Launchpad Astronomy Workshop

I’m stupidly excited to be attending Launchpad this year!  It’s like astronomy camp for authors. Here’s a snippet of what it’s all about:

Launch Pad is an education/public outreach effort supplementing Mike Brotherton’s space-based astronomical research.  Our primary goal is to teach writers, editors, and those with audiences of all types about modern science, specifically astronomy, and in turn reach their audiences. We hope to both educate the public and inspire the next generation of scientists.

Lecturers include University of Wyoming professor and authorMichael S. Brotherton, PhD., Christian Ready, Jim Verley, Andria Schwortz, and additional Wyoming astronomy faculty members.

We get to learn from Mike, Christian and the rest as well as visit the university’s observatories and do a bit of skywatching–in Wyoming. Be still my nerdy heart. 😉

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Checking the boxes.

I checked a box the other day. It was one I was both pleased to see and one that had taken me years to acknowledge. The box was next to this word: asexual. It was under the question about sexual orientation on a mundane university survey. It’s gratifying to see the university even aware of the orientation. Many adults still think the A in LBGTA stands for allies. (Sorry guys, A is for Asexual.) Young adults these days are way more aware of aces and much more like to openly identify as asexual and/or one of the orientations under the ace spectrum. (But I won’t get into those.)  In fact, a couple of years ago, I was having a drink with a friend from high school, whom I hadn’t seen since college, when she told me that her son had texted her from college that he was asexual. She laughed it off, kind of in a condescending “kids these days” tone. College was for experimenting, she concluded, and he’d grow out of it.  At first I was silent, but finally I said was something like: at least kids today have a word for it.  She gave me an odd look and quickly changed the subject.

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Paperback Editions

Out of the blue, the folks at Skyscape let me know that both The Forgetting Curve and The Meme Plague will come out in paperback in September this year!

Forgetting Curve CoverMeme Plague

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New Nonfiction Books

I am so bad at keeping this site up to date. I admit it! But I have been busy. Over the past year or so, I’ve written seven (7) nonfiction books! (See my Nonfiction section for a complete list.) These 4 came out January 1st of this year:

abomb
12 Incredible Facts about the Dropping of The Atomic Bombs
moonlanding
12 Incredible Facts about the First Moon Landing
digdivide
The Digital Divide: 12 Things You Need to Know
pcbook
Inventing the Personal Computer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


And these three will come out June 1st-ish:

  • Building Better Robots
  • Space Myths, Busted
  • Technology Myths, Busted

All of the above are for readers in upper elementary and middle school.

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