Thanks to those of you who wrote in with links for blogs from women’s orgs and research centers–there were bunches I didn’t know about! Like the National Women’s Law Center’s blog, Womenstake, which launched in May 2007. It’s one of my faves, and I’m giving it this month’s Organizational Blog of the Month Award from GWP (I just made that up — you like?!).

What I like about this blog, and what I believe makes it successful (ie, lively! interesting!) as an organizational blog:

1. It has a range of voices. Contributors include legal interns and senior counsel, program assistants and directors, communications staff and law clerks and policy fellows–in other words, not just the executive director.

2. The posts are SHORT (3 paragraphs max) and supertimely.

3. Posts are full of links to items and articles currently in the news as well as to other blogs.

4. They’ve figured out Web 2.0 and social networking (at the bottom of each post you’ll find these options: Digg This! • Save to del.icio.us • Subscribe to this feed • Email this • Share on Facebook)

5. The blog has a sidebar with links to what’s going on at the organization.

Orgs creating blogs: take note! And gratitude to Robin Reed over at NWLC for the heads up.

When I did an image search and found this one, I must admit, at first I thought the champagne glasses were a kid. They’re not. They’re champagne glasses. As in cheers, and celebration. (Um, only child, much?!)

So Mom, Dad, wishing you bubbly and happiness and much nachas and joy in each other today, with love…from your one and only!

Image cred

It’s not often you hear an author says she loves her publisher, but I do. I just got a lovely mailing from mine–a big ole postcard featuring “New Books in Gender Studies from Palgrave Macmillan” and guess what’s smack dab in the middle!

Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild is in great company, flanked by Cyborgs and Barbie Dolls: Feminsm, Popular Culture, and the Posthuman Body (a book that has the creepiest cover ever, but I’m pretty sure that’s the point), Stripping, Sex, and Popular Culture, and two more academicy sounding titles: The Gender Politics of Development and Gender, Violence, and Security. Also on their list are The Happy Stripper: Pleasures and Politics of the New Burlesque; Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women’s Violence in Global Politics; and Third Wave Feminism–the expanded, second edition!–and news of a forthcoming gender series from Linda Martin-Alcoff and Gillian Howie. More info on all of these at www.palgrave-usa.com.

A quick heads up that author Claire Mysko will be reviewing the new anthology from Seal, About Face: Women Write about What They See When They Look in the Mirror, in this space soon! Meanwhile, read more about it at The Seal Press Women’s Interest blog.

A number of folks lately have asked me how to submit essays for these things. Calls for essays are often listed in the back of magazines like Poets & Writers, Writers Digest, and the like. But me? I hear about them mostly through word of mouth, and on listservs like WAM!, and I often post any that come through my Inbox here on GWP. So if you see them, please do send me these announcements and I promise to post them here, to share with all.

And now, another post in the Blog U series from blogger Elizabeth Curtis — this one, on wikis. Enjoy! -GWP

Contribute your expertise to increasing web knowledge through WIKIS.

The internet is quickly becoming the premier information repository that people utilize in their daily life. Here’s how you can help shape what information is available online and how it’s presented by contributing your expertise to the creation and editing of wikis.

Wiki Definition: A wiki is “software that allows users to create, edit, and link web pages easily. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites.” From the entry about wikis on Wikipedia: Wikis are used in business to provide intranets and Knowledge Management systems. Ward Cunningham, developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as “the simplest online database that could possibly work.” And a note for the linguists among you: Technically speaking, Wiki Wiki” (/wiːkiː wiːkiː/) is a reduplication of “wiki”, a Hawaiian word for “fast”. It has been suggested that “wiki” means “What I Know Is”. However, this is a backronym.

The most popular generalist wiki is Wikipedia. Got suggestions of other wikis you think GWP readers should know about? Please post them in comments.

So ok, now how to jump in.

Step 1: When you are using a wiki to find information and seen an inaccuracy, correct it! As open public-created documents, wikis give you the power to edit erroneous information.

