Just for a change, make sure the next book you read is by a woman.

Author and artist Joanna Walsh is using Twitter to address gender inequality in the literary world.

Walsh started the Twitter hashtag #readwomen2014 after making New Year’s cards that featured drawings of her favourite female authors and the names of 250 female writers.

Her followers on Twitter asked her to tweet the names of the female writers and soon she was overwhelmed with suggestions of other women to include on the cards.

Walsh then received requests for a reading list of books written by women, which she composed on her blog and is regularly extending with suggestions generated from the hashtag.

Speaking to the Guardian recently, Walsh said: “I’m delighted by the response my #readwomen2014 has had.

“What’s amazed me is the number of people – men and women – who have been willing to pick up on the idea, who actively want to expand their reading horizons in ways they feel are not always being catered for.”

Walsh was inspired to create her New Year’s cards after literary critics Matt Jakubowski and Jonathan Gibbs noticed that they rarely read books by women despite their profession.

“I was impressed that they were willing to make a (public) effort to read more widely,” Walsh said.

Like Walsh, Jakubowski believes that books written by women are overlooked, with publishers being more willing and likely to spend large amounts of money on male writers.

“The result of this investment by publishers is that readers and literary critics are guided toward books by men.

“We become eager to be part of what’s promoted as big book news, more comfortable talking about a newly celebrated male author,” he said.

Jakubowski has made a resolution to read and review only books by women this year.

He explained: “My reading resolution was based on the fact that the world still does not place a high value on what women have to say.

“I wanted to make a choice not to be swayed by ‘big news’ about male authors.”

Women’s marginalisation in the literary sphere, both in the UK and the US, is confirmed by statistics.

Vida, the American organisation that supports women in the literary arts, found that in 2012 only 16 per cent of the reviewers at the New York Review of Books were female and 22 per cent of the books reviewed by the publication were by female authors.

Worse still, the Guardian found that during March last year, less than nine per cent of the books reviewed in the London Review of Books were written by women.

The Vida statistics inspired the American journal Critical Flame to dedicate 2014 to female writers and writers of colour.

Daniel Pritchard, the editor of the American journal the Critical Flame, said: “Women writers and writers of colour are underserved and undervalued by the contemporary literary community.

“So, while the Critical Flame may not be a powerhouse of the literary world, we have decided to embark on a project that will help our readers, at the very least, perceive and evaluate the literary landscape differently.”

Like Pritchard, Walsh hopes to spark a cultural movement in 2014 and promote women’s literary talents.

“Just for a change, make sure the next book you read is by a woman.

“While female writers may encounter similar obstacles, their work is diverse as men’s: there is a book by a woman for every kind of reader,” she said.

You can follow the Year of Reading Women on Twitter here and find Walsh’s reading list here.