#WeReadWomenPH | Women’s Month Wrap-up

“It is my right to reside in my own mind.” ⁣

Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body & Other Parties ⁣

Hello, April! Last month was a bit crazy for me and I couldn’t be here a lot. This long weekend is a great opportunity for me to finally get some quiet and to share what exactly I’ve been up to the past few weeks.

My favorite part of last month was the fact that it was International Women’s Month, and it was very exciting to celebrate womanhood with the rest of the world. I was honored to have been featured in Fully Booked’s Well Read Women series, where I shared five of my favorite books written by women.

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You can read more about how these books made an impact on me on the Fully Booked blog.

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I had the hardest time picking out just five titles, so here I am with more of what didn’t make the feature! This is my longlist of favorites, so I won’t bore you with too much information and feelings about them but do follow the links to their Goodreads pages to check them out!

In The Dream House and Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
The Little Stranger and Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Outline by Rachel Cusk
Normal People and Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
On Beauty and White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer
Human Acts by Han Kang
Revenge by Yoko Ogawa
The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Vampire Lestat and The Witching Hour by Anne Rice
Cockfight by Maria Fernanda Ampuero
Adele by Leila Slimani

I know I already shared too many, but I still feel bad just thinking of all the other names I might have forgotten, and even worse for all the names I still haven’t read. I am always amazed by just how many great women writers are out there, and how loud our voices are. Now all the world has to do is to listen and to learn.

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I also had the pleasure of conversing with some of the coolest female bookworms in the community. In a round table discussion, we talked about our earliest influences, what and who made us into book lovers, why reading women authors is important, the role of women in literature, and essentially fangirl-ed over our favorites. It was an inspiring experience for me and I certainly learned a lot.

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You can watch all the fun here.

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My other big win for March is finally finishing my second short fiction! 3000 words! In this new story I explored my thoughts and experiences about motherhood and the different kinds of sacrifices we make in order to create and nurture a new human being. I am so excited to share with you all the details of this upcoming anthology that I will be submitting it to.

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That is it for me. I have a number of book reviews and features lined up for the next few weeks. I am also aware that I haven’t been posting monthly reading wrap-ups since the year started, and I promise to make up for that on my next posts. I’ll probably just post a quarterly wrap-up because why not!

How are you? I hope you’re all staying safe and hydrated! I’m certainly feeling the intense summer heat where I am. Please update me in the comments section 💖