The 2020 #ReadingWomenChallenge! _ 2019 _ Kendra Winchester

**Reading Women Challenge: An Overview**

The Reading Women Challenge is a literary initiative that aims to promote and celebrate women's literature, diversity, and inclusivity in the world of reading. The challenge was designed to encourage participants to read books by women authors, explore different genres, and engage with various themes and topics.

One of the key features of the challenge is its open-ended nature, allowing participants to interpret prompts in their own way. For example, when it comes to mythology and folklore, the challenge doesn't require strict adherence to specific themes or genres. Instead, participants are encouraged to explore different areas, such as visual artists, book-to-movie adaptations, and biographies.

**Prompt 1: Mythology and Folklore**

For this prompt, we wanted to create a list of books that feature women authors or about women. The challenge is open-ended, but the idea was to focus on visual artists, such as painters, sculptors, pottery makers, and sewers. This allows participants to explore different creative pursuits and artistic expressions.

**Prompt 2: Book-to-Movie Adaptations**

For this prompt, we encouraged participants to read and watch book-to-movie adaptations. If a participant is visually impaired and cannot access an audio description file version of the movie, they can also listen to a radio dramatization as an alternative. This flexibility acknowledges that not everyone may have equal access to audio descriptions or visual representations.

**Prompt 3: Women Authors**

For this prompt, we asked participants to read books by women authors who inspire them. The challenge is open-ended, and participants are encouraged to interpret the prompt in their own way. Some participants may find inspiration in historical figures, while others may prefer contemporary authors.

**Prompt 4: Arab Women**

For this prompt, we clarified that an "Arab woman" refers to a woman from a country with Arab cultural heritage, rather than a person of Middle Eastern descent. Participants are encouraged to research and understand the nuances of Arab culture and its relationship to women's experiences.

**Prompt 5: Japanese Authors**

For this prompt, we recognized the importance of exploring literature from Japan, particularly given Sachi's Japanese-American background. The challenge aims to highlight themes that will be featured in future prompts, making it an Easter egg for readers who want to stay engaged with the challenge.

**Prompt 6: Biographies**

For this prompt, we defined biographies as books written by someone other than the subject being described. This distinction helps participants understand the difference between autobiographical and biographical works.

**Prompt 7: Women with Disabilities**

This prompt was inspired by the creator of the challenge and aims to promote diversity in literature that features women with disabilities. Participants are encouraged to explore different types of disabilities, including mental health-related, chronic illness, and learning disabilities.

**Prompt 8: Long and Short Books**

For this prompt, we acknowledged that book lengths can vary significantly, and participants should feel free to read books of any length. However, some prompts, such as the one about biographies, may require a minimum or maximum page count.

**Prompt 9: Recommendations and Recommendations from Authors**

We asked participants to consider recommendations for books that have been frequently suggested by friends or authors. This prompt encourages participants to explore different perspectives and find new titles to read.

**Prompt 10: Feel-Good Books and Food**

For this prompt, we encouraged participants to read feel-good books that leave them with a positive impression. We also included a bonus prompt about books related to food, which was inspired by Jacqueline's love for culinary literature.

**Prompt 11: Publishers and Authors**

We recognized the importance of exploring authors from diverse publishers and publishing countries. Participants are encouraged to research and understand the nuances of different publishing traditions and countries.

**Prompt 12-24: Additional Prompts**

The remaining prompts, including those about LGBTQ+ authors, shortlisted books for the 2019 Reading Women Challenge, and Japanese authors, offer a range of options for participants to explore different genres, themes, and topics. Each prompt is designed to be flexible and inclusive, allowing participants to interpret them in their own way.

**Additional Resources and Support**

Throughout the challenge, we encouraged participants to engage with each other, share their experiences, and provide support. We also created a playlist for the 2020 Reading Women Challenge, which will feature music from participants who have read books that fit the prompts. Participants are welcome to message us with any questions or comments they may have.

