Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labelled: “This could change your life.” – Helen Exley
Violence against women (VAW) is a prevalent and entrenched part of countless societies around the world but it is still considered a taboo topic even, to a certain extent, in developed and first-world communities. Pop culture media therefore is invaluable at raising awareness and promoting and prompting advocacy against VAW, doing much to break the silence.
The Pixel Project’s Read For Pixels campaign was first launched in September 2014 in recognition of the longstanding power of books to shape cultural ideas and influence the direction of history. From Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird to Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, popular authors and their stories have been instrumental in planting ideas, triggering thoughtful water-cooler discussions, and providing food for thought for communities. And in the age of geek culture and social media, bestselling authors wield influence beyond just their books as they are able to directly communicate with their readers and fans via Facebook, Instagram and other social media channels.
Since then, the campaign has gone from strength to strength. To date, almost 300 award-winning bestselling authors from genres as diverse as Science Fiction, Fantasy, Crime, Thrillers, Mystery, Romance and Horror have participated in various Read For Pixels campaigns and initiatives, raising over $120,000 for the cause to end VAW to date.
In this article, we honour 16 award-winning bestselling authors from across many years of our Read For Pixels campaigns. They hail from various genres; some are international bestsellers with strong fandoms, others are well-respected in their countries or genres. Still others are up-and-coming stars who have decided to use their talents for good. It is the movement to end VAW that unites and inspires them and we hope that all of them will continue to work with the movement in years to come.
To learn more about what each author has to say about violence against women, click on their quote to be taken to the YouTube video of their Read For Pixels YouTube session.
Written and compiled by Regina Yau, with interview transcriptions by Jay Spink Mills and Melissa Ruth Arul.
Inspired to support The Pixel Project’s anti-violence against women work? Make a donation to us today OR buy a copy of our 1st poetry collection, UNDER HER EYE. All donations and net proceeds from book sales go towards supporting our campaigns, programmes, and initiatives.
Author Against VAW 1: Amanda Bouchet
Amanda Bouchet is a USA Today bestselling author of fantasy romance and space opera romance. She was a Goodreads Choice Awards top 10 finalist for Best Debut in 2016 with her first novel, A Promise of Fire. When speaking about what authors can do to stop VAW, she said: “Representing the problems that are real and exist in your books, and showing how to stand up for what women need. [,,,] We can’t ignore the issues […] You have to put in characters that aren’t always doing the right thing because how else can you bounce off of that to show what needs to be done.”
Authors Against VAW 2: Arkady Martine
Arkady Martine is a speculative fiction writer and, as Dr. AnnaLinden Weller, a historian of the Byzantine Empire and a city planner. Under both names she writes about border politics, narrative and rhetoric, risk communication and the edges of the world. She is currently a policy advisor for the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, where she works on climate change mitigation, energy grid modernisation and resiliency planning. Her debut novel, A Memory Called Empire, won the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Novel. When speaking about what authors can do to stop VAW, she said: “Modelling universes where it’s not a default. And if you do include gender-based violence in your stories – which I think there’s a lot of stories that need to be told about gender-based violence – I think it needs to be something that isn’t treated as normal.”
Authors Against VAW 3: C.S.E. Cooney
C. S. E. Cooney is a World Fantasy Award-winning author. Her books include Saint Death’s Daughter (on Kirkus Review’s list of Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022), Dark Breakers, Desdemona and the Deep, and Bone Swans: Stories, as well as the poetry collection How to Flirt in Faerieland and Other Wild Rhymes, which includes her Rhysling Award-winning poem “The Sea King’s Second Bride.” When speaking about why she supports stopping VAW, she said: “I would love for us to be able to walk unafraid, just take a walk at night, or go to a convention, or go to a coffee shop, and have neighbourly, friendly, human, warm interactions with each other without fear.”
Authors Against VAW 4: Charlie N. Holmberg
Charlie N. Holmberg is the WSJ and Amazon Charts bestselling author of The Paper Magician and Spellbreaker series. She’s a RITA® finalist and Whitney Award winner, including the 2020 Novel of the Year for Adult Fiction. Charlie is the 2020 Author of the Year for the League of Utah Writers. When speaking about what authors can do to stop VAW, she said: “Doing your part to share and to educate. Isn’t that what we’re here for? Fiction is fiction, but there are themes in fiction, there are morals in fiction, there is growth in fiction that you can use to educate. Awareness is such a critical aspect of it, so as authors […] you’re reaching people you don’t even know about. […] And so being able to have positive literature out there, it’s just such a fundamental thing to a prosperous society.”
