Book Giveaway on Goodreads

Hi readers and writers,
If you'd love to read my memoir about breaking into science or know a young woman you'd like to inspire to keep trying and know it's possible to balance family and a demanding career, enter the Goodreads giveaway for Breaking Through the Spiral Ceiling here: http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/28876-breaking-through-the-spiral-ceiling.

There are just a few days left, and 10 books will be given away.  Right now, it looks like you have about a 1 in 10 chance of winning one.  Free free free, not even any postage and handling costs!

cheers,
Laura

New Classes, New Books, Need One Like Mine?

Hi friends of reading and writing,

I just got a packet of books from the SDSU bookstore for the classes I'm about to take.  And I've been re-reading the three for the two classes I'm teaching at Pomona this semester.  New books smell so good, look so good, and feel so good.  If anyone out there is teaching something where you could use an inexpensive book to show women can have both family and career in science, take a look at my memoir, Breaking Through the Spiral Ceiling (Amazon.com).  It's priced to be a feasible course supplement for people who want to discuss issues for women in science.  I am willing to send you a text sample free if you email me about your course or library or whatever venue at lhoopes@pomona.edu.  It was just reviewed in BioScience (BIOS) by Emily Schmitt.  My main goal is to open doors and windows for young women who aren't sure they can balance both family and a science career.   Keep reading, keep enjoying books, 2012 is off to a good start, book-wise!

cheers, Laura

My Message from Postdoc Kate Sleeth

Hi friends of reading and writing,

My memoir was written to fill a vacuum of information about the lives of women who have successfully balanced family life and careers in science, and I've been gratified that quite a few schools and other organizations where young women congregate have invited me to speak about it, making that message more accessible.  So I was very pleased when recently a young postdoctoral fellow, Kate Sleeth, blogged about a talk I had given and about my book on the Stanford Medical School blog site, here:

 http://stanford.biocareers.com/bio-careers-blog/breaking-through-spiral-ceiling

When I wrote the memoir, I knew I couldn't keep harping on the same message or it would become boring immediately.  I was very pleased that Kate saw in the book and my talk those things I hoped women would get, even though I had backed off from hammering people over the head with them.  I feel that my life has been an interesting balancing act between being a serious scientist and professor on one hand and being a wife and mother on the other hand, so simply trying to recreate what it has been like for me is sure to bring the balance issue to the forefront.

I don't mean to address only young women in science; I hope that trying out the life of a female scientist is different enough from most people's experience that the memoir is worth reading for that alone, in the same way people read about a woman fishing boat captain or a woman secretary of state to find out how it is to live that life.  But my special "now hear this" audience has always been young women who might reject a career in science because so many people now say it cannot be combined with family life.  Yes, it can.  I know quite a few women who have put that combination together, and my memoir is a kind of existence theorem (yes, it's possible, see, I exist!) for one's ability to do it and be glad of the effort it requires. 
cheers,
Laura

Book Release Feels Like Graduation, Wedding, BIG DAY

Hi friends,
I am surprised at how excited I feel about Monday, May 2, release day for Breaking Through the Spiral Ceiling.  Since graduation at my college is right around the corner, and we just saw the royal wedding on TV, I feel it compares to those occasions for me, way back when.  It's funny how little I recall of my graduation day.  I cannot recall the speaker.  I know we wore black gowns and it was very hot.  I recall sitting down with my family and my senior thesis mentor, Ann Lacy, to chat after it was over.  Did I shake hands with President Otto Kraushaar?  Probably.  But I have no memory of that.   For my first wedding, I recall having cold feet right before the ceremony and having my dad calm me down.  I recall that the priest brought Marge Champion, a movie star, as his guest to the wedding.  I remember after the classical music on the tape, it switched to rock n roll via Roll Over Beethoven.  But that's all I remember.  What we said, what the priest said, that is all gone.  For my second wedding, I remember being worried that my nose would still need a cast, but it didn't.  I remember more about the ceremony because Mike and I wrote a lot of it.  I remember singing the Wedding Song and Morning Has Broken with Mike.  I remember a taped talk by Sister Julian Betts, Mike's education teacher from Bowie State.  I remember Katie hitting everyone in the nose with a very long-stemmed rose.  I remember Erin sleeping along the wall, and Jean pregnant with Susan.  I remember Lyle, spiffy in a suit.  And at the reception, I remember people watching the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament while we opened presents, and that Lyle got more presents than we did!  More for that one.  Maybe because it was more recent, although still many years ago.  But the Book Release has in common with all these the feeling of anticipation, the feeling of being on the edge of something that will change my life.  Here's hoping it changes for the better, for the better for women considering a career in science but unsure if it's compatible with a family.  Yes it is!

Talking About My Life

When you write a memoir, you're deciding privacy is not so important to you.  Instead, you have a message you want to share with others, and you're willing to take the risk of revealing your secret life to achieve that goal.  Open secrets, things you never really wanted to tell anyone.  Suddenly, you find that people you don't know ask you why you did things you're ashamed of.  You have no answers, really, but you try to talk about what you think might have changed in you, so that now you would never do such things.  You can't be sure that's true.

Writing is a dangerous craft, and there is no way to do it without letting cats out of bags, taking the cover off the bed, letting the hidden be revealed.  Well, there is another way.  It's called boring.  If you want to compel your readers to live it with you, so they'll arrive in the place you are and understand your message, you must let go of your desire to remain safe.

So, when I went recently to Emory University's Oxford College to talk about my memoir, Breaking Through the Spiral Ceiling, I hoped it would be easy and safe. Of course, it was not, at least not altogether.  But I liked the way the students, especially women and students of color, felt it showed them a path worth considering.  I became a woman in science with a family, married and with kids, but still finding out the hidden ways the molecules of the universe work, why aging happens at the scale of molecules.  I talked with them about my student who committed suicide, my daughter who once asked, "Are you going to step on me, Mommy?" And my son, whose seventh grade teacher completely gave up on him, although his English aptitude scores were above 90%, because, as she said, "I know these black kids struggle with English."
They kept asking, "Didn't your family get in the way of your career?"  Of course it did.  But I kept both going because both were supremely important to me.  It was a struggle, no denying that.  And there were days when I had no idea if it would all fall apart.  But it didn't and I have the nerve to hope it would not for them either, if they decide they would love to be biologists with families.