**Conclusion**

The Reading Women Challenge is an inclusive and diverse literary initiative that celebrates women's literature and promotes diversity in reading. By embracing open-ended prompts and flexible interpretations, we aim to create a community of readers who share a passion for exploring different genres, themes, and topics. Whether you're a seasoned reader or just starting out, the challenge offers something for everyone, and we look forward to sharing it with you.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello my name is Kendra Winchester and welcome back to my channel today I am gonna be talking about the 2028 reading women challenge every year on reading women we host the reading women challenge which focuses on books getting readers to read books outside of their comfort zones and maybe discover new to them favorite authors which is always one of my favorite things as a reader discovering favorite authors for the first time like Mira Jacob I read both of her books this year and she is amazing I digress I really love this challenge because it helps people find different areas the bookish world they may not have realized before they might read a different type of literature like a graphic novel or romance novel and they didn't even know they liked those kinds of books and I've had such a wonderful time getting feedback from different challenge participants for the last two years and so I'm really excited for this year's so I'm gonna go through all of the prompts answer the frequently asked questions generally about the challenge and just go through that so that this video is also a resource to people participating in the challenge in the future and so I will link this on the main challenge page but if you're watching this on YouTube the main challenge page will be linked down below but before I get into answering all of your questions let's talk about these beautiful tote bags that I have been working on for the last few months so this is a very sturdy canvas tote bag it has these handles and I wanted the woven handles not like the plastic nylon ones because I have preferences I have strong preferences and this also has a flat bottom so that you can set it up and it sits on its own I wanted it to be a great tote bag for a library run in particular because that's what I use most of my tote bags for and so this one is very sturdy and it stands on its own it's also a darker color so when you set it on the ground it doesn't like show all of the dirt or whatever it's easier to clean I actually went to the bacteria and they pulled out all of their tote bags I went through them and I said this one but in navy do you have a navy so yes I love this tote bag this is the dream tote bag that I would want to go and get books in so let me go check that out on reading with Etsy store we also have 20% off our hardback book blend 8 so if you want me to pick up a book for you and send it to you now is the time we have so many different options and I love doing this is when my favorite parts of the reading Minh story it's picking out book blind dates we also have enamel pins and we also have this t-shirt campaign going on until like December 21st so if you would like to check out all of these different things please do so we greatly appreciate your support and I'm also just very excited about these taupe all right the challenge here we go all right so general questions about the challenge there are 24 challenges that's 2 per month average and there's also two bonus prompts the two bonus prompts are to read authors and we pick authors that are sort of like contemporary classic authors that you may not have read yet or maybe they're one of your favorites who knows so we've done Virginia and Flannery which is what our logo is based off of that was the first year the second year we did Jhumpa Lahiri and just one word two more of our favorites and this year we've done toni morrison and isabel allende and these are also obviously to women who are amazing stellar writers and so we did do that is what these bonus prompts are based off authors who are particularly like classic named forerunners of contemporary literature and so we love them so by answering that question I guess and so are some general questions aside from that yes you can read a book for multiple prompts at the same time basically as many prompts as you like some people for her only do one book per prompt but some people try to find a book that fits as many prompts as possible which is what my mother did last year and she read one book for like six prompts which was very impressive I must say in general we look for books by or about women and all spirit of the challenge is basically to not read books by men so you can take that as you will but I want to put that note because some people are trying to read Madame Bovary and like Anna Karenina for these challenges and that's not that's not this period of the job great books and you want to read them but that's not really what we're looking for so I would recommend checking out the Goodreads group which has discussion board for each prompt and you can go find recommendations okay that's all the general ones let's go through the prompts some of these are self-explanatory some I will stop and talk about okay number one is a book by an author from the Caribbean or India every year we get asked why these random two places are in this first prompt and we actually look at different english-language book markets I don't think many people realize that there are large English language writing communities and publishing communities outside of the United States in the UK that just aren't recognized so we pick a big one in like a smaller one so we have the Caribbean this year and we have India India it's now like you know the second largest English language book market after