So why all the fuss? Well, I’m an uber nerd and proud of it. I have degrees in physics and engineering and have proudly worked as an engineer for the past 15 years. But there were very few women in my college classes and when I went to work it was about ten years before I worked with another female engineer. As a matter of fact, I think I’ve maybe worked alongside maybe three female engineers in my professional career. Personally, I don’t think this acceptable. Engineering and tech jobs are set to go nowhere but up in the future but the field is comprised of maybe 14% female engineers. In this day in age when we talk about pay parity, we overlook the fact that women aren’t getting the degrees that get the jobs. See some of the startling statistics below.

I have plenty of ideas of why girls don’t enter into the engineering and tech fields and maybe that’s a blog for a different day. But the numbers don’t lie, girls don’t see themselves as being future innovators. However, women actually buy more tech than men (iPhones, iPads, Fitbit, etc.) so wouldn’t it make sense that women design tech items for women? This is why women are so sought after in the tech world, but yet we still see numbers like in our statistics cards. So maybe just maybe if we write fiction with girls as innovators, geniuses, programmers, and tinkerers then this might inspire a girl or two out there to consider a career in tech. I know it might sound silly, but back in the early 90′s when I was considering my future career field episodes of X-files and Star Trek: TNG were actually an inspiration to me. These shows had women who were smart and strong and weren’t afraid of tech. That’s what I wanted to be. So a story can have the potential to be quite powerful. Hey, we might inspire the next Stephanie Kwolek (look it up).

If you’re interested in helping us that’s great! We’re running an Indiegogo campaign for the next 43 days. We hope to collect enough money to defray publishing costs of this book. Who knows, we might get enough interest to make this an annual thing. But one step at a time, we need help from people like you. We want to hear your stories! We want to see your illustrations go here if you’re interested in submitting a story or art. We also need financial support. To go straight to our Indiegogo campaign click here or click the first image above.

Sure, it might not be the key to world peace or ending world hunger, but I think it’s a step in the right direction to making our world a better place to live. Let me know what you think drop me some comments or share via your favorite social media site. Anything you can do to help would be great.

-Paige

And so it begins! We've just launched our Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to raise money for Brave New Girls! I know previous posts have referred to Kickstarter, but the reason we chose the Indiegogo platform instead is because it allows for flexible funding - that is, it's not all or nothing. Whatever we raise, we get. Of course, the more we raise, the more we can do - like afford more and better illustrations for the book's interior.

Now, we need your help. Any and all donations are greatly appreciated, even if it's $1. And we have some cool perks for donors - check 'em out on our Indiegogo page: http://igg.me/at/BraveNewGirls.

If times are tight, then please support us by spreading the word in any way you can. Tell your friends and family. Shout it to the Internet on Facebook. Tweet it to the world. And know that we're sending good karma your way for your help!

-Mary

It's here, it's here, it's here! The Brave New Girls cover, designed by the talented folks at Streetlight Graphics, has been completed! Drumroll please...

And just in time for our Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign! It's set to launch Monday, June 30 at noon... be sure to check it out once it goes live!

-Mary

I'm happy to announce that we are working with Streetlight Graphics on the cover art for Brave New Girls. Although it's still very early, we will be starting our Kickstarter campaign within the next few weeks, and most of the swag we have planned for donors are contingent on the cover (bookmarks, postcards, posters), and we don't want them to have to wait months and months to receive them! And since this is a themed anthology, the cover doesn't depend on the content - that is, it won't be depicting a particular scene (though we will have interior illustrations that do that!). 

I can't say too much about what the cover will look like, since the artist just started working on it, but I can give you hint of what will go on it. Naturally, it will feature a teen girl in the STEM fields, and we, being suckers for art, have requested that it be an illustration (rather than photo based). It was also important to me that our cover girl not be overly glamorized, since one of my pet peeves with sci-fi covers is that the girls (and many guys) are always overly sexy, with exaggerated curves and physics-defying outfits. So our girl will be  confident, smart, and comfortable in her own realistic body.

Can't wait to share the final product with everyone once it's done!

-Mary

Evening, all! Paige and I have been talking logistics, and we're well on our way to setting up a Kickstarter to raise money to cover the anthology's productions costs, incentives and all. We're aiming to get it up in early June, and we'll have some pretty cool rewards for people who donate. Next step: create a killer video for the Kickstarter page, which, honestly, we're both kind of dreading because we're authors, and authors like to hide beneath their desks when there's a camera in the room. But it's not our first time doing the whole promotion thing, so we'll make it awesome nonetheless!

We've also got details about how we're going to handle the scholarship fund. The plan is to donate all proceeds from sales of the anthology to the Society of Women Engineers' scholarship fund for girls pursuing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) subjects. To learn more about the Society of Women Engineers, visit their website here: http://societyofwomenengineers.swe.org/. Donations will be made every quarter, whether we sell one anthology during that time or a hundred (fingers crossed that it'll be a hundred... or more!).

So here's a question some potential donors may ask: why the anthology? If the goal is to raise money for a scholarship, why not just do a Kickstarter for that directly? Answer: there's a dearth of intelligent, tech-savvy young women in science fiction. There are plenty of female characters, sure, but they're usually relegated to quirky side-kick, perfect love interest, damsel in distress, or fetishized combatant roles. By creating stories about heroines who are not only independent and interesting, but also happen to be mechanics, engineers, and programmers, we're aiming to inspire girls through fiction and remind them of all the possibilities within their reach.

So if you're an author with a story about a tech-savvy teen girl, we'd love to see it! Though we can't provide monetary payment if your story is chosen, what we can offer is a paperback copy of the anthology (which will include an illustration for your story!) and publicity. Because believe me, we will be promoting the heck out of this book once it's out!

-Mary

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