Happy Birthday to Me!

 Today is my book-birthday: the publication date of my 19th book, She Persisted: Rosalind Franklin.

Here's the lovely cover:

Writing a biography of Rosalind Franklin was, oddly enough, a bucket-list item for me. Back when I first dared to think of myself as a writer (while I was, like Rosalind, working as a research chemist) I wrote a quick list of stories I wanted to write, and "Rosalind Franklin's story" was on that list. I think I was 24 then, so I wanted to write about Rosalind for over thirty years. Two years ago, when Philomel, the publisher, announced the first list of 12 "She Persisted" early chapter biographies, all about women who achieved remarkable things, I wrote my usual editor to find out who was editing the series. (Both Philomel and Dial, my usual publisher, are imprints of Penguin Random House.) I send that editor an email saying, essentially, I call dibs on Rosalind Franklin, and she wrote back that Rosalind was on their list for the second year of the series and that she was all mine. 

Writing her story was a delight. Rosalind was a brilliant and meticulous scientist who achieved remarkable x-ray crystallographic images given the limitations of the equipment she was using. One of these confirmed the structure of DNA, something many scientists were working hard to understand. Rosalind's assistant, Maurice Wilkins, shared the Nobel Prize for the discovery of DNA alongside the better-known Watson and Crick. Rosalind didn't, because Nobels can't be given posthumously. Rosalind died at age 37 from ovarian cancer very possibly caused by the radiation leaked from the early x-ray microscopes. When James Watson wrote his book about the discovery, The Double Helix, he deliberately downplayed and distorted Rosalind's role and character. Even Francis Crick called it fiction. I'm not sure how much of that was actual misogyny--I think Watson would have thrown Crick under the bus if he could have gotten away with it--but it helped hide the truth about Rosalind Franklin's contributions for a long time. People who study science are mostly aware of the real story--I was, back in my early 20s, and not through any extraordinary effort--but a lot of people aren't. I know, because I've been talking about this book for the past several weeks, and been surprised by the number of people who ask, "Who was Rosalind Franklin?"

Read the sweet little book, and you'll know. And to the real Rosalind Franklin, of blessed memory: I know they've named the Mars Rover after you, and a building at Oxford University, and a whole bunch of other things, but I've honored you in my own way. The sweet little mare I bought just after I signed the contract for the book? I call her Rosalind Franklin. xoxo