#WITMonth 2018 resources and goals!

It's that time of year again! The birds are chirping, the sky is blue, the breeze is magical, and WITMonth is just around the corner!

This year, like previous years, the goals remain simple: Read, review, and discuss books by women writers in translation! Support women writers in translation! Try to find solutions for the lack of women writers in translation! 

Of course, as with previous years, the hope is that we will expand our horizons as widely as possible. This, to me, means reading women writers in translation from all across the globe (not just Western Europe or South Korea or Argentina), from all sorts of backgrounds (religious, cultural, ethnic, etc.), who identify in all sorts of ways (queer, disabled, etc.), writing in all sorts of genres and designations (sci-fi, thrillers, romance, young adult, graphic novels, etc.) and reflect all sorts of lives (not just middle class). While it is often challenging to find WIT in each of these categories, one of my goals for this year is to help connect readers with as many choices as possible in each of these (and other) categories.

To do so, I've decided to try something new: Clear, exciting, and decidedly diverse reading lists for WITMonth! The idea behind these lists is to make it as easy as possible for every reader to find the sorts of books that are likely to interest them. This means, for example, compiling lists of genre titles too often ignored by most literature-in-translation blogs/reviews/awards. It means compiling broad, encompassing lists of classics by women in translation. It means having recommendation lists on hand for teens, for kids, for visually-impaired or otherwise disabled readers who rely on audiobooks, for readers seeking queer writers and narratives, lovers of graphic novels, and so on.

This is not a simple undertaking, complicated moreso by the fact that I am only one reader who has not had the chance to read all that many books in her lifetime! And so I have opened a survey, which will run for the next few weeks, with the express purpose of hearing what books you would want to see promoted on a "Top 10" sort of list. This is your chance to list all of your favorite women in translation, across a variety of groups and categories. Check it out!

Additionally, I am again compiling a list of titles by women in translation released since WITMonth of last year through WITMonth 2018! The list is so far at 145 titles (with only a couple publishing redundancies), and will likely be growing as we get closer to August. As with last year, if you spot any titles you think are missing from the list, let me know and I'll add them as promptly as I can.

And as with previous years... what would WITMonth be without a banner? Because we've now reached year five (!!!!!), I have decided to go a little wild with the banners and have a few different options below (as always, displaying my very poor graphic design skills, but whatever), which you may freely use (or make your own...):

If you have any requests, thoughts, ideas, or whatever, please let me know. In the meantime... get cracking on the survey, share it (and preferably this post!), and let's get ready for August! WITMonth, here we come!