History of African American Women Chemists Book

End of Book Production

2011-09-03T04:40:00.000-07:00

OK I finally finished the production stage of the book. I was able to send the copy edited book back before I left for the United Church of Christ General Synod in Tampa.

Then I had to wait for the galley proofs which came late as usual in pdf form. I was en route to a Road Scholar trip to Tangelwood tin the Berkshires to hear a Boston Symphony concert when the proofs came so I had to take them with me on the trip. I had two jobs to do, edit the galley proofs and write the index. I left the editing job to my housemate since she majored in English in college. I never said I was an English major. The problem with the editing of the galley proof is that the book was paged and nothing could be changed that would change the paging. But we found things that would work.

The hardest thing to change was the Time Line. I had originally made the time line by making an excel spread sheet and I had submitted that to my editor. She said it was too big so she inserted the information about the women into the time line dates. Well there were some errors made , so my housemate took the book and fact checked the entire time line so that it was right. She had to insert some missing information and correct the names of the women which was different after they were married. She did a great job. I don't know how anyone writes a book alone. You always need personal editors to check your work.

My housemate also checked the entire book and I had to insert the corrections into the pdf copy.

Then there was the index. I had never written an index before. My editor sent me the guidelines and also referred to the Chicago Manual of Style. I looked at that and then proceeded on my own. I went through the pdf copy of the book highlighting the words I thought should be indexed and put them onto an excel spread sheet. I chose to do it that way because I knew I could alphabetize things automatically. When I finish the spread sheet I alphabetized segments and cut and pasted them into word sheets that were alphabetized. Then when I finished that I put the word sheets in order to make the index. This was very labor intensive but it was the only way I knew. I had to finish this work on the train to Denver to go to the American Chemical Society meeting. I had hoped to finish this before that trip. But that didn't happen. I was able to finish and proof the index on the trip and then submit when i got to Denver.

My editor said the index was too long! So she was going to hire an index specialist to tighten it up at her expense! I told her I hoped that the person was African American because I put in things that I thought an African American researcher would look for.

I have a list of all the major colleges and universities that the women either attended or worked for. I also had another list of HBCU's that they either attended or worked for.

More about that later, this blog is too long as it is. So the production stage has ended and the promotion stage has begun.

Jeannette Brown

Sisterchemists LLC

The best laid plans of mice and men and editors.

2011-06-17T12:52:00.000-07:00

OK. In my last post I gave you the production schedule for my book which was great for me because it fit into my schedule. Well someone forgot to tell the copy editor because she did not send me the book yet and the printer is going to contact her.
I have been waiting for it by catching up on my blogs and finances. The problem is the deadline was June 30, which is the date I leave for the church conference and I thought I could go work free. Now I don't know what will happen. Oh well.

This is another learning experience in writing a book. Hurry up and wait.

Writing the book was another experience. I had to get permission to publish from all the living women. I sent them what I wrote and they rewrote it so most of the living women wrote their autobiographies in my book, which is great. I also took some of the oral histories of the living women which will be archived in the Chemical Heritage Foundation. They had to approve the transcript of the oral history before I could use it. So even though I had the oral history on my computer I could not use the information from it until it was approved. I got into trouble with one woman because of that. I wrote her story from the publication which was available to me. When I sent it to her she said that it was all wrong and the published book was wrong! How was I to know that! She had the transcript of her oral history but she did not take the time to read it. So after three months of having this in her possession she decided not to be in the book because I was on deadline. I was so mad because she is a Spelman professor and the cover of the book shows Spelman women. I will not give her name because she apologized to me and we are still friends. I have only one Spelman woman in the book.
Two other women dropped out at the last minute because they did not want to review what I wrote. I was upset about that, but there was nothing I could do about it.

Another woman I had scheduled a telephone oral history. I wanted to visit her in person but I had a hard time getting in touch with her to schedule the visit. So I was ready to take the oral history and when I called she said she was busy and could she write something and send it to me. Oh well. What she wrote I already had from a published book so I just used it.

Those were the trials and tribulations of writing a book about living people. The dead ones are easier unless I hear from their relatives. I did speak to the widower of one of my women about his wife. I got a lot of background information from him.

I intend to write another book, now that I know how to do it. I have a list of women that I will have to find by genealogical studies, but that will be fun.

Jeannette Brown
Sisterchemists LLC

Good News about the Book Progress

2011-06-15T14:25:00.000-07:00

Sorry I stopped posting. I finished the book in March and submitted it after it was edited by my housemate (the English major). Then I went on vacation and to attend the American Chemical Society meeting. I just got tired of writing, but I will write about my experience as a new writer.

