Geek As Citizen

Geek As Citizen: Helping Others Publish

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When I was at Con-Volution, enjoying a break and the ambiance of the dining area, it was a bit crowded. A charming older woman asked if she might sit at my table as the area was so densley packed, and I figured some dinner company would be delightful. I’m always glad to meet new people, and frankly her manners really impressed me.

We got to chatting, and she turned out to be a fascinating person.  Now in hher 70’s she’d let quite a life, and had considered doing a book about it; over the decades she’d had many amusing experiences and wanted to share them. As our conversation progressed, I had to agree she was right – in fact her life would have made a wonderful romantic/family comedy.

I noted that she could self-publish easily and at least get a book out there, then seek professional publication. She had not explored the world of self-publishing, so I gave her my card and mentioned if she was interested, she could email me. I would be glad to help her out, I noted, since I had been published and she clearly had many stories worth telling.

This got me thinking about we geeks helping others get published.

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Geek As Citizen: Tolerance As Part of Geekdom

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In the last few years the question of tolerance in geekdom gets brought up. As of late it’s been the ridiculous obsession some members of the geek community have with ferreting out the mythical “fake geek” girl. Other times there are questions of racism, transphobia, and homobpobia. The issue over “Ender’s Game” raised this specter again, and after reading this thoughtful post at Lady Geek Girl, I felt I should address this again in a slightly different context than I have previously.

By that different context, I mean in the larger sense of citizenship – both in the large and as citizens of our own communities.  Also with a bit less of some of the snark that I’ve used in some of my previous writings.

So, to state it simply – intolerance of others in the form of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and the like do not have a place in geek life nor identifiable geek culture. Furthermore I will argue that this is important to geeks as citizens, both in their community and in the larger communities – and that in some cases, we should fully understand the impact of bias and its negative effects.

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Geek As Citizen: To Teach

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Last week I discussed how we Geeks should work to archive, organize, republish, and propagate our works – and really to encourage people to do something with what they write (or at least the good stuff). Now back to my speculations on the Geek role as a Citizen (and eventually back to this more specific speculation).

And related to publishing? I think a major role of Citizen Geeks is to teach.

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