January 2006
February 2006
March 2006
April 2006
May 2006
June 2006
July 2006
August 2006
September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
December 2006
January 2007
February 2006
March 2006
April 2006
May 2006
June 2006
July 2006
August 2006
September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
December 2006
January 2007
January 2006
January 17, 2006
Well, I'm off and running. Today was my first "official" interview for the book. Actionist and author Jessica Weiner was in Seattle as part of her book tour, so I met with her at her downtown hotel. I was totally psyched to meet with Jess, but the day actually got off to a rocky start. Our nanny, Julie, told us that she was taking a fulltime job, and so she wouldn't be able to take care of Asher any more. We love Julie so much…I'm not sure what we're going to do without her, but I know something will work out. As a result of all that drama at home, I was running late for my interview with Jessica, and of course I didn't know exactly where her hotel was, but I finally found it and dashed inside. Luckily, Jessica herself was running late, so I took a few minutes to chill out in the lobby of her hotel before she and her media guide came in. Because Jess and I had both spoken at the same Mind on the Media conference in Los Angeles the year before, I recognized her the minute she walked in the door.
Jessica and I talked in her "author's suite" at the hotel, which until now I didn't even know existed! There were signed books from every author who had ever stayed in the room, a nice living room space, a desk for writing…it was pretty sweet.
Jessica and I connected on many levels—I'm sure that's because we're both passionate about the same things and have a lot of common interests through our work for teen girls and life in general. I also found out that Jess is a fellow Penn State grad, but we weren't there at the same time. Small world!
Anyway…I really enjoyed our conversation, and it was definitely a great way to kick off the interview process for this book. I'm looking forward to transcribing the interview so I can start shaping together Jess' profile, since Simon Pulse would like to give a sample profile to their design department ASAP so we can figure out how the book is going to be laid out.
Onward!
January 19, 2006
Today I spent the morning trying to line up a few more interviews. To start with, I found a great website called Engineer Girl, and through it I stumbled upon a young woman engineer in Baltimore named Tamara Hayman, a systems engineer at Lockheed Martin. I thought she'd be perfect for the book, so I tracked her down and we set up something for next week. I also left a message with librarian Nancy Pearl, as well as the realtor Derin and I worked with when we were thinking of moving to San Francisco, Leah Faresh Karp.
This afternoon I shifted gears and created an "interview packet" for all the women I approach for interviews. I want to be able to easily present the idea to women and then send them the relevant background info once they're on-board. Now that my packets are done, I'll be able to contact women about the book more efficiently.
January 23, 2006
I had my phone interview with systems engineer Tamara Hayman today. It went very well, although I realized that I'm going to have translate some of the technical speak before writing up her profile so I can make sure that the concepts she's talking about make sense to someone who doesn't have a frame of reference for the job. I'm really glad to have Tamara involved in the book: A) because she's so young, and has worked really hard through internships and other programs to get where she is, and B) I feel strongly that the book include a number of math and science careers…especially the kinds of jobs that typically aren't held by women. I think a big reason why more girls and young women don't pursue such jobs is because half the time they don't even realize it's an option or they don't have women as role models to show them not only how it's done, but that it can be done. I'm definitely planning to feature more science jobs…maybe an astronaut. We'll have to see how things work out.
January 25, 2006
Today I interviewed Leah Faresh-Karp, a real estate agent based in Marin County, CA. The last time I spoke with Leah, I was about six months pregnant and Derin and I were seriously considering a move to the Bay Area. Leah was our realtor and was very dynamic, personable, and definitely knew her stuff. I thought she'd be a great person to profile for the book, and our interview went very well. I'm starting to feel more comfortable with the interview process…I'm tweaking my interview questions as I go—I want to make sure I get all the information I need the first time around so I don't have to go back to the women again with more questions.
January 27, 2006
I loved that 1990's movie Singles with Matt Dillon, Bridget Fonda, Campbell Scott and Kyra Sedgewick. The soundtrack was great, and it totally captured the whole Seattle grunge scene very well (and now that I live here, I like to pretend that it's still like that and I, too, can be hip like the characters in the movie). Anyway… Campbell Scott's character, Steve, works for the city as a transportation planner. His passion was mass transit, and he was working on light rail project that would save people gas money, run on electricity, and improve the downtown landscape of Seattle all at the same time. That movie was my first exposure to the idea that there is a career in planning out communities and making conscious choices about how a city should be laid out. I also think it's funny that today, more than ten years after that movie came out, Seattle is still talking about creating light rail mass transportation…but that's another story.
I had a hard time tracking down the right urban planner to interview, since no one I knew had any connections with one. But I finally found Anne Corbett, who is the director of this really progressive urban planning organization, the Cultural Development Corporation, in Washington, D.C. Her organization helps ensure that urban planning projects in D.C. take the arts scene into consideration.
Anne gave me a great interview for the book. She also has a son about the same age as Asher, so we talked about the challenges of trying to juggle work a job that you love with being a mom, which is also so fulfilling. It's nice to connect with other women who struggle with the same things I do.
I'm going to try and transcribe all the interviews I did this week over the weekend, so next week I can concentrate on booking more interviews, as well as figuring out design ideas for the sidebars of the book. More later!
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© 2003-2007 Deborah Reber