Raise Your Voice: Statistically, female internet users outnumber male internet users. Women are underrepresented, however, as contributors to wikis. This means that women’s voices are left out of the social reality that is created in the catalogues of information wikis contain.

Step 2: Create entries on topics that have been left out of popular wikis.

Women Missing: In a survey of 200 Wikipedia biographies, futurebird found that only 16% were about women. Further, articles on feminist topics were reported to be of poor quality.

Step 3: Start your own wiki on a specific topic.

You can create your own wiki in just a few seconds through one of a number of publicly-available “wiki farms“, some of which can also make private, password-protected wikis. PeanutButterWiki, Socialtext, Wetpaint, and Wikia are popular examples of such services. For more info, see this List of wiki farms compiled by Wikipedia.

And one more thing for you scholars out there: Wikis are currently an active topic of research. Two well-known wiki conferences are

• The International Symposium on Wikis (WikiSym)
• Wikimania, the Wikimedia Foundation conference

Happy wiki-ing out there!

This weekend Girls Write Now held a blogging workshop for our girls. Sadly, I had to miss it. But I did a little Q&A with them, which I’m posting here for kicks. – GWP

GWN: How often to post; do you set a schedule for yourself?
DS: I post daily, and I limit myself to spending 1 hour on it each day–usually the first hour of the day, after oatmeal and before heading off to do my work.

GWN: What to post about/ what makes a topic “post-worthy”?
DS: Timeliness, most of all. I use my tagline (“Bridging Feminist Research, Popular Reality, and the Public”) as a filter. If it doesn’t fit within that rubric, however, doesn’t mean I won’t post. I’ve created guidelines for guest posting on Girl with Pen and I try hard to hold myself to those standards as well.

GWP: How do you edit your blog posts?
DS: Quickly. I edit as I go. I’ll preview a post and check for spelling errors and do some quick rewriting. With posts I write for places other than my personal blog, though, I’ll have Marco or my mom (BEST editor ever) read it first.

GWP: How do you get the word out about your blog?
DS: Network, network, network! And here’s my 101 on link love: When you find a blogger you admire, link to them in a post and send them the link. Chances are, they’ll likely check out your blog. Form a relationship with them (comment on theirs, email them them directly). Ask if they’ll consider including you in their blogroll. If the admiration is mutual, you’ve got link love.

GWP will be teaching a blogging & journalism workshop for kids through Writopia Lab in August – more soon!

I’ve been meaning to post this one for a while and am reminded again now as today I once again came across the quote from Virginia Woolf that goes, “For most of history, Anonymous was a woman. ” So here tis:

Academy Award-winning producer Pamela Tanner Boll has directed and produced a documentary called Who Does She Think She Is? in conjunction with the Wellesley Centers for Women. The doc features five women navigating parenting and creativity, partnering and independence, economics and art. My dear Courtney Martin is one of the experts interviewed in the film. For screening or purchasing, email info@whodoesshethinksheis.net. And to check out the film’s blog, go here.

Image cred: WDSHSI blog

Academia is still in many ways a man’s world, and I’m thrilled to offer this post on a just-released anthology that constitutes a truly important contribution: Mama PhD: Women Write about Motherhood and Academic Life. A copy just reached me and it’s now available at stores.

I’m WAY impressed with these ladies’ marketing savvy. Check out the book blog, the blog at Inside Higher Ed, the excerpt, and the shop (complete with Mama, PhD t-shirts–“let the world know you’ve got it going on, body and brain”–hats, bags, mugs, beer steins and even license plate holders)–and take notes!

