And so it begins!

5/5/2014

Now that we've got a title and website, Paige and I are happy to announce that we're officially kicking off the Brave New Girls project! Our plan is to independently publish a YA sci-fi anthology featuring teen girls in tech-savvy roles (hackers, mechanics, scientists - you name it!) and donate all proceeds to a scholarship for girls going into science and engineering. Details to come!

Our goal is to encourage young girls to become tomorrow's engineers, scientists, programmers, inventors, etc. And so the stories in the anthology will feature heroines in these roles.

We will be running a Kickstarter campaign this summer to raise money to fund all the nuts and bolts of publishing a book, from editing to cover art to marketing collateral. The plan is to release the book next summer... just in time for GenCon 2015.

Paige and I will each be writing a story for the anthology, and we're looking for others to take part.
So if you've got a sci-fi tale about a techy girl, we'd love to see it! Send it over via the contact form on the submissions page.

-Mary

2 Comments

Eyal Mozes link

5/8/2014 11:01:53 am

Good luck with a very exciting and worthy project!

As I personally see it, the focus of the anthology on girls is its less important aspect. What I'm enthusiastic about is the idea of fiction aimed at inspiring young people to become tomorrow's scientists, engineers and inventors. Sadly, I think such fiction is today just as lacking for boys as for girls, and I'd very much like to see more of it; focused on girls in this specific anthology, and I hope if you're successful you'll inspire other similar anthologies focused on boys, or on both sexes equally.

One pet peeve I've had for a long time, about a lot of the science-fiction in recent decades, is that the engineers and inventors, those who create and build technology, if they appear as characters at all, are usually the villains. The one sub-genre in which tech-savvy heroes or heroines are the norm is cyberpunk; but invariably the hero's technical skills are in breaking or circumventing security, and the people who've created and built the technology are the villains. Such characters are very unlikely to inspire any young person, male or female, to become a professional engineer or scientist. (I'm afraid this has been true, at least so far, in the Jane Colt series; that was one of my few disappointments with a series that I otherwise enjoyed very much. The tech-savvy good characters in the Jane Colt series are Riley, The Seer, and the two hackers who appear in one scene in Artificial Absolutes; all of them distinguished by their skills at breaking security. The only two characters in the series so far who are professional engineers and inventors, creators and builders of technology, are Dr. Kron and Marcus Streger, both of them villains.)

Given the focus of your anthology and your submission guidelines, it seems very likely you'll receive more cyberpunk submissions than any other sub-genre; and it is likely that most cyberpunk submissions will follow the standard conventions, with a heroine who's a hacker skilled at breaking security, and with the creators and builders of technology as villains. If that ends up being most of the anthology, then I, for one, will be disappointed.

Since my own writing skills are only in non-fiction, I can't write and submit the kind of story I'd like to see. But I very much hope you'll try to focus the anthology on stories in which the heroes and heroines are creators and builders of technology. I think that would be a very important factor in making the anthology successful in inspiring young girls to go into science or engineering; and, as an added bonus, it might inspire young boys in the same way as well.

Mary Fan

5/9/2014 02:53:10 pm

You make an interesting point! It's true that creators of technology tend to be cast in villain roles, and I think that's a byproduct of the profit-driven world of corporations we live in. But it's certainly something I'll keep my eyes open for when reviewing submissions!

And so it begins!

Leave a Reply.

Archives

Categories