What I want to talk about now is the production schedule. I got an e-mail from my production editor and the printer about the schedule. Tomorrow June 16 I should receive the copy edited copy of the book. I have until June 30 to accept or correct the book according to what the copy editor wants. This will be the only time I can make major changes to the book. I have alerted all the women who wrote their own stories that I might be calling upon them to accept or make changes. We have to keep to the schedule as it is very tight.

Next the book will be typeset for printing and I will receive the galley proofs on or about July 23. I can only look at the galleys for major spelling errors but I can't make major changes then. I also will have to write the index of the book. I could not do this before because I did not have the pages. I hope that part will go well since I have never done this before, but that is like a lot of things about book writing that are new to me. I have until August 23 to get this done.

From then on the book gets printed by October 16 and publication date is December 15. Which means you will have books to give out as Christmas gifts! I will give books to all the women and or their relatives in the book. If they want more I will sell them to them at my author's price.

I am very excited about this but I have a lot of work to do between now and the end of the summer, so vacation is over.

Jeannette Brown
Sisterchemists LLC

Copyright permissions

2011-02-04T12:46:00.001-08:00

Ok. I am on a steep learning curve for this book and frankly I am worn out. Because I don't have an assistant (that's going to change) I have to do everything.
I just spent two days trying to chase down the publisher of a book that I cited for permission. The author holds the copyright but the publisher gives the permission. Well the publisher has changed since 1994, it was bought out by another publisher. Actually the book was published by a small publisher in Boston who I guess sold it to a bigger publisher for distribution. I contacted the author's assistant and found out that she was ill and I should go to the editor of the small publisher which I did.
Her's where the fun begins. I went to the publisher and they use a service called RightsLink or Copyright.com. I just spent three or more hours fighting with their website trying to get the information to the publisher to aceept or reject. I created an account with Copyright.Com only to find that when I wanted to submit my information it was =gone! It had been deleted from the server. Well I did this three times and then I picked up the phone and called them. The man who answered submitted the information on my behalf and had the same problem.
So now it is up to the IT people to figure out what went wrong! When I signed up for the account on Copyright.com it kept giving me the wrong city when I put in my correct zip code. It gave me a town in Massachusettes and not New Jersey! I worked my way around that one.

So here I sit with more stuff to edit and I am exhausted!

The good news is that I did get written permission from the author of Black Women Scientists in American to use information that I cited from her book! She has been supportive of my work all along so I am excited about that. She want's a copy of the book. I will drive to her house and present it in person. She is now disabled since she had a stroke about two years ago.

In spite of the fact I have no money I want to hire a student to do some of the typing and follow up for permissions that my former assistant did. I have to get this book out!

OK. Back to the real world.

Jeannette
PS I am glad the weather is bad as I go nowhere anyhow. My life revolves around book, music, knitting and dinner.

MLK' s I Have a Dream Speech done by 4th grade students

2011-01-23T19:25:00.000-08:00

The PBS News Hour broadcast a 4th grade class reciting Martin Luther King Jr's "I have a Dream" speech on Monday.
I thought it was so cute that I put it here in this blog. Here is the YouTube link; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8_1NYYKixM

Here is the PBS News Hour link: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/social_issues/jan-june11/dream_01-17.html

I like the News Hour version best.
Enjoy.
I posted this on my church blog, it is fitting on this blog as well.
Jeannette Brown

Book Progress to Date

2011-01-15T08:00:00.000-08:00

Without assistance it is a slow progress for the book. I am editing the women one by one using the edits of my friends. Then I send them off three at a time to my final personal editor.
I am e-mailing and snailmailing the stories of the living women to them for permission to publish and also for their editing if they want. Then I will compile all the stories in the book.
Then the work begins because I can already see the word count will be too high. I may just send it off to my editor for him to make the cuts. The longer version will be posted on the website I have been told.
I have finally received my royalty advance and I have been asked to supply art for the book cover so this is going to happen!
I have taking some similar books out of the library and purchased one to see what format for the book should be. I am learning a lot about book publishing and editing on the fly. My next book, if any will be better.
I am looking forward to a vacation for a while after this and then launch into the next project.
In order to releive my stress, I will go back to having a massage and I go to Yoga practice at the Y every Friday. It is a Yoga class at 6:15 Am on Friday, but noone shows up but me. So I have free private lesson. The instructor does not mind. Sometimes she needs it as well.

That's all for now.
Jeannette

Book Progress to Date and Happy New Year

2011-01-01T11:04:00.000-08:00

OK. You know you never publish the first draft of any book. I found that out the hard way last month. My former assistant edited my work and pulled it to pieces. Another person had already edited it and I was working on it but my assistant did not pull any punches. She is my former assistant by her choice as she is writing her PhD thesis and my work took too much of her time. That is unfortunate for me because even though she was rough and made me cry I respected her edits as I did those of my other editor. She also got started on all the other stuff that one must do to produce a book. Since nothing that I write is new, I have to get permissions for everything! Therefore, I have asked my editor for a one-month extension. He agreed that I must give him a good book.