the United States and so it seemed fitting also one of our co-hosts is her family is from India so this is where she currently lives so it was bidding it was very fitting so many options we also decided this year that we wanted to make sure there was a translation prompt on every challenge because we not we don't just look at this challenge as you know a whole we look at what has come before and what we plan to do in the future so we decided to do a tour of the continents and so this is our first year doing that so we have a book translated from an Asian language you also don't have to be reading any of these books in English so you could just read a book that was translated from an Asian language into your language we try to make it so you can read in whatever language you like as much as possible okay the third prompt is a book about the environment so we will look a book about the environment or Maya mentalism this is very loosely translated so feel free to go forth and read whatever so you like number four is a picture book written or and/or illustrated by a by Parker which is a black indigenous people of color that's what that stands for if you like to know more about the BI POC acronym you can go check out the website that's linked on the challenge page so we also like to feature a literary prize every year on the challenge this year we have two we have four number five it's a winner of the Stella prize or the women's prize for fiction and I highly encourage people to look at the Stella prize because these are the books that a lot of people haven't read yet and so that's something that you want to check out but both of these prizes our book our book prizes that feature women and have prizes for literature written by women so it seemed appropriate for this challenge and we hope that you have fun looking at a whole they're back lists of past winners which I've enjoyed researching this so number six is a nonfiction book by a woman historian this is very loosely translated a lot of you can choose also a book of a bunch of mini biographies if you like so if they're featuring multiple women in one book that's fine as well number seven is a book featuring afrofuturism or african futurism which is separate so this is a bit more complicated but this is inspired by Bessie who's working on her master's thesis on afrofuturism so she is going to be joining us for our February theme which is F her futurism now Nettie okorafor who wrote binti the venti trilogy says that her fiction is not after futurism it's African features 'm because afrofuturism is very American centric and Hideo core4 is writing books that aren't American centric so you can see all of the links definitions and resources of these in the challenge page there's also a list of authors I will say there's been some questions is this author and after a futurist author and the thing is is that a person might be writing black fantasy and then their next book might be after a futurism so you can't really just pick one author which is what originally what I thought as well and then I learned more about it and it's like Oh different writers change how what they write about and the style that they're writing and and the different influences so I think it's important to note that but common used afro-futurist titles are NK jemisin Estabrook and earth trilogy escaping Exodus by Nicki tradin dread nation by Justyna Ireland mind mind of my mind by Octavia Butler dark matter which is an apology and redemption in indigo by Karen Lord and so many others so definitely go check out that prompt on the challenge page if you have questions because there's a whole list there that Betty has given me and she's also a moderator basically for that single prompt on Goodreads bless her I love you busy wonderful and so that is something that we are gonna be learning more about this year which I am very excited alright number eight is an anthology of multiple authors there can be men in the anthology and it can be edited also by a man but preferably more women than men contributors and preferably a woman editor but you know interpret that as you so desire prompt number nine is a book inspired by folklore we have already done a book inspired by mythology and a book is inspired by fairy tales so now we are onto folklore I did notice there's a lot of overlap in the mythology and folklore area if it features both that's totally fine if you have any questions definitely go check out the resources which I feel like is going to be what I say with every one of these prompts from number ten is a book featuring a woman artist or about woman artist and this is more visual artists we wanted to do like painters and sculptors and pottery makers and like sewers and all sorts of different things so think visual artist that's the kind of the direction that we want to go with this particular prompt number eleven is read and watch a book to movie adaption so if you were a person who is visually impaired and also this is pretty straightforward but I did want to answer the question if you are visually impaired and you cannot find an audio description file version of the movie that you want to a watch for this prompt you can also listen to a radio dramatization if that's the situation that you're in and so that way it is more accessible but the idea is just sort of like an adaption so you can see more details if you want clarification over again on the challenge page I'm just gonna quit saying that just know after every prompt that is the case my goodness so number twelve is a book by a woman who inspires you it's really up to you and how you interpret that thirteen is a book by an Arab woman and there's some confusion about whether the woman is Middle Eastern or an Arab woman an Arab woman is not necessarily a little Eastern woman so just do your research Google