Date: January 11, 2007 @ 7 PM
What: Reading for She’s Such A Geek: Women Write About Science, Technology & Other Nerdy Stuff, edited by Annalee Newitz and Charlie Anders (Seal Press 2007)
Location: The Center for New Words, 7 Temple St., Cambridge, MA
Admission: Free
URL: http://www.shessuchageek.com

Co-editors Annalee Newitz and Charlie Anders will read from their new anthology, She’s Such A Geek, and discuss the growing role of women in the sciences, fandom, gaming and other areas. Also reading will be contributors Nina Simone Dudnik and Diana Husmann. They’ll have a question and answer session about the book.

Thanks to the Ladies Home Journal for making She’s Such A Geek one of its four “Books We Love” for December. The Journal says:

The editors of this anthology truly go where no man has gone before: to the heart of girl-geek culture. Real women who work and play in male-dominated fields sound off in this collection, exploring topics that range from science lab sexual awakenings to misogyny at MIT. Their essays, infused with social commentary, are sometimes humorous, often personal, and universally inspiring. One standout essay comes from computer programmer-cum-writer Kory Wells, who learned from her own strong mother to follow her techie calling, regardless of gender conventions. Her evolution from “good for a girl” student to working mother with a smart daughter of her own will resonate with any woman, geek or not.

Female geeks are taking over the world! OK, we’re just taking over PBS. Aomowa Shields, who wrote an essay about her career as an astronomer for She’s Such a Geek, is going to be a correspondent on Wired magazine’s new PBS show, Wired Science. Go, Aomowa! The first episode will air Jan. 3.

Watch Wired Science Jan. 3 [via Wired Science Blog]

I was finishing up my big college search when I realized why this book was created. But more on that later. It all started the same weekend I needed to finalize my college list. My entire family was celebrating my grandpa’s 80th birthday by the ocean, so I wandered off for a few hours with my college list to try to choose a college list. I found this amazing place where the water had cleared out a tunnel, leaving a narrow bridge of rock over the open gully. The way the waves thwacked against the back of the cave was *so cool*. I could hear it a half-mile away (at night I thought it was a pile-driver. Fifty miles away from the nearest city). Anyway.

So I sit down with my list, and I center. I think roots and branches, very California new age. Since I haven’t been accepted anywhere I am merely choosing where I want to try to get in. So I try to decide the course of my life. And then I get stuck. My mind is blank, I stare at some birds and am non-productive. So I tried a different tact. I think “Who do I want to be when I grow up”. I could think of musicians, politicians, and teachers who I would love to grow up to be, but when I tried to think of women computer scientists I drew a blank. Ok, I know Grace Hopper and Radia Pearlman, but I did not have as clear a vision of what life might be like to be a computer scientist.

It’s not the all-male environment: I love wrestling and most of my friends from middle-school are boys, so I’m ok with that part. But the stories are what I miss. I have stories about singers, about politicians and teachers giving me a potential road-map for my future. But I was missing the stories about women computer scientists. I wanted to know what other women had done when working in a team where all of the men assume you’ll be the secretary. What the justifications for being ultra-fem in a masculine environment are. I could not think of any role models for how to live fully as myself in a challenging environment.

Amazon mailed me the book two days ago. After an embarrassing session with dancing and singing “I’m published, I’m published” I started reading everyone else’s essays. And I now I have those role models. I can’t wait to read the rest of the essays.

I am about to send in a large sections of my applications. I chose only schools with strong computer science and music, and where I could see myself matriculating. I’m glad I now can see how other geeks have dealt with college and life-after before me.

Anyhoo, that’s my tryptophan induced rant, hope you’re having a great turkey day!

Journalist Tish Wells has written a glowing review of “She’s Such a Geek” for McClatchy newspapers, which means it will run in a bunch of papers all over the place (it’s already been picked up in a Kansas City paper). She says:

“She’s Such a Geek!” is a collection of essays by gifted tech women who don’t fit the narrow sugar-and-spice stereotype. Some prefer math to lipstick and light-sabers and dragon fighting to swooning over the latest teen idol. And some do both.

Yay!

Welcome to the official blog for She’s Such a Geek: Women Write About Science, Technology and Other Nerdy Stuff. Published by Seal Press, the book is an essay collection by and about women who have have lived, worked and played in the male-dominated realms of technical and cultural geekdom. Edited by Annalee Newitz (that’s me!) and Charlie Anders, the book includes amazing essays by female scientists, engineers, bloggers, videogame designers, gamers, Harry Potter fans (of course), and policy wonks.

Katie Hafner of the New York Times calls She’s Such a Geek “exhilarating, hilarious, inspiring and infuriating.” BoingBoing’s Xeni Jardin says she “take[s] great joy in the she-nerd spirit evident throughout this book.” Kim Stanley Robinson, author of Red Mars, calls it “sharp, interesting and funny.” And Ellen Ullman, author of The Bug, dubbed it “a delight, a challenge, and a call to arms.” W00t!

You can buy the book here or here or here. Check back often for book tour dates, as well as the latest rants and commentary from the book’s contributors and editors.

We’ll be using this blog as a clearninghouse for ideas and issues related to female geekhood. Whether it’s science or science fiction, high tech or low-fi, if it’s got nerds and women this is the place to talk about it. Join us. We are many, our voices are loud, and we’ve got fast processors!