I have been doing stream of conscience writing so I just plugged in the citations but not in Chicago Manual of Style. I finally downloaded the 16th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style and I am following it. I am also paraphrasing more material rather than direct citations. I will have a reference section in the appendix. I wish I had someone to follow up on the permissions because having to do rewrite and also follow up on permissions is time consuming. It is hard to get some of the women in the book to send me back permissions in a
timely manner.

I still have one woman whose oral history that I must take by phone. I have tried for two years to get to her but she never responds to my phone calls or when she does, she does not have time to talk. I will have to push harder because she is one of the original Double Bind women and the only information I have about her is in another book. I would like more information.

I always wondered how celebrities turned out books so rapidly. I now know. They hire people to help them write. I e-mailed one woman who is too busy but when
she does have time, her fee is $100.00 per hour. I do not have money like that. Academics can write grants to support their publications and have graduate students who may work for them for nothing or very little. Independent scholars have a problem. I did note that the National Academy of Science send out proposals for independent scholars to write a book. That is how Margaret Rossiter got her money for her books about women in science. However, if they are doing this now, I do not have the time to write the proposal and wait for funding. I suppose I should have been writing when I was at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, but I was still doing research then. In fact, I love research, I hate writing. I guess
that is the problem! I write like a chemist is trained to write in the passive voice. It is so hard to change that.

Having said that I am pushing on. I cannot stop now. So the publication date of the book will be later than August, but it will be published. That is my goal for 2011.

Oh, here is a comic that I saw today. It refers to me. http://www.gocomics.com/ziggy/2011/01/01/ I need a book writing for dummies.

Jeannette Brown

Book Progress and Administration

2010-11-12T19:11:00.000-08:00

We are working on getting the photos. We found one that Oxford U press already owns so that was good. The next step will be copyediting.

I am still writing the history chapter. It is going slowly because I have so many sources. Someone will have to put it in some sort of order so that it flows well. I found a time line on the African American Studies website. I copied the pertinent items to another time line. I have two other time lines that will have to be combined.

I still have to write the introductory chapeter and there are some women that I have to interview.

Next week I will try to interview the women. I have given them enough time to get ready and I want to do it before the holidays.

I fianally worked on the administration part of the book. I am now the owner of Sister Chemists LLC. I have a tax id so that I can set up a checking account and get my royality advance. The LLC is to manage the royalties, if any other than the advance. Right now I need to money for the book expenses. Some of the companies charge for the photos.

Now that the business part is done I will get down to writing next week.

Jeannette Brown

Background History

2010-11-10T08:33:00.000-08:00

Well my assistant is working on getting photos from the book. This means we are politely begging some of the women in the book for photos which is the best way to do it. The publisher can scan them for printing better than we can. The next best is to have a high resolution scan made. Sometimes we have to pay for this service.
OK While she is doing that I am struggeling with the background history chapter. I have a lot of information the problem is how to consolidate it into one chapter. I will put the references at the back of the chapter for further reading.
Well since I took the Web 2.0 course which says I need to keep blogging, I am doing it. But I also have to get back to the book.
More later.
Jeannette Brown

News about the book and other things

2010-11-07T02:34:00.000-08:00

The good news about the book is that we are making progress! I say we because I have a team helping me. I have hired a young woman who is studying for a PhD in African American History at Rutgers University. Her name is Shannen and she has experience in putting a book together. We started last Friday searching for photos for the book. I also have a young woman whom I am calling an intern, who will work for me. She was recommended by one of the women from the Princeton Research Forum of which I am a member. This young woman lives in Trenton, she goes to Mercer County Community College, and she wants to learn about publishing a book. She will start next week. So hopefully we are on track to get the book finished in December.

There is still a lot of work to do. Besides getting the photos and the photo permissions, we have to get
permissions to use some of the text in the book and then copy edit the entire book to see that it fits into the size dictated by my contract so we have a long hard road to go.

I have dedicated all my time togetting this done.

However, as I look at the book I realize there is a lot more to say so that I have material for another book! I have only talked about the women for whom there is a lot of public
information. I have a list of women whom were listed in who's who in Black America that I would have to research or take their oral history.

Speaking of oral history, I did take a break to attend the Oral History Organization meeting in Atlanta last week. I presented a paper about one of the women whose oral history had been released to the Chemical Heritage Foundation. Her name is Reatha Clark King. Since oral histories are private until they are released to the public, I could only talk about the women who have released their oral history.

