This year Jae is running a Sapphic Reading Challenge: 50 categories, from which you can choose to read 10, 20, 50, or 100 books. There’ll be a big giveaway at the end of the year, although, as Jae says, “real prize, of course, is discovering a lot of awesome books and new favorite authors”.
My Stancester books, Speak Its Name and The Real World, fit a few of the categories:
- Character with a disability or mental illness (7) – depression ended up being a major element of The Real World, though I don’t think I ever actually mentioned the word. I wrote a bit about that here.
- Character is a book lover (8) – Lydia is doing an English Literature in Speak Its Name. By The Real World she’s mostly reading school stories.
- Genre you don’t usually read (15) – well, I don’t know what you usually read, but if you don’t usually read literary fiction with overtly religious characters then these might fit.
- Shy or socially awkward character (27) – Colette. It’s probably more obvious in The Real World, which is told from her point of view.
- Bisexual or pansexual character (37) – Colette, again.
- Part of a series (43) – either one would work, obviously! The Real World makes sense without having read Speak Its Name, but you do learn a couple of major plot points that you can’t then unknow.
- Character works in STEM (48) – Colette’s studying chemistry at undergraduate level in Speak Its Name and working on her PhD in The Real World.
My short story Prima Donna appears in Supposed Crimes’ anthology Upstaged: an anthology of queer women and the performing arts, which would fit Anthology, short story collection, or novella (50).
And of course I might be a new-to-you author (45).
Jae also has a giveaway running now, so if you fancy winning a special journal in which to track your challenge progress, see this post.
Enjoy!
Kathleen Jowitt 