Authors Against VAW 5: Claire Legrand
Claire Legrand is the New York Times bestselling author of Furyborn. She is also the author of The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls, Some Kind of Happiness, and Winterspell, among others. Claire lives in Princeton, New Jersey. When speaking about what authors can do to stop VAW, she said: “Authors and librarians, creators of all kinds, we can do a lot. We can tell the kind of stories that can breed empathy in people of all genders. We can tell stories that are going to put good into the world. Stories about love, stories about compassion, stories about looking at yourself and thinking about why you do things, and if you’re doing things for the right reason or the wrong reason, and how you can work to improve yourself and be better to other people. Those are the kinds of stories that we need to populate the world with. The more stories that are out there saying those kinds of things, and entertaining people while saying those kinds of things, then the easier it will be for future generations to move forward with their lives with the kind of compassion that we really want to see. The kind of compassion that can end violence against women.”
Authors Against VAW 6: Kathryn Purdie
Kathryn Purdie is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Burning Glass series and the Bone Crier’s Moon duology. Her love of storytelling began as a young girl when her dad told her, in his own words, the story of To Kill a Mockingbird while they listened to the film score together. A lover of art in all forms, Kathryn also enjoys singing and playing the guitar. When speaking about what authors can do to stop VAW, she talked about the steps she has been taking including “educating and promoting the message and doing what I can as an author to put an end to that and to model change and difference” and “being willing to talk about it, being willing to write about it, and not keep my mouth shut.”
Authors Against VAW 7: Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Kiran Millwood Hargrave is an award-winning poet, playwright and novelist. The Mercies is her first novel for adults. Her bestselling works for children include The Girl of Ink & Stars and have won numerous awards including the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, the British Book Awards Children’s Book of the Year and the Blackwell’s Children’s Book of the Year. They have also been shortlisted for prizes such as the Costa Children’s Book Award, the Blue Peter Best Story Award and the Foyles Book of the Year Award. When speaking about why she supports stopping VAW, she said: “Until women feel safe in their bodies, in their homes, in their relationships, in their countries, there is no true successful society.” She also urged authors to “Keep speaking up. And speak louder.”
Authors Against VAW 8: Leigh Perry (Toni L.P. Kelner)
Toni L.P. Kelner is the author of the Laura Fleming mysteries and Where are they now? mysteries. Both series are available as audio books and e-books. Kelner is also the author of numerous short stories, and co-edits bestselling urban fantasy anthologies with Charlaine Harris, including Games Creatures Play and Dead But Not Forgotten. Kelner has won the Agatha Award and an RT BookClub Lifetime Achievement Award, and has been nominated multiple times for the Anthony, the Macavity and the Derringer. As Leigh Perry, she writes the Family Skeleton series for Berkley Prime Crime. When speaking about why everyone should join worldwide efforts to end VAW, she said: “It shouldn’t be this way. And if this is doing a little bit to help that maybe it won’t be this way forever, then it’s worth the effort. It’s worth a lot of effort”
Authors Against VAW 9: Naomi Hirahara
Naomi Hirahara is an Edgar Award-winning author of multiple traditional mystery series. Her first historical mystery is Clark and Division, which won a Mary Higgins Clark award. A former journalist with The Rafu Shimpo newspaper, Naomi has also written numerous non-fiction history books and a middle-grade novel, 1001 Cranes. During her Read For Pixels livestream session, she talked about why it is important to highlight men who don’t adhere to toxic masculinity: “My husband and I have male friends who are extremely supportive of women and see friendships not as a hierarchical thing but more of an equal relationship. So I think it is important to show that for a number of reasons: to just affirm the men who don’t have that kind of toxic masculinity and to say that you’re masculine even though you have a sensitive side or emotive side and to also show the men in culture, don’t just cast us [women] as these Geisha, wilting Geisha types with these domineering men because that’s a stereotype of its own.” She also stated: “As long as there is violence against women, we can’t minimise it, we can’t ignore it but we can devise different ways to talk about it.”
Author Against VAW 10: Pintip Dunn
Pintip Dunn is a New York Times bestselling author of YA fiction and a two-time winner of the RITA® award. Her books have been translated into four languages, and her titles include the Forget Tomorrow series, The Darkest Lie, Girl On The Verge, Star-Crossed, Malice, and Dating Makes Perfect. When speaking about how authors can support stopping VAW through their writing, she said: “I think that’s the balance […] for me those very important issues can be woven in to the overall story line. We (the author) want them to enjoy the story but these characters are grappling with these very real moral questions that might be similar to the moral questions that people grapple with in everyday life and so by seeing the way that the characters grapple with these questions and with these situations they get some education about consent or proper ways of treating women or the way that relationships should look like or maybe they get informed about culture along the way.”
Authors Against VAW 11: Rin Chupeco
Rin Chupeco is a nonbinary Chinese Filipino writer born and raised in the Philippines. They are the author of several speculative young adult series, including The Bone Witch, The Girl from the Well, The Never-Tilting World and Wicked as You Wish, and of the new adult gothic vampire fantasy series Silver Under Nightfall. Formerly a graphic designer and technical writer, they now write fiction full-time and live with their partner and two children in Manila. When speaking about how authors can support stopping VAW, they said: “We have to find a way to no longer normalise that [VAW] and the best way to do that is to do write it in fiction. […] when you start writing books that support women, that support LGBT people and trying to show that men are allowed to have feelings as well, you make them more common for other younger readers. I think that’s where the mindset starts shifting, that’s where the paradigm shift happens.”
