“For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.” So goes the famous quote by author 

Virginia Woolf, one of the few writers of the time who didn't use a male pseudonym to get her work published. Even JK Rowling used a gender-neutral name for fear young boys wouldn’t buy her best-selling Harry Potter books.

Stella Maria Sarah 'Miles' Franklin was the most famous Australian female author to publish under a male pseudonym. While she may not have known it at the time, Franklin went on to change the landscape of Australian publishing. 

Her feminist masterpiece and autobiographical book My Brilliant Career resulted in two of Australia’s most prestigious writing awards - The Stella Prize and The Miles Franklin - being named in her honour. Franklin’s legacy also includes the Stella Count; a statistical analysis of gender bias in book reviewing which gives an industry-wide snapshot of gender equality, or lack thereof, in the Australian media. 

Both the Stella Prize and Stella Count are initiatives of the Stella organisation, named after the famous author and founded in 2012 as a voice for equality and cultural change in Australian literature. While the annual Stella Prize - the organisation's flagship program celebrating female writers - is a well known platform for championing women and tackling gender bias, the Stella Count is less known.

Since 2012 the Stella Count has collated data on the gender of authors and reviewers, as well as the genre of books reviewed, to get a snapshot of industry equality across 12 major Australian media outlets. Analysis stalled in 2020 due to COVID-19, but media monitoring company iSentia, in partnership with Stella, will again begin collecting data next month to track statistics on the gender of authors and reviewers for 2023. 

Ngaire Crawford, Isentia’s Director of Insights and Research, said the latest Stella Count will cover the three-year period from 2021-2023 and continue to focus on the representation and equality of female authors in media book reviews.

“Our research team analyses the reviews for space and depth and key details about the authors,” she says. “We know that this type of work helps provide evidence to celebrate success and to shine a light on where things can still improve.”

Stella CEO Fiona Sweet says “in a pleasing trend” the latest data collected for the Stella Count in 2019-2020 found female authors received equal attention in Australian book reviews for the first time in the count’s history.

In a bid to continue with this positive uptake, Stella recently launched a national initiative to promote female literature - Stella on the Go. 

“Stella on the Go is designed to get people off screens and reading by leaving free books written by Australian women and non-binary authors on trams, trains, buses and ferries across the country,” says Sweet. “Once readers finish the book, they can decide if they keep it or pass it on to a friend, put it in a public space or leave it on public transport.” 

Stella on the Go includes more than 140 titles which have made the Stella Prize's longlist since it started in 2013. The winner of the 2024 Stella Prize, Alexis Wright’s Praiseworthy, is among the titles to be found in cities across the nation. Sweet hopes to expand Stella on the Go to other parts of Australia, including regional areas like Kiama.

“With Stella on the Go, we want to ensure diverse stories reach as many people as possible and inspire new generations of readers,” she says. “There is so much scientific research to back up the health benefits of reading. We also want to help break down the financial barrier between readers and reading.” 

If you are lucky enough to come across a Stella on the Go novel, The Bugle would love to hear your thoughts about it. Let us know if you passed it on to a friend or placed it in shared space (clues are encouraged) in Kiama, the Illawarra or Shoalhaven. Read, review, renew.