(That up there is a zeugma)
Things I did in 2013:
- Moved to another continent and started a PhD.
- Became a parent. [Okay, not really. Ollie the puppy a) is technically my grandparents' dog and has my grandfather's surname b) is no longer a puppy. But I did the important staying-awake and saying "no!" a lot bits, and at some point I started saying things like "mummy's hair is not for chewing!" so I guess that's me. Mummy.]
- Was forced to autograph a book.
- Helped judge an award.
- Won a prize for knowing about pigs.*
- Started writing about movies in bulletpoint form but I don’t know why.
- May have done some other things also.
- Read 186 books. I’m not counting academic books because that would just get complicated.
- I’m also not counting short stories, for the same reason.
- Read 114 books by women (as a subset of the 186 above, I mean).
- Read 57 books by non-white writers.
- (The above stats are a bit off –I can’t always be sure what race or gender particular authors identify themselves as, and in things like multi-author anthologies I just go with the editor. But still, it’s nice to have a broad idea)
- Was in a book.
Things I did not do in 2013.
- Too many and too disappointing to name.
This time last year I was looking at reading stats that suggested a mere 10% of the writing I read was not by white British and American authors. I’ve graduated to almost a third, but that’s still something that I should be doing better at. Luckily there’s some fascinating stuff coming out this year, and … we’ll see?
*Here is a picture of a small piglet. It played a major role in getting me through 2013; I hope everyone’s 2014 is peaceful and pig-filled.
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