Comments on: About the Project

By: Thoughts on a Science Writing Career from 17 Science Writers « Career Development for Scientists

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:50:12 +0000

[...] Emily Monosson, editor of the recent anthology,“Motherhood, the Elephant in the Laboratory: Women Scientist Speak Out” recently asked 17 science writers what they thought about their careers. The answers were posted on The Alternative Scientist, and make for interesting reading. Virtually all of them agree that science writing, or communicating about scientific issues to various groups, isa satisfactory and even necessary way to spend their time, and none feel they have abandoned science. Thanks to The Bean-Mom for posting this. [...]

By: Sarah Simon

Sarah Simon — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 02:18:16 +0000

Good topic and discussion. Always discouraging to see this “news” that was so similar 40 years ago.

But, this time we’ll talk about it in a woman’s voice. Women are getting even. (or can get even if we work together and expose and confront the barriers.)

Evelyn Murphy leads a project and in the book “Getting Even” pulls out the modern statistic that a working mother on average makes 60 cents on the dollar that a “similar man” makes. A penalty of another 13 cents from the average woman (at 77 cents on the dollar).

http://wageproject.org/

By: AvocadoInParadise

AvocadoInParadise — Thu, 15 May 2008 14:01:19 +0000

Thanks for sharing! How to combine kids with any career is a difficult and fascinating topic.

By: Emily

Emily — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:05:37 +0000

I was thinking the same thing – that you’ve got a lot of material and are in touch with an active community of writers. I will say one thing about editing though – it’s a lot of work, and at least in my case – self-funded work! I’d thought a bit about why not just do this on the web – but then wasn’t sure I could create a site and community of contributors that would get the exposure we really wanted.

So you’ve got to really believe in what you’re doing and like doing it!

I’m no expert – but the first step in my case was to get a book on writing nonfiction book proposals – at the very least they prompt you to think about why your writing, who the audience is and what else is out there.

Then I’d say persistence – Cornell published it (I’m not a prof there – I work from home, consulting, teaching writing) – but only on the second try with them! First time Fran the eventual editor turned it down. I got a lot of “this is great,” “important topic”, and “timely” BUT it was too narrow in scope for commercial publishers and not academic enough for academic publishers!

So good luck! Let me know what happens!

By: Flicka Mawa

Flicka Mawa — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:39:19 +0000

Thanks for telling me about the project! I’d love to check it out. I’m most interested in how you went from the idea to the actual book. I’ve thought about this a lot with different books I’ve read and topics I’ve discussed around the blogosphere – I definitely feel that I could create a great edited collection of essays for women in science, but I have no idea how one goes past the idea stage. Are you a professor at Cornell?