This is not true for the book since most of the information in the book is already public.

While in Atlanta I did some research at Emory University archives. The archives of Sinah Kelley one of the women in the book was there. I waited through seven boxes of stuff. It was like wading through the attic of a person. Sinah was born in 1916 so she was one of the pioneers in chemistry. Her diary was there along with baby photos and a photo of her college graduation. She went to Radcliff College so ten year and twenty-five year alumni books were there. The good news is that she wrote about what she had been doing since college graduation so that I have some of her life in her own
words! It is an interesting story.

At the Oral History conference, I took a short course in Web 2.0. Blogging is Web 2.0 and I learned I need to blog more often. Therefore, look for posts that are more frequent from me.

Jeannette Brown

Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Light the Night

2010-09-19T14:55:00.000-07:00

I will be walking the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Light the Night Walk for the fifth year in a row. I have worked on this fund raiser every year since I was first diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. It is truly an inspiring evening of walking with lighted balloons, red for supporters and white for survivors and gold for those who have lost the battle.
I not only walk for myself but for all those who have suffered from blood cancers some of them in silence.

I have become a patient advocate to spread the word about blood cancer. Few people know that SEPTEMBER IS BLOOD CANCER AWARENESS MONTH IN NEW JERSEY.

The LLS is trying to make September blood cancer awareness month nationwide. You can help by contacting your congress person. Here is the link:Act now to make September Blood Cancer Awareness Month

The Light the Night New Jersey Team will be on Good Morning America on Channel 7 ABC on Wednesday September 22. I don't know if it is an interview or just in the audience as I have been. The show airs from 7 AM to 9 AM when I am usually exercising so I will watch it on the Internet.

I am walking the Light the Night walk on Saturday October 2 at Princeton Forrestal Village. The ceremony starts at 5:00 PM and is usually over by 9:00 PM. We walk rain or shine in warm weather and cold weather and I have had all of that.

If you would like to donate to my team my web page is :

http://pages.lightthenight.org/nj/Colonial10/jbrown_LTN45

I hope you donate the cost of one less cup of Starbucks coffee or Latte even more if your company will match.

You have until JANUARY 31 TO DONATE! Think about your tax deductions.

Remember I am walking for a cure. The researchers are close to getting cures for some blood cancers but they need money for this. Researchers are humans who have families and houses and need to eat so you will be stimulating the economy by donating to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society!!! Think of that!

Jeannette Brown

Vacations, Book Writing, Summertime

2010-08-05T06:24:00.001-07:00

Well two weeks ago I went on a vacation, sort of. It was supposed to be a wonderful vacation in the Berkshires with music, dance, relaxation and only a little book writing. The Berkshires are in western Massachusetts and the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Tangelwood. I used to go there all the time when my girl friend had her house up there. This time I invited to share my girl friends time share along with several others of her friends. We had tickets to a lot of concerts and there is going to be time for me to edit what I had written and send it off to my personal editors. At least that was the grand plan. It started off OK even though we had a two hour delay driving up due to traffic and construction in New Jersey. We got to Tangelwood in time for the preview concert, followed by a picnic dinner supplied by our overnight host and hostess. We were staying overnight, the first night at the home of one of my friends because we could not get into the time share until Saturday. Moving into the time share was ok as were the concerts at Tangelwood. Sunday night was a concert by Audra McDonald which was great.

Then came Monday. I went for a swim and came back for breakfast. My girlfriend took a walk in the woods and then decided to go for a swim in the outdoor pool, (I went in the indoor pool that opens at 8, and the outdoor pool opens at 10 AM. My friend was in a hurry because she had to leave for a meeting another part of Mass and I was going to meet with a chemist friend of mine who lives in the Berkshires. She was rushing to the pool and did not see the glass door, she thought it was open and ran into it. She fell and fractured her wrist which we found out after six hours in the ER. So that shot Monday.

The rest of the week was spent nursing her with the help of the other women that came.

But having said that, I did get some things done on the book. I took two afternoons when I sat in my "t office" on the balcony of the time share. I edited what I had written so now I have the second draft of some of writings about the women. I sent it off to a personal editor and she is looking at it. Editing is a great process, especially when you edit more than one segment of the book. You get to see the big picture and make connections between the women. It will help me write the overview chapter, but this blog is helping me do that. I did get to get away to visit with my friend in the Berkshires. I also got to take the car to see the Rockwell museum in Stockbridge Mass and wonder at the scenery.

It was about this time that my editor told me if I want a book launch in August 2011 he needs to see the book in early December not late December as I had planned. So when I came back home I started to speed up my writing. I set a new time table to finish writing in September do the back stuff in October and finally putting together and editing in November. Therefore I can't let life get in the way of my writing. That is easier said than done. I got two days of writing done last week. Hopefully next week will be better.

