For the first time in its 10 year history the Stella Count has found more books by women were reviewed. Image by Shutterstock.
The 2019/2020 Stella Count has just been released, with some bracing, watershed news: women authors now receive equal attention in Australian book reviews for the first time in Stella Count’s history.
Since its inception in 2012, the Stella Count has been the leading annual statistical analysis of gender bias in book reviewing in Australia. The Count collects and analyses data not only on the gender of authors and reviewers but the length of review and the genre of books reviewed.
Thuy On is the Reviews and Literary Editor of ArtsHub and an arts journalist, critic and poet who’s written for a range of publications including The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, Sydney Review of Books, The Australian, The Age/SMH and Australian Book Review. She was the Books Editor of The Big Issue for 8 years and a former Melbourne theatre critic correspondent for The Australian.
She has three collections of poetry published by the University of Western Australian Press (UWAP): Turbulence (2020), Decadence (2022) and Essence (2025).
Threads: @thuy_on123 Instagram: poemsbythuy
