Welcome to #WomanInHistory, the global campaign to honour and celebrate the incredible women of the past in whose footsteps we walk. The campaign began during the publication week for my latest novel, The City of Tears, at a FANE event on 20 January 2021. In an event with Jojo Moyes - with special guests Bernardine Evaristo, Ken Follett, Lee Child, Bettany Hughes, Paula Hawkins, Anita Anand, Sara Collins, Professor Kate Williams, Julia Spencer-Fleming, Madeline Miller and Damian Barr - we invited everyone to nominate a woman from history they wanted to champion or thought should be better known. I’m delighted to say there will now be a book – publishing in October 2022 – and a television documentary series inspired by the campaign.

The idea for #WomanInHistory is simple: to acknowledge women from every race, every age, every country of origin or adoption, working in every field and to applaud their achievements. To put their names back into the history books.

Within the first few days of launching the global public campaign on 27 January on my Twitter, Instagram and Facebook channels, we had thousands of nominations from every corner of the globe - Syria, Scotland, New Zealand, Iran, Nigerian, Turkey, China, Pakistan, France, Iceland, England, Germany, Wales, Poland, Ireland, Japan, Korea, India, Slovakia, Greece, North America, Brazil, Wales, Vietnam, Argentina, Vietnam, Nigeria, you name it! Women from every period of history - the far distant past, the recent past and those who are making history today – and working in every discipline: scientists, inventors, sportswomen, spies, chemists, journalists, writers, medics, rebels, leaders, martyrs, painters, composers, campaigners, actors, women of courage and warrior queens, astronauts and engineers, sculptors and philanthropists, conservationists, astronomers, physicists, pirates, agents of change, poets, designers, women of faith and women of conviction, women who refused to accept limitation, women who stood up for what they believed, women who stood up for others. Quiet revolutionaries and those who burned bright. Some of the names are familiar, others should be far better known or more generally known outside their communities. Too many are woman who had to live with their achievements being ignored, misrepresented or misattributed.

Fellow authors, scientists, entrepreneurs, campaigners, scientists, campaigners and many others joined the campaign – including Elif Shafak, Meera Syal, Yomi Adegoke, Tanni Grey-Thompson, Melanie Eusebe, Courttia Newland, Kim Cattrall, Martina Navratilova, Lorraine Kelly, Katie Derham, Richard Osman, Errollyn Wallen, Anthony Horowitz, Anita Sethi, Konnie Huq, Joanna Trollope, Charlotte Higgins, Kathy Lette, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Boudour Al Qasimi, Arifa Akbar, Adam Kay, Samuel West, Juno Dawson, Tony Robinson, Winsome Pinnock, Daisy Buchanan, Cathy Newman, Martha Lane Fox, Clodagh Finn, Carol Vorderman, Irenosen Okojie, Sathnam Sanghera, Professor Olivette Otele, Razia Iqbal, Oliver Burkeman, Diana Evans, Philippa Perry, Clarissa Pabi - as well as organisations and charities including Nobel Women, The Allbright Club, Women of the World, the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Women in Sport, Women in Technology the Black Writers Guild.

Our original intention was to publish all the names and dates of those nominated on 8 March 2021, International Women’s Day. But, thanks to the sheer volume of suggestions, we decided to begin with celebrating our ‘First 500’ with further lists to be added, as the mighty job of putting together biographies, checking dates and names continues. You can read more here. You can find my curated reading lists – about and by brilliant women nominated - at: https://uk.bookshop.org/ and since the #WomanInHistory campaign just one part of a worldwide community working in this area to honour the achievements of women of the past, we’re in the process of putting together a list of other organisations and social media campaigns to check out including @OnThisDayShe and @she_made_history to educational charities such as @the_female_lead and other trade organisations.

#WomanInHistory is about celebration. It’s about making a contribution in this area where many women and organisations all over the world are already promoting and advocating for women of the past. It’s about being inspired, about honouring all the women to whom the world owes so much, it’s about putting women back at the centre of history.