I take the book with me wherever I go as now I am on route to a ScienceMakers board meeting in Chicago by train. I brought the information about one woman with me to write about during the break times and on the train.

Here are some observations about the book:

Research can now be done by Google as well as going to the library. With Googling you need to have patience because I found some good information after 25 pages. Maybe I did not ask the right questions. You can also find some of their research in Google Scholar.
I am very much indebted to Dr. Winni Warren who wrote Black Women Scientists in America. Although I started my research long before she did, she was meticulous in her research and I check her references as well as the new ones I discover by googling. I have t told her this and she has encouraged me to write my book.
Ebony magazine has portrayed the lives of many of the women in the book including a complete spread about a husband and wife couple who were scientists in Albuquerque New Mexico. I think Ebony was more interested in the fact that they were the Black middle class along with four others in the town at the time. The fact that they were scientists did not seem to interest them at the time.
The University of Chicago was the university that many of the women went to for their Ph. D. research. It far out numbers the other institutions
I will go through all of the women in the book and point out similar connections. Right now have three or more women born in 1926.
I have also used genealogy in Ancestry .Com to find out more information about these women. I will tell that to Dr. Henry Lewis Gates Jr. who helped me get my publisher.

Well that's all for now.

Jeannette Brown

Half way through maybe

2010-07-05T20:00:00.001-07:00

Well today, I finished the first drafts of the women that I have a lot of information about with the exception of one or two. Now I have to decide if I am going to write up woman that I don't have much more information about than is published.

I looked at one woman and sent for more information via interlibrary loan. I no longer go to the libraries to do the research I let the library bring the books to me. That way I can write and not waste time in travel. I am still taking the oral histories of women where there is not a lot of published information.

I expect to look at my first drafts while on vacation in the Berkshires and then release them to my personal editors for review. I still have a lot of the back work to do, index references etc. Book writing is hard, but fun.

Jeannette

Book Progress to date

2010-05-22T08:48:00.001-07:00

Wow. Sorry for the long time between posts. You would think I have been busy writing but I have been busy and sometimes writing. I am not as far along as I wanted to be on this date, but I am working on it. My mentors have been pushing me to write and not procrastinate. For example I have postponed a visit to an orthopedic doctor because even though both knees bother me at times and so does my hip, I can still walk and exercise so adding another doctor to my group is not what I need at this time.

I have also been busy with American Chemical Society business. I gave four African American middle school and high school students' awards last Tuesday. I will post their photos on the website soon. These are the possible future chemists and future readers of my book or website.

I need to schedule two oral histories of two women for my book. They are both in the Washington DC area so that I can do it easily but the problem is scheduling. It seems other 70 year olds are as busy as I am.

I am also still doing some research for the book. For this, I am choosing to sit at home at my computer and let my library send me the documents by interlibrary loan as long as it exists in New Jersey. Our new Governor is cutting budgets one of them being the library budget by 74%!!!!! Penny wise and pound-foolish.

So I am going to write today Saturday, and I hope to get out into the garden later this afternoon. I cannot sit and look at the computer all day; I have to give my eyes a rest!

Jeannette

Writing and Research or both

2010-02-13T14:06:00.001-08:00

I spent last week writing about Eslanda Goode Robeson. Wow. There is so much written about her as she was Paul Robeson's wife. That is the good news. The bad news is that everything conflicts with everything else. It is as if everyone has his or her own interpretation of her life. I guess I am writing another interpretation but some things should be facts and should agree. At least that is what I think as a scientific researcher, but that does not seem to be so. The one fact that I am talking about is when she graduated from Columbia University and when she entered for that matter. Some say she spent two years at the University of Illinois and then went to Columbia and some say she left the U of Illinois in her senior years. I have seen graduation dates from Colombia that range for 1914 to 1920! I have seen a graduation photo of her wearing an academic gown that looks like that of a PhD and not a BS, but maybe they wore those types of gowns early in the 20th Century at Columbia. She does have a PhD in Anthropology from Hartford Seminary.

Therefore, I guess I will try to solve this problem by checking with the Columbia University archives and yearbooks if they have this information. My Oxford University editors might ask me these questions so I might as well get the answers now.

Also photos. So far, there is only one photo that I will have to pay for from a newspaper. I hope to get permission to use other photos for little or no money. I am doing this as I go along so I do not have to do it at the last minutes. I may have more photos then will be printed in the book but I can use them for website that will be an addition to the book. I think I am writing for the website as what I write is long but it will be up to the editors to shorten the writing for the book.

I have been asked to do a short version of one of my women for church. I think I will write about Eslanda Robeson because of her connection to the United Church of Christ via her grandfather and there is the New Jersey connection with her husband. This will be my Black History month speech at church.

