the next book you read is by a woman."

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#readwomen2014 
Here are the links to the original article, the twitterstream and a tagboard with collected messages:  

• the original article by Joanna Walsh: Will #readwomen2014 change our sexist reading habits? 
• Joanna Walsh's blog with cards +list: readwomen2014 - The List
• Twitterstream: #readwomen2014
• Goodreads book list: The Year of Reading Women
• Tagboard: #readwomen 2014

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blog links

And some links to related features in this blog:

• Women to Read in SciFi: Where to Start & New Voices
• Blue Fifth Review: "Male Voices" + & "Glass Woman Special"  with many extra links, including: Race, Class, Gender & Sexuality in Indie Publishing + indie lit scene gender imbalance
• Elevate Difference
• The Glass Woman Prize
• The Afghan Women's Writing Project
• The politics of fiction + Reading and Race

Words without Borders: Kurdish Literature

In their new issue, the international online magazine Words without Borders is featuring Kurdish Literature: "This month we present writing by Kurdish authors. Writers from the various regions and dialects of Kurdistan consider questions of nation, language, and identity, providing fresh perspectives on this ancient culture and its contemporary conflicts."

Issue Link: Kurdish Literature
Bakhtiyar Ali describes an assassin's tipping point. Yavuz Ekinci's widow remembers the true love of her youth. Murathan Mungan draws on the Kurdish oral tradition. Alber Sabanoglu surveys recent writing about the history of Kurds in Turkey. Poet Abdulla Pashew blends political and personal longing...

About Words Without Borders
Founded in 2003, Words without Borders promotes cultural understanding through the translation, publication, and promotion of the finest contemporary international literature. Our publications and programs open doors for readers of English around the world to the multiplicity of viewpoints, richness of experience, and literary perspective on world events offered by writers in other languages.

Recent Issues include:

• October 2013 - African Women, Indigenous Language 
• August 2013 - Brazil
• July 2013 - Iran's Postrevolution Generation
• May 2013 - North Korean Defectors 
• April 2013 - Iraq, Ten Years Later 
• March 2013 - Spain's Great Untranslated

"I Hear the Wind Waiting" - Leaf Press 2014 co-op poem

Since 2009, the editors of Leaf Press organize a collaborate winter poem for the start of the year, collecting couplets from different poets, to publish as co-op poem on the first Monday of the new year.

The theme for 2014 is: "Wind" - the poem is now online at: Leafpress coop poem 2014: I Hear the Wind Waiting

It's composed of lines by 37 poets, here the first 3 lines from 3 contributors:

"Thoughts, tousled by the wind

signposts of past years

There are thos who listen, see it,..."

No one knew what the others wrote, the brief guidelines were: "An entry consists of one line or one couplet. Each line approximately 12 syllables."

The co-op series
And  here, for the joy of poetic cooperation, the previous poems:
2013 - tree
2012 - Lines Drawn from Greening Winds
2011 - The Change in Winter Light
2010 - Cold
2009 - Snow

About Leaf Press
Leaf Press is an independent press located on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Ursula Vaira founded Leaf in 2001 as a poetry chapbook publisher. Since 2007 Leaf has been publishing trade poetry while continuing the chapbook tradition and the weekly on-line Monday's Poem.

"Be There Now" - a collection of true travel stories

"Be There Now" is a collection of true travel stories featuring twenty-two contributors who share adventures and escapades from around the world.

The stories include the tale of an amateurish kidnapping in Nicaragua that could have been told by Woody Allen, and a David Sedaris-esque tale of two ships passing in a Paris art supply store. Existential stories from a man lost on the flooded Amazon River at night, and from a woman who encounters a grizzly–in the same area where her father and stepmother were killed by a bear.

Insightful stories about a woman’s spiritual journey in Peru (complete with hallucinogens!), and about a female journalist’s friendship with an Iraqi translator in Syria. And stories about endangered species in exotic locales, including helping a sea turtle lay its eggs on a Costa Rican beach, and taking a blind man to visit the mountain gorillas in Rwanda.

The book is available as paperback ($12) or as e-book for very travel-friendly 99 cents (link).  It's published by the indie book publisher "Dream of Things", you can find more about the book on their website: "Be There Now". 

Stories, places and authors include: 

• Foreword by Mike O’Mary, Series Editor; Introduction by Julie Rand, Editor
• Once in a Lifetime [Guatemala] by Terri Elders
• Talk About “Embarrasant” [France] by Dominick Domingo
• Día de los Muertos [Mexico] by Kathe Kokolias
• Demon Blockers [China] by Jennifer Choban
• Still Alive [Syria] by Kelly Hayes-Raitt
• The Happiest Place on Earth [Disneyland] by Dina Kucera
• Berlin [Germany] by Jennifer Lang
• A Quick and Cozy Kidnapping [Nicaragua] by Ben Bellizzi
• Turbulence [On a plane] by Roz Warren
• Encounter [Alaska] by Shannon Huffman Polson
• Perfect Pulpo [Mexico] by Suzanne LaFetra
• Where Light Germinates [Peru] by Melissa Heisler
• The Jigg’s Up [Newfoundland] by Carol McAdoo Rehme
• A Trembling Voice [Costa Rica] by Frank Izaguirre
• Horse, Horse, Tiger, Tiger [China] by Ferida Wolff
• Open Eye [New Mexico] by Lynn Pinkerton
• In the Footsteps of Fossey [Rwanda] by Irene Morse
• Driving Compassionately [Bali] by Peter Marmorek
• Pickles and Hiccups [On the way home] by Randy Richardson
• Treks [Kathmandu] by Katherine Horrigan
• Virtual Travel [On the Internet] by Trendle Ellwood
• Nowhere [Drifting in the heavens] by William Hillyard