Authors Against VAW 12: Roseanne A. Brown
Roseanne A. Brown was born in Kumasi, Ghana and raised in central Maryland. She holds a Bachelor’s in Journalism from the University of Maryland, where she was also a TA for the school’s Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House programme, and was later an assistant English teacher in Japan. She currently lives outside of Washington D.C.. Her first series is the A Song of Wraiths and Ruin duology. When speaking about how authors can support stopping VAW, she said: “It comes down to writing with intention. If you’re going to write violence in your book, understand what is the role of violence in your work. […] Don’t throw in a rape scene because you think that’s what’s going to spice this up. If you’re going to talk about it make sure you know what you’re talking about and you are understanding what is going on there.”
Authors Against VAW 13: Rhys Bowen
Rhys Bowen is the New York Times and #1Kindle bestselling author of the Molly Murphy and Royal Spyness historical mysteries as well as several internationally bestselling historical novels. A transplanted Brit, she now divides her time between California and Arizona. She observed that as a historical fiction author, she noticed that when writing female characters in historical fiction “You can see we’ve come a long way, but then you can see we’ve got a longer way to go.” She also pointed out that authors can help stop VAW and empower women because: “As writers we do have a voice, and I like showing that my heroines can tackle anything that you give them.”
Authors Against VAW 14: Samantha Shannon
Samantha Shannon is the New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author of The Bone Season series. Her work has been translated into twenty-six languages. Her fourth novel, The Priory of the Orange Tree, was her first outside of The Bone Season series and was a New York Times bestseller, as was its standalone prequel, A Day of Fallen Night, released in 2023. When speaking about what authors can do to stop VAW, she said: “As authors I think that we can keep writing about women; essentially, keep telling women’s stories. Keep showing women everywhere. And doing everything. Female representation is just such an important part of this. Authors can help create characters who are mirrors for other girls and women to find certain kinds of strengths within themselves.”
Author Against VAW 15: Sarah Rees Brennan
Sarah Rees Brennan is the #1 New York Times bestselling YA author of over a dozen books, both solo and co-written with other authors, including Kelly Link and Maureen Johnson. She was long-listed for the Carnegie for her first novel. She was born in Ireland by the sea and lives there now in the shadow of a cathedral, where she’s worked on –among other things – her series of tie-in novels with the hit Netflix show Fate: the Winx Saga. Her standalone novel, In Other Lands, is a tale of love, friendship and wings starring misandrist elves and the crankiest boy to ever stumble into a magic land, and was a Lodestar Award and Mythopoeic Award finalist. When speaking about how authors can support stopping VAW, she said: “By acknowledging the problem, it’s the first step to addressing it. […] What we can do is think about our responsibility, about how we’re ringing bells by writing stories that can be heard for a much greater distance than we think.”
Authors Against VAW 16: Sue Ann Jaffarian
Sue Ann Jaffarian is the author of three acclaimed mystery series, as well as other novels and short stories. Sue is a full-time nomadic writer, travelling the US while living in a camper van. Her most recent works include Finding Zelda, the first book in a humorous series about a young woman’s adventures on the road, as well as the thrilling Dead Woman Driving serial novel. When asked why she supports stopping VAW, she said: “I’m 69 years old, and it chagrins me that we are still having this conversation. When I was a young woman it was going on, it was going on way before I was born, it’s still going on. […] This should not still be going on.” She added: “All we can do is continue to fight the good fight, and to keep steady, and not perpetuate it, and give support to other women who are going through it.”
Photo Credits
- Amanda Bouchet – Courtesy of Amanda Bouchet
- Arkady Martine – Courtesy of Arkady Martine
- C.S.E. Cooney – Courtesy of C.S.E. Cooney
- Charlie N. Holmberg – Courtesy of Charlie N. Holmberg
- Claire Legrand – Courtesy of Claire Legrand
- Kathryn Purdie – Courtesy of Kathryn Purdie
- Kiran Millwood Hargrave – Courtesy of Kiran Millwood Hargrave
- Leigh Perry (Toni L.P. Kelner) – Courtesy of Leigh Perry (Toni L.P. Kelner)
- Naomi Hirahara – Courtesy of Naomi Hirahara
- Pintip Dunn – Courtesy of Pintip Dunn
- Rin Chupeco – Courtesy of Rin Chupeco
- Roseanne A. Brown – Courtesy of Roseanne A. Brown
- Rhys Bowen – Courtesy of Rhys Bowen
- Samantha Shannon – Courtesy of Samantha Shannon
- Sarah Rees Brennan – Courtesy of Sarah Rees Brennan
- Sue Ann Jaffarian – Courtesy of Sue Ann Jaffarian