You should see my office now. Since there is so much written about Essie Robeson I have papers and books strewn around everywhere. I sit the middle of this mess and either type or ponder which version to use.

There is a budding Writers group here in the Hillsborough Library. I went out to the meeting last Thursday. Only three of us showed up and the organizer of the group did not show. So the three of us introduced ourselves. One woman writes romance novels and has published many; the other woman is a science writer for Pharma for a living and wants to start writing poetry. She brought a poem for us to review. We do not know yet what this group is going to do because the leader did not show up, but it was nice meeting those two women. My monthly lunch with the Princeton Research Forum people was canceled due to the snowstorm. That was to be Thursday also.

Well that is where I am now.

No one has answered my Black History Month quiz yet. Did I stump you?

Jeannette

Black History Month 1. African American Women in Science

2010-02-04T16:14:00.000-08:00

I write three blogs off and on. This month I will put the same information in all three blogs, because it is Black History Month and I want to convey some information to the public.

As you know I am writing a book about the history of African Amercan women chemists so I am going to give you a quiz.

Ok. Its up to you to tell me who they are and what they did. That's a hint they are all deceased. The people who read this blog should not have a problem with this quiz.

Good Luck
Jeannette

MLK Day

2010-01-18T19:38:00.001-08:00

Well today was supposed to be a day of service. I chose not to go anywhere as writing this book is a service.

Since I seem to like to do research rather than write, I did some more research. I looked up Dr Quentin Deming, Dr. Marie Daly first research partner. I found out that at 90 he is still living! At least he was in October when he signed the physician petition to Obama about health care. He lives in New Hampshire. I will try to call him and ask if I can do a taped interview about his work with Dr. Daly. I will see what he remembers.

I also e-mailed Dr. Lane again about the ACS taking up Dr. Daly. I e-mailed Dr. Malcolm about the video tape again giving her a copy of her seconding nomination of Dr. Daly for the Garvan medal. She mentioned the video in that nomination. Janet Bryant the new ACS women chemist committee chair said they would help with the search.

Next, I will write about Josephine Silane Yates. She is the first African American woman to head a science department.

Jeannette

Friday of Week II

2010-01-15T19:24:00.001-08:00

Well guess what? I finally started writing and it was not painful at all. Thursday I spent the day procrastinating by looking for some information about Dr. Marie Daly that I had all along. I started the article about Dr. Daly when I wrote. The people who reviewed my book proposal wanted me to gear the story to young women so I started by setting up a scenario in which they would be living in the early part of the twentieth century and be a young Negro girl. I hope I did it right. Then I attached the segment that I had written about Dr. Daly for "African National Biography" I have been told that I could site myself. I changed the segment by adding more information. This segment about Dr. Daly is long, but that is OK, as I have decided for all the segments in the book I would make them longer than the final version. This way I will get all the pertinent information into the segment and we can edit it down to the right length. To me this makes sense since it would be harder to add more information than to delete it.

In some segments, I may be adding information because I will write and add more info as I do more research.

I feel good now as the weight of starting to write is off my shoulders. I was going to go to Washington DC on Wednesday to a meeting at the American Chemical Society, but since I was not able to write last week because the dog was sick I do not think I can waste the time. Writing some of the other segments will be harder because they have yet to be written. I did not write about all the women who are going to be in the book for African American National Biography.

Jeannette

Week 2 Day 1

2010-01-11T19:35:00.000-08:00

Well I still have not written anything but I did make progress. My editor sent me the booklet for authors. It turns out his former assistant did not send me the the most recent information about that so I was looking for a glossy photo. The most recent information says a high resolution scanned photo will do.
I sent the photos of Dr. Marie Daly to the archivist at Einstein College of Medicine. The archivist sent back the high resolution photos that I can use for the book. Now I have to make sure I have permission to use them. I have the name of the photographer that I will credit. I guess I have to send a form to the archivist although she said it was OK since they did not take the pictures.
I also contacted the alumni association person at Einstein for information as to how to contact students and mentees of Dr. Daly. Dr. Daly was part of a program to get more minorities to study to become doctors called the King-Kennedy program. I have a photo of her with some of the students in that program.
The rest of the day was spent contacting two other women who will be in the book because their oral histories are ready for their review. I needed to get them to send it to me and the person at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in charge of the women in science oral history program.
The dog is better but still not eating well.
Jeannette

Friday of week 1

2010-01-09T19:39:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was bad as my dog is sick and I spent time taking her to the vet and worrying about her.
Today I got back to business. I am still working on Dr. Daly. I managed to recive an e-mail from the archivist at Einstein College of Medicine wher Dr. Daly worked. I am in the process of getting photos for the book. I will also contact the alumni association to find former students of hers.
Saturday is the day I chose to catch up on housework and work on the American Chemical Society volunteer work.
Jeannette

Writing?

