Today is Women's Fiction Day!
Today is Women's Fiction Day!
And it comes with freebies galore
Dropping in with a quick post so that you don’t miss something cool.
Today is women’s fiction day, an annual event since the Women’s Fiction Writer’s Association started sponsoring it five years ago. If you head over to the WFWA site, you’ll find a plethora of giveaways including free books and audio downloads—there’s over 70 items listed. This is also an excellent way to find booklists from author, sign up for their newsletters, and learn more about them. It’s a veritable cornucopia of goodies.
I’m sorry to say I missed the boat on this one, so you won’t find anything from me on the list. (But if you sign up for my author newsletter, which comes out once a month, you get a free story anyway.)I blame it on my trip to England and being out of the loop. But I’m delighted to support my fellow women’s fiction authors.
In case you’re wondering, “women’s fiction” is a relatively new designation. It’s an outgrowth of the term “chick lit” which had a pejorative air to it that many disliked. In truth, the term women’s fiction is somewhat controversial also, and the WFWA actually is studying it to see if it should be changed. One obvious reason: we don’t have “men’s fiction.”
I’ve considered myself a women’s fiction writer for years and joined the organization when it had only a few hundred members. (It has around two thousand now.) And yet, I have a difficult time explaining to people what, exactly, the term means. Women’s fiction does not have to be written by a woman, and it doesn’t have to have a female protagonist. Since I’m lousy at defining things, I’ll copy the definition from the website:
Women's fiction is a writing genre that includes layered stories in which the plot is driven by the main character’s emotional journey. The stories can be contemporary or historical, and may have magical, mystery, thriller, romance, or other elements.
I also like this quote, also taken from the website: “Women’s Fiction is a vibrant, growing genre. These are the sorts of books that people enjoy in book clubs, recommend to other readers, and linger well after the last page, has been read,” says Jacki Kelly, WFWA President.
More and more these days, you’ll hear the terms “book club fiction,” or “beach read” to describe us. (My friend Angie calls her mysteries “bathtub reads.”) Some people think women’s fiction is all about romance. It’s not, but many WF reads have a romantic element. And just to confuse things, that’s another term that is bandied about these days: “women’s romantic fiction.”
But it really doesn’t matter what you call it as long as you read it. You’re likely reading it already, whether as a devoted fan or a reader who loved the books but had no idea what genre they would be labeled.
I hope that you go take advantage of some of the wonderful offerings on the WFWA website.
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