Women's Lives Club

       Another virtual book club with a growing global following is Women’s Lives Club. Women’s Lives Club’s major objective is to read a biography written by a woman about a notable woman in history. Essentially, the goal is to focus on who is telling women’s stories and to shed light on the lives of women previously hidden by traditional historical discourse. The book club was started by Rachel Syme, a writer and editor based in New York City (Syme, n.d., p.1). As Rachel Syme explains, “I was writing about paying attention to women’s lives in general, and really casually in a tweet storm, I asked if I were to start a monthly book club about women’s lives, would anyone do it” (Sepulveres, 2016, p.1-2).

Photo courtesy of Amy Poehler's Smart Girls 

       Currently, the group meets in a google groups platform for scheduled discussions. Interested participants must email Ms. Syme to request membership to the group. Membership includes 1,300 participants so far. As mentioned in the Our Shared Self post, participation is entirely up to the members themselves. Women’s Lives Club has a significant Twitter presence, #wlclub,and some members even meet up in person as well as online. For instance, sub-groups have started forming in Portland and San Francisco. As mentioned earlier, Women’s Lives club focuses on telling women’s stories by reading a biography written by a woman about a notable female figure every month. Past reads include Janet Malcolm’s The Silent Woman, a biography of Sylvia Plath, and Valerie Boyd’s biography of Zora Neale Hurston called Wrapped in Rainbows. Members are encouraged to offer suggestions and vote on the book selections (Carpenter, 2016, p. 1-4).

Photo courtesy of twitter #wlclub

Photo courtesy of twitter #wlclub

Photo courtesy of twitter #wlclub

Bibliography:

Carpenter, J. (2016). #wlclub, the women’s book club on twitter that will take over your reading list. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/03/09/wlclub-the-womens-book-club-on-twitter-that-will-take-over-your-reading-list/?utm_term=.81e5ee4ecb9b

Sepulveres, D. (2016). Be a part of the smartest new book club #WLClub. Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls. Retrieved from https://amysmartgirls.com/be-a-part-of-the-smartest-new-book-club-wlclub-6b4ee7b9faac#.14qmkiwyh

Syme, R. (n.d.) About. Rachel Syme. Retrieved from http://www.rachelsyme.com/about/


Picture links:

https://amysmartgirls.com/be-a-part-of-the-smartest-new-book-club-wlclub-6b4ee7b9faac#.6m9d97hcq

https://twitter.com/hashtag/wlclub?lang=en