This week, I got an exciting e-mail from my friend and fellow 2006 REAL Hot 100 winner, Deanna Zandt. She’s a media technologist and a leading expert in women and technology, and she’s about to add “first-time author” to her resume.
She’s signed with the Berrett-Koehler publishing group to write a book about “the social media moment as a huge opportunity for social change and action.” Women, people of color, queer people, and many more have too often been left in the dust of technological advances (see film, TV, and radio in their formative years). Deanna will use her experience in the feminist community and bring in experts from the fields of racial justice, LGBTQQI organizing, the front lines of the class warfare, and more, to assemble strategies for widening the diversity of voices in social media.
Deanna is a sharp, compassionate, thoughtful person, and her book is going to help women and other sidelined communities release their fear and take advantage of the new technologies. The last thing we need is another place where the dominant culture creates uncontested content that blocks out all other perspectives.
If you’re interested in technology and social justice, you should be reading Deanna’s blog. Also, the publisher doesn’t offer advances, so Deanna is fundraising for living expenses this summer while she writes the book in 4 short months. Even if you have $10 to spare, visit her Feed The Author page and join supporters like the Hightower Lowdown, and Don Hazen and Doug Kreeger (editor and board member of AlterNet). It’s a fantastic project in which to invest.
Her full fundraising letter below the cut.
Friends, colleagues, clients! Lend me your ears…
I’m writing you with some exciting news that makes me very happy. I just signed a contract from Berrett-Koehler publishers to write a book I’ve been imagining for a long time. But it’s going to take some very hard work on my part, and I hope you can help me succeed.
The book I’m writing is on the topic that has been all the rage in the media — social networking and all that implies with Twitter, Facebook, and much more. Here’s the purpose of the book: how do we ensure that these tools are in being used most effectively by those who have too often been on the sidelines of technology advances– women, people of color, queer folk, and more?
This is a fabulous opportunity for many social change advocates to jump into the new tech conversations and help shape the future, and I want to make sure that happens. Specific topics I want to cover about women’s experiences online include privacy and security, as well as shifting cultural values through organizing and action. I’m also going to be highlighting the voices of experts working in with social media in communities of color and more– voices you don’t hear when tech is being talked about.
Here’s my challenge and why I need your help: Berrett-Koehler is an incredible publisher — supportive, collaborative, and incredibly innovative– and I’m thrilled to be working with them. But they don’t pay advances. So, to do this book (and it is incredibly fast-tracked so it can be available at the next WAM!2010 in Chicago), I need to stop working as a consultant for the next three months and do nothing but write the book. Thus, I need investors. I need you to help me raise $15,000 to cover my expenses, travel, and research. Please toss some money into a “Feed Deanna” pot!
I’m off to a good start: the Hightower Lowdown (Jim Hightower’s monthly newsletter), where I’ve worked for 4 years, is covering my rent through the summer. And Don Hazen, editor of AlterNet.org (where I also have worked) and Doug Kreeger (AlterNet’s board chair) will put the first $2,000 in if people will match it. All donations of $250 and over can be made through the Independent Media Institute, so they’ll be tax-deductible.
So, here I am, hat in hand for a good cause. I’ll make you proud. You can donate via PayPal at http://www.deannazandt.com/chipin or send a check to me (contact me for an address).
I know it is a tough time to be asking for money with many people out of work and struggling. I hope you’ll forgive my chutzpah. Yet I want this all to happen so badly I can taste it; it’s more than anything I’ve wanted in a very long time. It’s a dream come true in many ways, and I hope even if you can’t give at this time, you’ll join me in celebrating the moment.
much love,
deanna
P.S. — For anyone who donates $100 or more, I will give you a copy of the book with an inscription of my heartfelt thanks. One more time, that donation link is:
http://www.deannazandt.com/chipin
P.P.S. — Thanks in advance for anything and everything that you can do to support this wildly excited, somewhat humbled first-time author. Here’s more info about the book: http://www.deannazandt.com/bookannounce, and I’ll be blogging as much of the book’s content as possible at http://www.deannazandt.com/ throughout the summer.
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Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
Tags: book publishing, deanna zandt, LGBTQQI, people of color, queer, social media, women, Writing