Elrena Evans and Caroline Grant, author of Literary Mama’s popular Mama at the Movies column, are the masterminds behind the project, and for those in the Bay Area, you can catch Caroline reading with a number of other Literary Mama editors and columnists at Book Passage in Corte Madera on Saturday, August 9th at 1pm. There’s a review by Bob Drago over at Activistas, and for a sneak peak, here’s a quick overview of the different sections:

Part I: The Conversation
This section contains essays representing the variety of choices women have to make as they enter academia, and the struggles and losses encountered as a result of each choice. Selected essays include topics such as:
~ choosing to have children and an academic career, in a range of fashions
~ choosing not to have children in favor of an academic career
~ choosing to delay having children in favor of an academic career

Part II: That Mommy Thing
In this section, women write about pursuing both academic careers and motherhood. Essays feature women who have experienced:
~ children before and during graduate school or the dissertation process
~ children during job searches or new appointments
~ children and the tenure track process

Part III: Recovering Academic
This section features essays from women who are redefining themselves and their careers after a period within the ivory tower. Essays talk about women who have:
~ left the academy after landing a tenure-track job
~ left the academy after achieving tenure
~ moved from teaching positions to administrative work or independent scholarship

Part IV: Momifesto
Having delved into the realms of motherhood in, out, and on the periphery of the academy, this section offers hope for the possibility of a different future, as contributors envision:
~ changes toward family-friendly university settings
~ changes in the economic structure of the academy to benefit mothers
~ changes in the tenure structure that would benefit mothers

Big kudos to Rutgers University Press for taking this project on. For another great contribution to the worklife debate as it hits academics, see the National Clearinghouse on Academic Worklife, created by the Center for the Education of Women at my alma mater the University of Michigan. The clearinghouse is a repository of articles, research & policy reports, policies, demographics, links, and more.

People keep asking me if I’m freaking out because our wedding is in 3 weeks. I have to say, I’m feeling pretty calm. Hotel still under construction? So we switched. Food at the restaurant we’d chosen for dinner the night before sucked? So we found a new one. I guess after living through the wrong marriage, planning for the right one feels pretty effortless, no matter the obstacles thrown into the course.

Maybe it’s the mambo. Marco and I had our class again last night and learned a few more tricks: the crossover, the walk around, and my personal favorite, the susy q.

I think we’re getting hooked. One thing’s for sure: we’re getting hitched. In 3 weeks.

Yikes?!

On the heels of the news about a significant rise in the number of black women entrepreneurs here in the US, I learned about a forthcoming book called Race and Entrepreneurial Success: Black-, Asian-, and White-Owned Businesses in the United States. One of the authors happens to be married to my best gal (formerly known as maid or matron or whatever of honor), Rebecca, who herself researches youth and poverty at Stanford. (Congrats, Rob!) Here’s from the book’s description:

Thirteen million people in the United States–roughly one in ten workers–own a business. And yet rates of business ownership among African Americans are much lower and have been so during the last 100 years. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, businesses owned by African Americans tend to have lower sales, fewer employees and smaller payrolls, lower profits, and higher closure rates. In contrast, Asian American-owned businesses tend to be more successful. In Race and Entrepreneurial Success, minority entrepreneurship authorities Robert Fairlie and Alicia Robb examine racial disparities in business performance. Drawing on the rarely used, restricted-access Characteristics of Business Owners (CBO) data set compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau, Fairlie and Robb examine in particular why Asian-owned firms perform well in comparison to white-owned businesses and black-owned firms typically do not. They also explore the broader question of why some entrepreneurs are successful and others are not.

After providing new comprehensive estimates of recent trends in minority business ownership and performance, the authors examine the importance of human capital, financial capital, and family business background in successful business ownership. They find that a high level of startup capital is the most important factor contributing to the success of Asian-owned businesses, and that the lack of startup money for black businesses (attributable to the fact that nearly half of all black families have less than $6,000 in total wealth) contributes to their relative lack of success. In addition, higher education levels among Asian business owners explain much of their success relative to both white- and black-owned businesses. Finally, Fairlie and Robb find that black entrepreneurs have fewer opportunities than white entrepreneurs to acquire valuable prebusiness work experience through working in family businesses.

Look for the book on shelves in September 2008.