Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Women of Wednesday: Presenting….US!

A few years ago the Write Sisters needed some kind of push.  We were all feeling stuck, bored, unable to create.  We needed…something…but we weren’t sure what that something was.

The short version of the story is that we came up with the idea of Women of Granite: 25 New Hampshire Women You Should Know. (See our blog dated August 21, 2007)  Working on a project together gave our meetings a new burst of creativity as we came up with women to profile, the length of the short biographies, and other aspects of the book we wanted to produce.

With a reason to go to the keyboard, our juices were flowing again and during these last few years we’ve written other books, blogged, tried our hands at other types of writing and, inshort got beyond that feeling of stagnation. Women of Granite begat Women of the Bay State: 25 Massachusetts Women You Should Know.  Those two books set us working on books about Texas, California, and New York.  They’ll soon be joined by books that cover the other New England states and Illinois.

While the Write Sisters have been busy with these and other projects, the contemporary women we profiled in Women of Granite have not led static lives either.  It is time to catch up with some of the changes that have occurred in the lives of some of the original Women of Granite.

And, so, we present: Women of the Granite State: 25 New Hampshire Women You Should Know.  The book’s title has been changed to fit with the other books in the series.  We’ve made some slight changes to the inside,too.  Most noticeably, we’ve added illustrations, Tidbits, and updated timelines.

For example, Jenny Thompson used to be the swimmer who won more Olympic medals than any other U.S. swimmer in history—until Michael Phelps came along. So now, we point out that she’s still the female swimmer who has won the most Olympic medals.  And, next month, she’ll be inducted into the Olympic Hall of Fame.  That’s in there,too.

We’ve had to say goodbye to“Granny D” who passed away at age 100. May Sidore Gruber, however, celebrated her 100th birthday in style.

Jeanne Shaheen went to Washington as New Hampshire’s first woman senator and Linda Dalianis became the first woman Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

So go to the Apprentice Shop Books web site (www.apprenticeshopbooks.com)in the next couple of weeks and check out our latest project. The new info will be up soon.

Oh, and Women of the Prairie State: 25 Illinois Women You Should Know, will be there, too.  Several of the Sisters pitched in on that one. We’ve been busy. Stay tuned.

2 comments:

Andrea Murphy said...

Hurray for us! And congratulations to Mur, evil editor and primo publisher!

Travel Guides for Women said...

Nice retrospective, Muriel. We rock, no?

Congratulations, too, to you Our Dear Editor and Publisher . . .

J