JANUARY 20th, 2020 (WORLDWIDE): The Pixel Project, a 501(c)3 anti-Violence Against Women non-profit, is proud to announce their 6th International Women’s Day (IWD) Edition of their “Read For Pixels” campaign featuring live YouTube sessions with award-winning bestselling female authors in honour of International Women’s Day 2020 and in support of The Pixel Project’s work to end violence against women. Participating authors include Alwyn Hamilton, Alyssa Sheinmel, Anna Stephens, Claire Legrand, Jennifer Crusie, Kat Howard, Kennedy Ryan, Maria Lewis, Maya Rodale, Roshani Chokshi, and Sarah Kuhn.
“Read For Pixels” IWD 2020 YouTube livestream sessions will run on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings throughout March 2020. Each session will feature an author reading from one of their books and discussing their writing, why they support ending violence against women, and women in the media, geek culture, and popular culture. Each session will also include a live moderated Q&A session for fans and book lovers to ask their favourite authors questions in real time.
The Pixel Project is also proud to announce that we will be holding our 3rd and 4th Read For Pixels YouTube live panel sessions in March 2020 as part of the Read For Pixels session line-up:
- In “Creating Teachable Moments: Writing about Violence Against Women, Sexism, and Misogyny in Young Adult Fantasy Novels in the Age of #MeToo”, award-winning bestselling YA authors Kendare Blake, P.C. Cast, and Tamora Pierce will discuss writing violence against women in YA books, how YA books can help create watercooler moments for young people to talk about sexism, misogyny, and violence against women, and techniques for writing YA fantasy without dehumanising female characters.
- In “It Ain’t A Mystery: Writing about Violence Against Women, Sexism, and Misogyny in Mystery & Crime Novels in the Age of #MeToo”, acclaimed Mystery/Crime authors Charlaine Harris, Dana Cameron and Laurie R. King will be discussing violence against women in the Crime/Mystery genre and techniques for writing in the genre without dehumanising female characters, how to subvert toxic gender stereotypes, and avoiding falling back on tired sexist tropes.
Each panel session will also feature a live Q&A segment for writers and fans to ask panellists questions.
Multi-author panel sessions are a feature of the Read For Pixels programme created to be an accessible resource for writers interested in writing about female characters and approaching themes such as misogyny, sexism, gender, and violence against women with depth, empathy, and accuracy.
Participating authors have also generously donated a range of exclusive goodies to help The Pixel Project encourage fans and book lovers to donate to the Pixel Reveal campaign including: unique author-curated goodie bundles, signed first editions or book bundles, short stories written for donors, 1-to-1 Skype calls to talk about writing, tuckerisations, and more. Additional goodies are courtesy of publishers Faber & Faber Books (UK) and Sourcebooks (USA), and award-winning bestselling authors Alma Alexander, Anna Smith Spark, Leanna Renee Hieber, Nicky Drayden, and Hillary Monahan. Donations begin at as little as US$5 and the goodies are available to donors as “thank you” gifts and perks depending on the donation amount. Fundraising will take place in tandem with the YouTube livestream series over the month of March.
“Violence against women is one of the most widespread and entrenched human rights violations in the world and The Pixel Project is delighted that so many acclaimed female authors have stepped up to join us in raising much-needed funds and widespread support for this cause,” said Regina Yau, Founder and President of The Pixel Project. “Since its debut in 2014, over 120 authors have participated in the Read For Pixels campaign, collaborating with us to raise approximately US$68,500 for the cause and ignite online discussions about violence against women by fans and supporters. This is the sixth year we’re holding the International Women’s Day Edition of the campaign in recognition of the importance of the voices of female authors, a number of whom have faced gender-based violence in their lives. It is our hope that their support of the cause will inspire fans of their wonderful books and book lovers worldwide to not only donate generously, but also begin taking action to stop the violence in their communities wherever they are in the world.”
More information about Read For Pixels can be found at: http://bit.ly/Read4Pixels
About The Pixel Project (www.thepixelproject.net)
The Pixel Project is a complete virtual, volunteer-led global 501(c)3 nonprofit organisation whose mission is to raise awareness, funds and volunteer power for the cause to end violence against women at the intersection of of social media, online communities new technologies, and popular culture/the Arts.