"I challenge you to make your life a masterpiece. I challenge you to join the ranks of those people who live what they teach, who walk their talk." - Tony Robbins.
Table of contents
- RELATED STORIES
- A List Of 30 Day Challenges You Can Start Today
- 7 Great Ways To Challenge Yourself Now
But I came across this stuff far less than I did previously. Limiting myself in this way also made me aware of how often certain magazines published whole issues in which no women or POC authors made an appearance.
And pretty soon I didn't even bother looking at those magazines when I went on my monthly search. When I ran out of known-to-me magazines, I went on the hunt and discovered several that published new-to-me writers and also a surprising number of magazines dedicated to under-heard voices. I ended that year with a new understanding of what kind of fiction I enjoy most, what kind of writers are likely to write it, and how different the speculative fiction landscape looks when you adjust the parallax.
- No. 2: Harmonie du Soir.
- Challenge Quotes.
- Dessert Island!
This past week, Sunili Govinnage wrote in The Guardian about her experience reading only novels by writers of color for a year. It's a challenge she set herself at the end of inspired by a similar project by Lilit Marcus who read only books by women for a year. Just like opening up space for more stories from women, there needs to be a conscious effort to support multicultural voices and fight the assumptions surrounding what the mainstream market supposedly wants. Govinnage is a writer of color herself, yet she still learned a few things from the experience, including "just how white [her] reading world was.
It's easy to buy into it without really knowing that you are.
It doesn't help that most high-profile venues that exist to alert readers to new books and their worthiness are skewed heavily toward privileged voices. A few years ago, some best-selling women writers pointed out that the New York Times reviewed significantly more books by men than by women.
RELATED STORIES
The problem is not limited to the Times. Nor limited to just men vs women.
- Challenge Quotes ( quotes);
- I Challenge You to Stop Reading White, Straight, Cis Male Authors for One Year.
- Der Sohn aus der Kälte (German Edition).
- 2. Figure out what you’re scared of – and do it for one week consistently..
- Deception.
If the majority of books being held up and pronounced Good and Worthy are by white, straight, cis men, it's easy to slip into thinking that most good and worthy books are by authors that fit that description. You could, like Lilit Marcus, read only books by women or, like Sunili Govinnage, read only books by people of color.
Or you could choose a different axis to focus on: After a year of that, the next challenge would be to seek out books about or with characters that represent a marginalized identity or experience by any author. And then the murders began. Why ask if someone likes 30 day challenges. Most of these I have tried.
A List Of 30 Day Challenges You Can Start Today
In fact, maybe all of them. A HUG one stranger a day. Not as easy as you think, despite the many benefits. Do this every day for 30 days. G PLAY every day. But not to charities.
7 Great Ways To Challenge Yourself Now
Just to random homeless people or as extra-large tips, etc. You will have at last 30—50 individual moments of charity you are not used to. This is supposed to be very healthy. But for the first few days until you are used to it, VERY hard to do. I did this for a month about a year ago. The great thing is, if you write words a day you have enough material for about 6—8 books a year.