COINCIDING with news today of a study confirming that the careers of Australia’s female authors are suffering due to gender bias within the literature industry, a public discussion is being presented at the ANU under the title “After Stella: taking stock of gender and literature in Australia”.

Speakers at the event will be: Lisa Dempster, Festival Director at Melbourne Writers Festival; Melinda Harvey, Monash University literary studies academic and critic; Imogen Mathew, ANU PhD candidate and 2015 Stella counter; Ashley Orr, ANU PhD candidate and 2015 Stella counter; and Zoya Patel, Editor of feminist literature and arts journal “Feminartsy” and 2015 ACT Young Woman of the Year. The Stella of the title is of course the late Stella ‘Miles’ Franklin.

Meantime, Julieanne Lamond from the ANU School of Literature Languages and Linguistics also editor of the Australian Literary Studies journal, said that the study she conducted jointly with Melinda Harvey of Monash University, looked at reviewing patterns in leading publications from 1985 to 2013 and found male authors were more likely than their female counterparts to have their work featured in published reviews.

“We already know that around two thirds of published authors in Australia are women, but two thirds of the books being reviewed are by men,” Dr Lamond said.

“We have found that this ratio has remained largely the same for 30 years. It’s entrenched unconscious gender bias. There’s a long-standing association between literary importance and male writers.”

The study’s findings are likely to be the subject of much discussion this evening at an event hosted by the ANU School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics and supported by the ANU Gender Institute.

“After Stella: taking stock of gender and literature in Australia”, Sir Roland Wilson Building, Theatrette 2.02, 120 McCoy Circuit, ANU, 5–6.30pm today, June 9, register at Eventbrite.com.au