Quick pitch: So this year I’ve joined the Advisory Board of Girls Write Now. Staffed almost exclusively by volunteers, GWN runs a lean operation. We need help to continue and expand our services to more girls in New York City. Before the year’s end, I’m hoping to be making the largest donation I have ever made to any organization. Please join me in supporting GWN with a (tax deductible) donation. Your contribution will be put to immediate use, and help us keep this valuable organization vibrant and thriving for another year. Here’s how.

And/or if you’re in New York, join me at our fall friendraiser on October 18 (this Thursday!) at Bluestockings, the feminist bookstore, at 5:30pm and then cross the street to The Slipper Room for fun, drinks, and music at 7:30 (NO COVER). Author and “girlbomb” Janice Erlbaum, award-winning novelist Tayari Jones, and hotshot indy rockers Royal Pink will all be there. (And so will I!)

The video above showcases some amazing girls from the June 2007 Girls Write Now Spring Reading at Barnes & Noble Astor Place in New York City. Click play and you’ll see why I love this organization so much.

…that one I mentioned earlier today is here, and it’s called “From Barricades to Blogs.” Reporter Jennie Yabroff spoke to some feministas across the generations and cites some great quips from Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Katha Pollitt, Susan Faludi, and Jessica Valenti. (She mentions my book! Whahoo!!)

Harvard President Drew Faust’s Oct. 12 inauguration speech is posted here. Pitter patter. Loved the bit that Broadsheet quotes, about how her presence in that position was unimaginable not so long ago, but I found this tidbit about the unimaginable particularly interesting, too:

Last week I was given a brown manila envelope that had been entrusted to the University Archives in 1951 by James B. Conant, Harvard’s 23rd president. He left instructions that it should be opened by the Harvard president at the outset of the next century “and not before.” I broke the seal on the mysterious package to find a remarkable letter from my predecessor. It was addressed to “My dear Sir.” Conant wrote with a sense of imminent danger. He feared an impending World War III that would make “the destruction of our cities including Cambridge quite possible.”…“We all wonder,” he continued, “how the free world is going to get through the next fifty years.”

And we wonder about the next fifty, starting from here. Not to get all fatalistic or anything. But, well, you know.

As Ann over at feministing says, it’s like the work/life all-stars over at the New School tomorrow. Just a reminder to come hear the preeminent thinkers on women, work, motherhood, and the so-called “opt-out revolution”:

WORKING MOTHERS: WHO’S OPTING OUT?
Tuesday, October 16, 7 p.m., $8 admission
The New School, New York City
Wollman Hall, 65 West 11th Street, 5th floor (enter at 66 West 12th Street)

You’ve read the articles–and gotten angry at the debate. Are vast numbers of working mothers bolting the career track–or dreaming of doing so? Are elite women betraying feminism by staying home with their children? Or do the Opt-Out stories rely too heavily on anecdotal evidence–while shoving aside actual labor statistics and working families’ needs?

JOIN US as some of the KEY THINKERS and CRITICS of the “opt-out” storyline DISCUSS & DEBATE the real state of working motherhood in America today.

Moderated by E.J. Graff, senior researcher, Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism, Brandeis University, collaborator on Getting Even: Why Women Don’t Get Paid Like Men and What to Do About It. The panel includes Joan Williams, Distinguished Professor of Law, University of California, Hastings College of the Law, and author of Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What to Do About It; Linda Hirshman, lawyer, professor emeritus Brandeis University and author of Get to Work; Heather Boushey, senior economist, Center for Economic and Policy Research, and co-author of Hardships in America and The Real Story of Working Families; and Ellen Bravo, author of Taking On the Big Boys: Why Feminism Is Good for Families and Business and the Nation.

More info here. I’m totally planning to go…

So the current issue of On Campus with Women –an online publication of the American Association of Colleges and Universities–focuses on “Women on the Web.” It includes an article on Facebook Feminism by Kathy Fischer, one called “Women Harnessing the Power of Internet Publishing” by Genevieve Brown, an essay on“Academic Blogging as Intercultural Exchange”, and a personal essay by moi, which begins:

Technological innovation can transform a culture, but it can also transform a career. It did mine. When I started out as a PhD student in English and American Literature at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, I could hardly imagine that fourteen years later I’d be calling myself “Girl with Pen” in public, living in New York City, and writing for The Guardian. That pen, really, is a keyboard. But I like mixing it up…. Read more

I saw Elizabeth on Friday night. Enjoyed the spectacle, even if this one was a bit, well, over the top with the wide-angle. (Apologies for the confused metaphors; it’s Monday.) So remember Warner Bros. president of production Jeff Robinov’s lovely comment the other week that “We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead”? Definitely check out Rebecca Traister’s chat with 10 of the most powerful women in Hollywood and see what they say about it all.

Meanwhile, I’m still paging through Newsweek’s spread on women leaders. The issue that hits the stands this week has an article on young women and feminism in it–I think I’m quoted. Really enjoyed talking with the supersavvy reporter, Jennie Yabroff, on this one. Off to get a copy…

People often ask me about media coaches. I’ve worked with a fabulous one, Karen Braga, who is more of a “performance coach.” Karen helps writers with book talks as well as media appearances. (And graciously fielded my “I’m-going-on-MSNBC-help!” call last week.) She works with writers individually and in groups. Her method is more mind-body than put-your-arms-here-and-your-eyes-there. She helps you feel like you, but on stage, and writ large. If you ask me, the woman works magic. Interested? Email me and I’ll send you her email. Happy to share a good thing.

The Brits sure are talking it up. The Myth of Mars and Venus pubs here on October 19. Check out coverage at The Guardian here, here and here. Author Deborah Cameron is the Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language and Communication at Oxford University. My what an interestingly named chair.

Bottom line: Counter to all the John Greyism out there, there is as much similarity and variation within each gender as between men and women. I’ll let you know what I think…soon…! Venus here signing off til Sunday. Have an excellent Saturday, and see you then!

I’d like to add to New York Times columnist David Brooks’ short list of “country’s best sociologists” in his op-ed today, “The Odyssey Years.” UPenn sociologist (and fellow Council on Contemporary Families member) Frank Furstenberg is the bomb on this one. And for a wider look at the latest thinking about the expanded transition to adulthood, check out what the good folks over at the Network on Transitions to Adulthood have to say about it all. I imagine you’ll find a more rounded view of the phenomenon–and not just Brooksian calls of “hook ups!” and “no more church!”

In response to Shifting Careers blogger Marci Alboher’s recent profile, a reader wrote in to ask how free agents–like me–make ends meet. Do we have inheritances? Divorce settlements? Lottery winnings? Would that it were true!

Marci posted my response today, here, and I thought I’d expand on it a bit. I earn my living freelancing for magazines, writing books, giving talks, consulting for organizations, and teaching (sign up for my online course, “Making It Pop: Translating Your Ideas for Trade”!). You could say I live a life of improv. I don’t always know where a venture is leading me, but I’ve learned to have tremendous faith in the journey and to trust my instincts. It’s been well worth the ride so far.