and just Google the country the author is from and any country that's mentioned in a prompt the Diaspora for that country also counts you can have an American Palestinian woman or a Palestinian American or whatever version that it might be and that totally counts as well next is 14 is a book set in Japan or by a Japanese author this of course is inspired by Sachi who's japanese-american and so I thought that this would be very appropriate prompt because we do have some themes in the works that I don't want to spoil but a lot of these prompts also are Easter eggs for our themes for the future so definitely keep an eye on that 15 is a biography now the idea is that this is written by a woman about it would be great if it was also about women though not necessary you could read something else but just to clarify that biography is not autobiography or memoir it's a book written about someone by someone else 16 is the prompt that was inspired by me a book about a woman with a disability so this features all different types of disabilities whether they be mental health related chronic illness or even a learning disability whatever the case may be that is qualifies for this prompt 17 is a book over 500 pages and 18 is a book under 100 pages pretty self-explanatory there has been some questions about translation and I think if the translation is way larger than your version in the whatever language you're reading it's totally fine if they're close enough I will leave that to your discretion but that is a very interesting idea that if you were able to read it in original language it would be way longer than if you're reading it in yours interesting go check out the Goodreads page for that one because that was an interesting conversation and really enlightening honestly 19 is a book frequently recommended to you different per person 20 is a feel-good or happy book again up to you 21 is a book about food this was inspired by Jacqueline and I so obviously always obsessed with food definitely 22 is a book by either hurt or new to you publisher and this is the publisher from which the book comes from and obviously publishers change per country so it's really just up to you and where you live and what books you want to read 23 is a book by an lgbtq+ author and 24 is a book that was shortlisted or an honorable mention for the 2019 reading women challenge and those lists are linked on the main challenge page so that is the entire of the challenge if you have any other questions that I have not answered please ask them I often add them to the main challenge page in the frequently asked questions section so that other people can have that resource as well but definitely tell me what you are planning to read if you have a TBR that you want to post to booktube I definitely tag reading women challenge in it and I'm gonna be making a 2020 reading women challenge playlist and I will try to add that as well if I miss it feel free to message me and send it to me because I am trying to find all of these but sometimes they slip through and I'm gonna make sure that I am including everyone who would like to participate alright that's it and I'll see you in the next one bye guyshello my name is Kendra Winchester and welcome back to my channel today I am gonna be talking about the 2028 reading women challenge every year on reading women we host the reading women challenge which focuses on books getting readers to read books outside of their comfort zones and maybe discover new to them favorite authors which is always one of my favorite things as a reader discovering favorite authors for the first time like Mira Jacob I read both of her books this year and she is amazing I digress I really love this challenge because it helps people find different areas the bookish world they may not have realized before they might read a different type of literature like a graphic novel or romance novel and they didn't even know they liked those kinds of books and I've had such a wonderful time getting feedback from different challenge participants for the last two years and so I'm really excited for this year's so I'm gonna go through all of the prompts answer the frequently asked questions generally about the challenge and just go through that so that this video is also a resource to people participating in the challenge in the future and so I will link this on the main challenge page but if you're watching this on YouTube the main challenge page will be linked down below but before I get into answering all of your questions let's talk about these beautiful tote bags that I have been working on for the last few months so this is a very sturdy canvas tote bag it has these handles and I wanted the woven handles not like the plastic nylon ones because I have preferences I have strong preferences and this also has a flat bottom so that you can set it up and it sits on its own I wanted it to be a great tote bag for a library run in particular because that's what I use most of my tote bags for and so this one is very sturdy and it stands on its own it's also a darker color so when you set it on the ground it doesn't like show all of the dirt or whatever it's easier to clean I actually went to the bacteria and they pulled out all of their tote bags I went through them and I said this one but in navy do you have a navy so yes I love this tote bag this is the dream tote bag that I would want to go and get books in so let me go check that out on reading with Etsy store we also have 20% off our hardback book blend 8 so if you want me to pick up a book for you and send it to you now is the time we have so many different options and I love doing this is when my favorite parts of the reading Minh story it's picking out book blind dates we also have enamel pins and we also have this t-shirt campaign going on until like December 21st