Male and Female Authors

I recently saw some interesting charts regarding The Christy Award winners on LibraryThing that stopped me in my tracks and had me wondering all sorts of things.

First, I love that this type of data is being tracked as it's fascinating to see trends over time. Second, this is something that I never even noticed, but now that I'm aware, I can't help but think back over the past two decades of Christian books that I've read.

What are these charts? They're the genders of the winners from 2000 until the present year, broken down by a 1-year view and a 5-year view. I should state that blue is female and red is male in this case.

It didn't hit me until seeing this that I used to read a lot more male Christian fiction writers, whether it was Randy Alcorn, Ted Dekker, Frank Perretti, Randy Singer, Travis Thrasher, or others. I feel like in the early aughts, I read a lot more suspense and thriller than I realized, and likely general fiction as well. I didn't attribute this to the possibility that there could have been more male Christian authors back then (which may or may not have been the case), but I can certainly notice their absence in my reading now. I don't think all of these authors have necessarily disappeared as some of them are still putting out new publications; however, I feel like I don't see them pop up too often on Christian Bookstagram. To be honest, I was really impressed that in 2000, the award winners were pretty evenly split between the genders.

While I love that female Christian authors have an incredible opportunity to share their voices and stories (especially in recent decades), I have wondered if my reading can become imbalanced by the sheer number of female Christian authors that I read. I think it's safe to say that over 90% of the authors I follow online are women, and that this constitutes the bulk of my fiction reading. At the same time, my non-fiction reading is skewed the other way toward male Christian authors. It definitely creates the false dichotomy that my Christian fiction reading is largely written by women and that the Christian non-fiction I read is mostly written by men, when I know that male and female authors can write either.

Obviously, the data is pointing toward a specific trend, which has me wondering what the future of Christian fiction will look like. While it makes sense that female authors mostly dominate the romance genre, could I do with adding more male voices and genres to my reading? Other questions that arise for me include:

• Whether the way that men are represented in novels might be a little skewed from a woman's perspective. I'm sure that many authors run their stories by the men in their lives and professionally through their editing teams, but there is something to be said about first-person experiences being written by someone who is first-person. I have seen a few co-written books where the authors are male and female, but not too often. Of course, this isn't a requirement, but I personally know that whatever I think a man is like is still a mystery to me! 😄
• If men did want to write romance, would they be crowded out or would they be seen as a novelty? I haven't encountered too many male authors in this genre, so I'm curious how they would be treated. Are there some that I may not be aware of? I love reading dual-POVs, so I'm curious about how male authors would write female characters, especially as I don't believe I've recently read Christian fiction by male authors.
• If I don't read fiction genres like fantasy or science fiction, am I missing out on some incredible male authors? I know there are a lot of female fantasy writers, so it would be neat to read more male authors writing in other genres as well. Since I mostly gravitate toward historical and contemporary books, I'm keen to see a lot of male authors write in those genres as well.
• Would male authors get as much promotion on Christian Bookstagram for their fiction books? Over the years, I've seen a few pop up, like T. Davis Bunn, Charles Martin, and Joel Rosenberg, but they still seem like the exception rather than the norm. I'm curious about others I may have missed, so I welcome additional recommendations.
• Is there anything causing a decline in male award winners? I know that awards aren't fully indicative of an entire publishing industry, but for Christian fiction, I'd say the Christy Award is likely a good representative. Are men publishing less? Are they getting recognized less? Have the parameters changed? I have so many questions, especially as the trend almost looks to be 95/5 instead of 50/50.
• Since I'm so used to female authors and mostly females running Christian Bookstagram accounts, could this in any way be a hurdle for men when it comes to reading? I imagine that there are a lot of male readers, but since I seldom get that perspective, what aspects of reading could I stand to learn or be challenged by? I know that reading isn't inherently male or female, but could it be perceived a certain way based on what's trending or popular? I know that when my husband and I go to bookstores, I'll gravitate toward both fiction and non-fiction, whereas he tends to stick to the non-fiction sections. Other than introducing him to some of the male authors I've noted, is there another world that I'm currently blind to within Christian fiction as a whole (e.g. a whole other pocket of Christian Bookstagram for men)?

These are just a few questions running through my head about how I can be more diverse in my reading. I appreciate that God gives stories to so many talented Christian authors, and I don't want to be imbalanced by only consuming one type of story. There is so much for me to learn, and I hope that I can be intentional with that this year!