Book Progress and Administration 2

OK. 

Book Progress and Administration

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

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

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

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

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

 

E

Half way through maybe

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