so if you would like to check out all of these different things please do so we greatly appreciate your support and I'm also just very excited about these taupe all right the challenge here we go all right so general questions about the challenge there are 24 challenges that's 2 per month average and there's also two bonus prompts the two bonus prompts are to read authors and we pick authors that are sort of like contemporary classic authors that you may not have read yet or maybe they're one of your favorites who knows so we've done Virginia and Flannery which is what our logo is based off of that was the first year the second year we did Jhumpa Lahiri and just one word two more of our favorites and this year we've done toni morrison and isabel allende and these are also obviously to women who are amazing stellar writers and so we did do that is what these bonus prompts are based off authors who are particularly like classic named forerunners of contemporary literature and so we love them so by answering that question I guess and so are some general questions aside from that yes you can read a book for multiple prompts at the same time basically as many prompts as you like some people for her only do one book per prompt but some people try to find a book that fits as many prompts as possible which is what my mother did last year and she read one book for like six prompts which was very impressive I must say in general we look for books by or about women and all spirit of the challenge is basically to not read books by men so you can take that as you will but I want to put that note because some people are trying to read Madame Bovary and like Anna Karenina for these challenges and that's not that's not this period of the job great books and you want to read them but that's not really what we're looking for so I would recommend checking out the Goodreads group which has discussion board for each prompt and you can go find recommendations okay that's all the general ones let's go through the prompts some of these are self-explanatory some I will stop and talk about okay number one is a book by an author from the Caribbean or India every year we get asked why these random two places are in this first prompt and we actually look at different english-language book markets I don't think many people realize that there are large English language writing communities and publishing communities outside of the United States in the UK that just aren't recognized so we pick a big one in like a smaller one so we have the Caribbean this year and we have India India it's now like you know the second largest English language book market after the United States and so it seemed fitting also one of our co-hosts is her family is from India so this is where she currently lives so it was bidding it was very fitting so many options we also decided this year that we wanted to make sure there was a translation prompt on every challenge because we not we don't just look at this challenge as you know a whole we look at what has come before and what we plan to do in the future so we decided to do a tour of the continents and so this is our first year doing that so we have a book translated from an Asian language you also don't have to be reading any of these books in English so you could just read a book that was translated from an Asian language into your language we try to make it so you can read in whatever language you like as much as possible okay the third prompt is a book about the environment so we will look a book about the environment or Maya mentalism this is very loosely translated so feel free to go forth and read whatever so you like number four is a picture book written or and/or illustrated by a by Parker which is a black indigenous people of color that's what that stands for if you like to know more about the BI POC acronym you can go check out the website that's linked on the challenge page so we also like to feature a literary prize every year on the challenge this year we have two we have four number five it's a winner of the Stella prize or the women's prize for fiction and I highly encourage people to look at the Stella prize because these are the books that a lot of people haven't read yet and so that's something that you want to check out but both of these prizes our book our book prizes that feature women and have prizes for literature written by women so it seemed appropriate for this challenge and we hope that you have fun looking at a whole they're back lists of past winners which I've enjoyed researching this so number six is a nonfiction book by a woman historian this is very loosely translated a lot of you can choose also a book of a bunch of mini biographies if you like so if they're featuring multiple women in one book that's fine as well number seven is a book featuring afrofuturism or african futurism which is separate so this is a bit more complicated but this is inspired by Bessie who's working on her master's thesis on afrofuturism so she is going to be joining us for our February theme which is F her futurism now Nettie okorafor who wrote binti the venti trilogy says that her fiction is not after futurism it's African features 'm because afrofuturism is very American centric and Hideo core4 is writing books that aren't American centric so you can see all of the links definitions and resources of these in the challenge page there's also a list of authors I will say there's been some questions is this author and after a futurist author and the thing is is that a person might be writing black fantasy and then their next book might be after a futurism so you can't really just pick one author which is what originally what I thought as well and then I learned more about it and it's like Oh different writers change how what they write about and the style that they're