So much #BlackGirlMagic + #QueerGenius is coming out in written form this year, we wanted to shine alllllll the light — plus give you opportunities to WIN FREE BOOKS written by Black, Indigenous, Women and Non-Binary People of Color in STEM. Read on to learn more.
How it all started
Towards the end of last year the #VanguardSTEM team was feverishly working on our own article (we’ll get to THAT in just a second!) and watching all the excitement build as girl crush after girl crush revealed that they were writing books to be released in 2021. We were so excited that we decided we wanted to spend the year celebrating these authors as part of our #VSGetsLit Book Club.
The premise of #VSGetsLit
…is easy enough. Highlight as many Black, Indigenous, Women and Non-Binary People of Color in STEM (BI[W+NBP]OC) as we can who have recently written books (or peer-reviewed articles!) that uplift any aspect of our intersectional STEM identities as members of the #VSVillage.
#VSGetsLit is a two part celebration
Part One: The #VSGetsLit Journal Club
A living archive of peer-reviewed articles. This came directly from the fact that we just wrote our first peer-reviewed article about the theory and praxis of #VanguardSTEM that we wanted to share with you(!), but we also wanted to take this opportunity to share other recently published peer-reviewed publications by the #VSVillage too!
How do you participate? All you need to do is use #VSGetsLit on Twitter and/or Instagram to draw our attention to and signal boost peer-reviewed literature that is by BI[W+NBP]OC on STEM on anything from basic research, STEM culture, organizational change, interdisciplinary papers and the like. We’re casting a wide net because we want to see you all shine. We are just getting started this year, but feel free to tag older works too! We are because our ancestors were (literally, academically and conceptually), so we want to shine on them too.
Part Two: The #VSGetsLit Book Club
(This is the part where we giveaway free books!)
We want to specifically highlight BI[W+NBP]OC in STEM who have taken on the long and arduous task of writing a full length monograph; because that is something special. Just like with the journal club, the Book Club will cover a wide range of topics including tips about how to be successful in your STEM journey, teach you how to save the planet, inspire you, educate you and most importantly bring the real REAL to your bookshelves. Also, the #VanguardSTEM team (and our parent non-profit) want to help support these authors by buying their books and signal boosting them to our networks.
How do you participate? Each month we will showcase one book for our #VSGetsLit Book Club, which we will announce the first week of the month. We will give away one FREE copy of the featured book every Friday of that month. The contest details will vary, but if you’re able to access our social media channels, you should be able to participate. One lucky winner for the month will win the book and a chance to be on an episode of #OnTheVanguard to talk to the author about the book, in real-time. (You can enter every week, but you can only win once per month.)
What now?
We officially kicked off the #VSGetsLit campaign in January by featuring our very own peer-reviewed article. We’re going to be breaking our entire paper down over the course of the year, so don’t worry; you haven’t missed anything.
We here at #VanguardSTEM couldn't be more proud of our 1st peer-reviewed publication! Our author list is #BlackGirlMagic personified: @jedidahislerphd @nvberryman @13adh13 @giveherthephd24 @leolenejean @dnlee5. Feel free to #citeblackwomen #citeasista https://t.co/zajczKyiga
— VanguardSTEM (@VanguardSTEM) January 21, 2021
Who’s on deck for February?
For Black History Month we are featuring Dr. Malika Grayson’s book, Hooded: A Black Girl’s Guide to Graduate School! We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Dr. Grayson on her book, which seems like the natural progression of her long running series, Black Girls’ Guide to Graduate School, or BGGGS for those in the know!
Stay tuned to our Twitter and Instagram to find out how you can win a copy of Dr. Grayson’s book *this* Friday, February 5, 2021 (and every Friday in February)!
But since you read this far, we’ll just tell you here: to qualify for a chance to win a copy of Dr. Grayson’s book this week, subscribe to our Youtube channel and add a comment to our 2-min trailer. (We’ll love you forever if you also watch our first 2021 episode of #OnTheVanguard with Dr. Beronda Montgomery while you’re there.)
This article was originally published on February 2, 2021 on VanguardSTEM.com as part of our #VSGetsLit series.
If you value the work we do and the content we provide at #VanguardSTEM, please consider donating to our parent not-for-profit, The SeRCH Foundation, Inc., to help support this work.