Increasing Visibilty of Women Authors

Well, it's a bit soon to discuss the 2015 A-Z Blogging Challenge, but I've decided to join it this year. I've been thinking more about visibility of authors, particularly women authors and indie authors. For example, this post, which was shared on the Broad Universe Facebook page, discusses the struggles of a traditionally published female SF/fantasy writer and how more difficult it is to gain attention and sales as a woman writer. That said, I don't think the solution is to adopt a male pseudonym. I am who I am, and I write about what moves me. It may not resonate with every single person in the world--not that that's possible--but I write to reach the people, however few or many, who can grok what I have to say. That can't happen if I hide a fundamental part of my identity. And why should women hide who we are? While I don't track author gender, I probably read more women authors than men, and there are some highly skilled women authors out there. Women create great aliens and worlds, come up with witty dialogue, rock their science and action scenes, and evoke emotion.  Some women writers are more well-known than others, but they all deserve an audience.

Accordingly, I will dedicate my blogging during the month of April 2015 to featuring women authors of science fiction and fantasy. I already have my schedule and list of names drawn up, and there's so much awesomeness out there I couldn't limit myself to twenty-six authors. As of now, I have nearly sixty authors on my schedule, though this may change between now and April. I just have to decide on the format for each author before I start preparing my posts.

In an ideal world, writers would be judged on their merits, not their identities. If this world will not come about from the top down, we must build it from the bottom up, author by author, book by book, reader by reader. Let's build it together.