writing and and the different influences so I think it's important to note that but common used afro-futurist titles are NK jemisin Estabrook and earth trilogy escaping Exodus by Nicki tradin dread nation by Justyna Ireland mind mind of my mind by Octavia Butler dark matter which is an apology and redemption in indigo by Karen Lord and so many others so definitely go check out that prompt on the challenge page if you have questions because there's a whole list there that Betty has given me and she's also a moderator basically for that single prompt on Goodreads bless her I love you busy wonderful and so that is something that we are gonna be learning more about this year which I am very excited alright number eight is an anthology of multiple authors there can be men in the anthology and it can be edited also by a man but preferably more women than men contributors and preferably a woman editor but you know interpret that as you so desire prompt number nine is a book inspired by folklore we have already done a book inspired by mythology and a book is inspired by fairy tales so now we are onto folklore I did notice there's a lot of overlap in the mythology and folklore area if it features both that's totally fine if you have any questions definitely go check out the resources which I feel like is going to be what I say with every one of these prompts from number ten is a book featuring a woman artist or about woman artist and this is more visual artists we wanted to do like painters and sculptors and pottery makers and like sewers and all sorts of different things so think visual artist that's the kind of the direction that we want to go with this particular prompt number eleven is read and watch a book to movie adaption so if you were a person who is visually impaired and also this is pretty straightforward but I did want to answer the question if you are visually impaired and you cannot find an audio description file version of the movie that you want to a watch for this prompt you can also listen to a radio dramatization if that's the situation that you're in and so that way it is more accessible but the idea is just sort of like an adaption so you can see more details if you want clarification over again on the challenge page I'm just gonna quit saying that just know after every prompt that is the case my goodness so number twelve is a book by a woman who inspires you it's really up to you and how you interpret that thirteen is a book by an Arab woman and there's some confusion about whether the woman is Middle Eastern or an Arab woman an Arab woman is not necessarily a little Eastern woman so just do your research Google and just Google the country the author is from and any country that's mentioned in a prompt the Diaspora for that country also counts you can have an American Palestinian woman or a Palestinian American or whatever version that it might be and that totally counts as well next is 14 is a book set in Japan or by a Japanese author this of course is inspired by Sachi who's japanese-american and so I thought that this would be very appropriate prompt because we do have some themes in the works that I don't want to spoil but a lot of these prompts also are Easter eggs for our themes for the future so definitely keep an eye on that 15 is a biography now the idea is that this is written by a woman about it would be great if it was also about women though not necessary you could read something else but just to clarify that biography is not autobiography or memoir it's a book written about someone by someone else 16 is the prompt that was inspired by me a book about a woman with a disability so this features all different types of disabilities whether they be mental health related chronic illness or even a learning disability whatever the case may be that is qualifies for this prompt 17 is a book over 500 pages and 18 is a book under 100 pages pretty self-explanatory there has been some questions about translation and I think if the translation is way larger than your version in the whatever language you're reading it's totally fine if they're close enough I will leave that to your discretion but that is a very interesting idea that if you were able to read it in original language it would be way longer than if you're reading it in yours interesting go check out the Goodreads page for that one because that was an interesting conversation and really enlightening honestly 19 is a book frequently recommended to you different per person 20 is a feel-good or happy book again up to you 21 is a book about food this was inspired by Jacqueline and I so obviously always obsessed with food definitely 22 is a book by either hurt or new to you publisher and this is the publisher from which the book comes from and obviously publishers change per country so it's really just up to you and where you live and what books you want to read 23 is a book by an lgbtq+ author and 24 is a book that was shortlisted or an honorable mention for the 2019 reading women challenge and those lists are linked on the main challenge page so that is the entire of the challenge if you have any other questions that I have not answered please ask them I often add them to the main challenge page in the frequently asked questions section so that other people can have that resource as well but definitely tell me what you are planning to read if you have a TBR that you want to post to booktube I definitely tag reading women challenge in it and I'm gonna be making a 2020 reading women challenge playlist and I will try to add that as well if I miss it feel free to message me and send it to me because I am trying to find all of these but sometimes they slip through and I'm gonna make sure that I am including everyone who would like to participate alright that's it and I'll see you in the next one bye guys\n"