Once upon a time (well, last January), writer and illustrator Joanna Walsh launched the #ReadWomen2014 hashtag on Twitter. Her purpose was two-fold:
1. to encourage and celebrate reading books written by women, and
2. to draw attention to the dearth of female writers and reviewers represented in the pages of literary journals.
Walsh was inspired, in part, by the sobering numbers produced by the annual VIDA count, an analysis of the gender disparity in literary publications and book reviews. Continue reading