
Your best and wisest refuge from all your troubles is in your science. -Ada Lovelace
Diane Masiello is a part-time writer and a full-time mom, wife, daughter, and daughter-in-law. Like many who are currently part of the “sandwich generation,” – those who still have kids at home but are also taking care of aging parents—she is also trying to find the time to carve out some space for her own passions. In her earlier life she earned a Ph.D. in Education from New York University, and worked as an Instructor of English, then Assistant Professor of English at the University of Tampa. In 2003 she left academia to raise her two daughters—the longest, hardest job she’s ever held, and the most rewarding. During her time in academia she edited and contributed to a variety of academic publications, but her greatest joy was the publication of her first short fantasy story, “The Sunspot,” in CrossTime Science Fiction Anthology Vol. II. She has her own blog, “Afternoons with Coffee Spoons,” which started as a mommy blog but ended when she realized her daughters had become old enough that writing about them without their permission seemed invasive. She has just completed her first young adult fantasy novel, Keeper, and is starting on the maze-like road toward publication. She is thrilled to be a part of The Gloria Sirens and looks forward to the conversations her blog posts may inspire.
Your best and wisest refuge from all your troubles is in your science. -Ada Lovelace
Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. -Marie Curie
Here’s the thing, Mom. You’ve been living on catastrophe island. But it’s uninhabitable. It’s not conducive to life. It’s time for you to get off the island.
Company is sometimes the best thing we can give each other. It can be a balm for all the fear, loss, and anguish in the world. -Aditi Khorana
I have known the joy and pain of friendship. I have served and been served. I have made some good enemies for which I am not a bit sorry. I have loved unselfishly, and I have fondled hatred with the red-hot tongs of Hell. That’s living. -Zora Neale Hurston
Fairy tales were not my escape from reality as a child; rather, they were my reality–for mine was a world in which good and evil were not abstract concepts, and like fairy-tale heroines, no magic would save me unless I had the wit and courage to use it widely. –Terri Windling
A child who can love the oddities of a fantasy book cannot possibly be xenophobic as an adult. What is a different color, a different culture, a different tongue for a child who has already mastered Elvish, respected Puddlegums, or fallen under the spell of dark-skinned Ged? –Jane Yolen
Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: “You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination….what you are being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be….Those of you who are more robust and individual than others will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself…those that stay must remember, always, and all the time, that they are being molded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this particular society.” -Doris Lessing
No country can ever truly flourish if it stifles the potential of its women and deprives itself of the contributions of half of its citizens. -Michelle Obama
We know what the world wants from us. We know we must decide whether to stay small, quiet, and uncomplicated or allow ourselves to grow as big, loud, and complex as we were made to be. Every girl must decide whether to be true to herself or true to the world. Every girl must decide whether to settle for adoration or fight for love. –Glennon Doyle