{"id":4206,"date":"2013-07-10T07:50:18","date_gmt":"2013-07-09T21:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stumblingpast.wordpress.com\/?p=4206"},"modified":"2022-08-04T00:24:11","modified_gmt":"2022-08-04T00:24:11","slug":"books-at-the-australian-historical-association-conference-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/2013\/07\/10\/books-at-the-australian-historical-association-conference-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Books at the Australian Historical Association Conference 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DSCN9757<\/a>This week I’m blogging and tweeting from Wollongong. It is the annual festival of history also known as the Australian Historical Association conference<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0#OzHA2013 on Twitter<\/a>.\u00a0Historians from Australia, New Zealand and further afield have gathered here to share and discuss their exciting work.<\/p>\n

I came to the conference on the search for new books to share with the participants of the Australian Women Writers’ Challenge<\/a>. \u00a0For the last six months I have been a volunteer for the Challenge, looking after histories, biographies and memoirs. \u00a0I want to raise awareness of all the great books in these genres that are available.<\/p>\n

Yesterday the Challenge revealed<\/a> that over one thousand reviews have been written and over five hundred authors have had their work reviewed online in the first six months of this year.\u00a0These figures are impressive but how did histories, biographies and memoirs fare?<\/p>\n

Overall the Challenge should easily exceed the number of reviews of histories, biographies and memoirs we achieved last year. \u00a0Already Challenge participants have written eighty-seven reviews. \u00a0In my post, Histories, Biographies and Memoirs – Reflection on Six Months<\/a>,\u00a0I looked behind these figures and found that 59% of the reviews were of memoirs. \u00a0Just thirteen biographies and eighteen histories were reviewed.<\/p>\n

Over the next few months I want to help the participants find histories and biographies to read and review. \u00a0At the conference I have found many books which have been recently released but I have not known about. \u00a0I wonder if the low numbers of reviews of biographies and histories for the Challenge are due to the participants not knowing of the existence of these books?<\/p>\n

In order to help the general book-reading public find interesting histories and biographies to read I am creating a list of the books I have found out about at the conference. \u00a0This list includes male as well as female authors, Australians, New Zealanders and probably some written by authors of other nationalities. \u00a0Most of the books have been published in Australia, but some have not. Many are about Australian history but there are plenty that look further afield. \u00a0I’m excited by the rich array of topics that are covered.<\/p>\n

The list is available on a separate page of this blog – Books at #OzHA2013<\/a>. \u00a0I will be adding to it throughout the conference. I hope that through it you will discover some great books that you enjoy reading.<\/p>\n

More About the Conference<\/h3>\n