Shared Stories: 150 recorded readings giving voice to women writers
Subject: Arts and humanities | Multidisciplinary
The third edition of Shared Stories was the most successful to date, and the repository now contains more than 150 recordings readings
The Shared Stories project was launched in 2022 to highlight the talent and legacy of women in our literature. This year's campaign, the third in total, was a success in terms of participation and maintained the project's essence and purpose: enhancing the public recognition of female authors in the Catalan, Spanish, Galician and Basque languages.
The initiative, led by the UOC Library in partnership with the Camilo José Cela University (UCJC), invites members of the UOC community and users and staff from other libraries to record themselves reading works by selected female authors. The resulting recorded readings are added to an open repository hosted on the UOC Library's website.
70 new audio readings have been received in this third edition of the project, which means the bank now contains more than 150 recordings of works by authors including Emilia Pardo Bazán, Carme Karr and Filomena Dato.
Readers can continue to participate in this initiative until September 25. It will be included as one of the actions commemorating Women Writers Day, organized by the Spanish National Library.
This year the project grew with participation from the UOC's Culture department, and it also took on broader dimensions, involving reading clubs, the Catalan Network of Public Libraries, and well-known contemporary writers who have joined as advisers. Coia Valls, Maria Solar, Karmele Jaio, Sara Jaramillo and Montse Barderí are some of the authors who contributed.
We are extremely happy and grateful for the participation in this third edition," said Mireia Castillón, who is responsible for gender perspective at the UOC Library and the co-organizer of the project. "We have increased the number of texts and the variety of authors to read, and the number of recorded readings we have received has increased and the involvement of the UOC Community has grown," added Castillón. "This success encourages us to continue working to highlight the talent of our women writers and preserve their literary legacy," she said.
An initiative involving open access audio readings to raise the profile of women in literature.
Shared Stories, a platform speaking up for works by women writers
This year's edition of Shared Stories had a particularly high profile during the week marking Saint Jordi's Day (World Book Day), and its launch was a unique opportunity to encourage the entire UOC community to take part in this initiative and commemorate the special day.
"The third edition of Shared Stories was a powerful platform to give voice to forgotten female authors of Catalan, Spanish, Galician and Basque literature," said Lluís Rius, director of the UOC's Culture department. "The participation of leading figures in contemporary literature and the partnership with networks of public libraries has made it possible to broaden the scope of the project," added Rius.
This project is particularly relevant in a context of ongoing inequality in the literary world, where women have faced and continue to face numerous barriers. History contains numerous examples of female authors who have hidden their identity behind a male pseudonym, including Caterina Albert (Victor Català) and Cecilia Böhl de Faber (Fernán Caballero). This bias is also apparent in prizes for literature, with a clear disparity between the number of awards given to men and women. The rise of small publishers and digital empowerment provide new opportunities for greater equality and diversity in literature, with initiatives like Shared Stories helping to drive this change.