Lady Science no. 49: Letter from the Editors
Dear Readers,
This October, we’re celebrating Lady Science’s fourth birthday. It has been, like every year we have spent working on this project, a remarkable twelve months. The magazine has continued to grow, our relationships with our community have deepened, and we’ve produced some of the best, most important writing in our short history.
This year we started the Lady Science Podcast. Like any number of things that we have expressly, repeatedly said we would never do, the podcast has become one of the most valuable parts of the project. We’ve spoken to some amazing guests, tackled some intense topics, learned about audio production, and, we hope, added something useful and fun and rich to the project.
The core of the project, the monthly issue, has itself changed this year. Thanks to a successful fundraising campaign last fall, we have been able to add a third essay to our monthly issue, as well as increase our coverage of adjacent topics on the blog. We have had great success running specialized series on the blog. We are enormously proud of our memoir series about experiences of pain and marginalization that people face in dealing with the medical establishment. And our series on queer science has further deepened our connection to scientists who are working today.
The best thing about the queer science series is that it was designed, pitched, and executed by our Social Media Editor, new to Lady Science this year, Keegan Shepherd. In addition to this excellent editorial work, KJ’s work as social media editor has streamlined our online presence and hugely increased our community engagement. We broke 4000 followers on Twitter this year thanks to their creativity, attention, and voice.
Our Managing Editor, Rebecca Ortenberg, has been with us for more than a year now and has fundamentally changed the way we work for the better. As a co-host of the podcast and the engine that drives everything we do at Lady Science, we cannot imagine getting by without her.
Our Contributing Editors, in addition to the writing they contribute throughout the year, ensure every month that the content we publish is always high-quality work. Each contributing editor brings a unique perspective and voice to the project, and their work is integral to moving Lady Science forward into our fifth year.
Most important to the project is you, our readers and listeners. We can’t adequately express how much your support and feedback means to us. Without your continued support through reading and sharing our content and donating through Patreon or one-time donations, we wouldn’t be able to do any of this.
As we look ahead to year five, we envision even more change. Although we all come from an academic background, and while you can catch us at the American Historical Association meeting in January, one of our goals for the next year is to make Lady Science more available and more accessible to people outside of the academic community. So next year, we plan to travel more but not to conferences! We’re currently looking at PodCon, and we’re actively seeking out opportunities to introduce new audiences to Lady Science.