2010-01-06T19:24:00.000-08:00

OK. Today was Wednesday. If all went well I should have had the afternoon to write. You guessed it all did not go well. It started at 3 AM when I woke up to my dog vomiting on my cap. She liked it up but vomited again later that morning. I took her for a walk and then went to the gym. My day was supposed to be a doctor's appointment after the gym and then an appointment for Shakie my dog at 1 followed by writing.
My dog did not want to eat this morning so I called the vet because she had diabeatis and needs to eat before I give her insulin. Since she did not eat, the vet said give her a half dose of insulin.
I went to my doctor's appointment and when I came back my dog did not look good. She was just lying and she would not get up. I called the vet and told them I was bringing her in. I called a friend to get someone to lift her into the car since she was not going to walk on her own.
The vet did blood tests and gave her fluids. They think she has pancreatitis. They sent me home with special dog food. I have to try to get her to ear tomorrow.
So that was my day of not writing.
Jeannette

Writing day 2!

2010-01-05T17:47:00.000-08:00

Well today was my doctor's appointment. I got out early and home by three, in time to write. I am reading a book of science history to give me some idea as to how to write. The author included some conversation of the person.
Therefor I reviewed the video that I have of Dr. Marie Daly again. There are some segments of that conversation that I may be able to use.
I also started to do some more research into her life at Rockerfeller Institute. I found the archives but there is a lot of stuff. I think I will consult with the archivist as to whether it is worth a trip to Tarrytown NY to look at the archives.
I probably have enough information about Dr Daly to write about her.
I have not heard from the people I e-mailed yesterday. I will give them one more day, tomorrow and then bug them again.
Jeannette

New Year Start of writing

2010-01-04T20:26:00.000-08:00

Today I started with the woman who is the reason I am starting to write a book, Dr. Marie Daly. Dr. Daly was the first African American woman to receive a PhD in chemistry. When I met her and found out that I thought she was living history. She became sort of my honorary role model. As an African American woman chemist, I decided to find out about the other women who wanted to become chemists and tell their stories.
I have done a lot of research into the story about Dr. Daly but today I decided to do some more. There is a group in the American Chemical Society that want to have her life lifted up as a role model for other young women and men like they did the life of Dr. Percy Julian. I don't know if we will be able to have NOVA do a video about her life, but we can have a private video made.
Today I sent e-mails to the ACS about this and to the archivist of Einstein College of Medicine where Dr. Daly worked. I needed to get permission from the archivist to use the photo of Dr. Daly and see if they have any more information about Dr. Daly. I also want to reach out to her students to get their stories. There is also a professor their that wrote her memorial for the Einstein Collge of Medicine news magazine. I would like to speak to him if he is still alive.
I also contacted the archivist of the American society for the Advancement of Sciene. Dr. Shirley Malcom told me that she had a video of Dr. Daly speaking about her career. Also Dr. Daly was one of the chemists that took part in the orgiginal discussion about minority women in science that resulted in the paper called "The Double Bind". The 40th? anniversary of that paper is coming soon and I want to present a symposium about that paper and the update now at the ACS meeting in Boston next summer so I was interested in data about that.
The other place I need information from is Rockefeller Institue now University. That is wher Dr. Daly first worked. I will check with the archivist there tomorrow.
This is all I had time for today. I do need to start writing, but I have already written about Dr. Daly in "African American National Biography". In fact when I Googled Dr. Daly the article that I wrote about her came up.
It is so hard to write at home because things interfer. For example today I was going to start early but I had to drive my housemate to rent a car since her car was totatled in an accident. Therefore I did not get started until afternoon. Tuesday and Wednesday of this week I have doctors appointments so my next full day is Friday. I will try to sneak something in tomorrow and Wednesday though.
Jeanntte Brown

Writing!

2009-10-21T08:28:00.000-07:00

OK. I have been sending e-mails to people and they don't understand me. I wonder if it is the age difference or what. I tend to write and hope people understand the big picture. I hate to spell everything out. For example I had a friend of mine tell me that I go from A to J without going ABCDEFGHIJ. I assume that people know that A is followed by the other letters to get to J.

Do you understand this? Am I going to have to spell everything out? To me this is boring.

I guess I will just have to write and let my personal editors look at it and ask me the questions about the stuff they perceive, I have left out.

Wow writing is hard! But I guess I will get used to it.

I am going to a symposium run by the National Science Foundation (NSF to me) about "Women fo Color". It should be interesting and help me with my book.

I had a phone conversation with a chemistry librarian at a major Research I university. I told her that I was writing a book about African American women chemists. She said: "We had an African American woman chemist" (on the faculty). How sad in the 21st Century for them to say the had one African American woman chemist on the faculty. Unfortunately I happened to know the name of the person she was speaking about and that is sad as well. This is the reason for my book!
Jeannette

Writers and book contracts

2009-09-30T00:14:00.000-07:00

OK. Now it can be said. My publisher is Oxford University Press. I finally signed the contract after a lot of going back and forth with my editor and consultation with two lawyers and a lot of friends. There is a book which I finally got out of the library about Legal aspects that authors need to know. That is not the exact title but I am writing while on vacation and the book is home. Yes retirees go on vacation, especially this one who is now working for Oxford Press on this book.
But having said that, I took the book with me. I have a deadline which is now December 2010. You might think that is a lot of time, but remember that I am a new writer so it will take time for me to write and then edit what I write and then have personal editors edit what I write and etc etc etc.
I have found out that I fall in love with the lives of these women so I write a lot. In my book contract I have word limit and a page limit so I really need to edit to get it down to the bare facts for the book. But having said that, my editor and I agree there will be a longer web version so I can say all I want to say about these women. As much as I would like to, nothing will be posted on the web until Oxford obtains the copy write
OK. Yes Oxford will hold my copy write which is why I say I am working for them. That's OK it seems that Google (the host for this blog) is going out and posting books without permission, I believe and there was a settlement. Oxford feels they are in a better position to defend my copy write than I would be. That's OK with me as I am a new writer and I am being published by this prestigious publisher so I am happy.
More later. It is late at night and I need to get up early as I am leaving San Diego, where I am now for Arizona tomorrow.
Jeannette Brown

Research - What I learned

2009-09-05T10:06:00.000-07:00

When I started my research I just looked at the source, made a copy of it and took the information. I did not make a copy of the source of the material so I had to go back and find that again. I learn subsequent always to do that. For new material I will need permission if I do substantial quotes. I will have to site everything including my own work. Yes I have written published work, more about that later.

I just picked up a thesis that I received by inter library loan. That should not be remarkable but for this one it was. For most dissertations you can find them registered by Pro Quest at UMI Dissertation. A librarian tried that and could not find it and gave up. Meanwhile I was looking for that thesis because it proved that the woman who wrote it was a researcher as well as an educator. So after about two months I asked her about it and she said it was lost. So I went directly to the library that held the thesis to check on it and found out that it was available for inter-library loan and was not registered at Pro Quest. I spoke to the inter library loan librarian about this and gave all this information to my public library librarian. About 4 weeks later the thesis arrived along with a processing fee of $10.00 which I gladly paid.
I have retrieved other thesis of these women. Some in person. I walked in 90 degree heat from the bus stop to the library at the University of Chicago to retrieve two thesis of two of my women. I wondered as I walked if other historians wanted to visit the actual places where their subjects went to college or grad school. While at the University of Chicago I visited the chemistry department. No one was there, as it was summer except an African American woman who was working as a volunteer. I told her what I was doing and she was happy to know that the University of Chicago is where two of the women received their PhD's along with African American men. There is a story here that needs to be told.
That's all for now.

I become an author! ????

2009-09-04T13:12:00.000-07:00

Well in order to go through this process, I guess I am going to need help. Also writers have to write, just as singers have to sing every day and other musicians have to practice every day so I decided to start this blog in addition to the two others I should be writing every day.
This blog will be just for the trials and tribulations of writing a book for a novice.
The first trial is looking at the contract. Until I sign the contract I will not reveal my publisher in case there is a last minute hitch, but some of you reading this will know as I told everyone. I just don't want to tell the rest of the world yet.
I have never seen a book contract before. It is 16 pages! It gives every detail of what the publisher wants me to do and what they will do. I am in the process of reading every line and I have two lawyers looking at it for me. I found out that I can revise some of it. I have a very supportive editor! In fact I really think he wants to publish this book which is good for me.
So this is the first post of this blog. I will take you through the gruesome details of book writing.

I am a researcher, a chemical researcher, but researching these women is very much the same. You look for them, find out about their lives and then ask questions and look deeper. I started this research about 40 years ago but I did not go as deeply into their lives as I am doing now. I just wanted to know why I was the only African American woman chemists that I knew. Then I met Dr. Marie Daly the first African American women to get a PhD in chemistry. Then I wanted to know where the other women were and why she was the first in 1947!

It has been fun going through this research and I am still researching, but at some time you have to stop and write it up. That is where I am now the stop and write it up part. This as I said before is the reason for this blog. I have to write.

You will see this is a stream of consciences but hopefully I will make some points and get better at it as I write.

That's all for now.
Jeannette