Celebrate Pasadena’s One City, One Story Community Conversation With Nathalia Holt

Author Nathalia Holt, Ph.D.- Courtesy photo / Steph Stevens

To celebrate the 16th year of Pasadena’s One City, One Story community reading project, the public is invited to a conversation with Nathalia Holt, Ph.D. author of this year’s selected novel Rise of the Rocket Girls, Thursday, March 8, at 7 p.m. in the All Saints Church Sanctuary, 132 N. Euclid Ave, Pasadena.

Holt will discuss her experiences writing Rise of the Rocket Girls. A question and answer session led by Pasadena Public Library Director Michelle Perera will immediately follow. Attendees are encouraged to bring their copies of Rise of the Rocket Girls for the author to sign following the discussion. Holt’s books will be available for sale and signing following the program. The event is free and open to the public. Fee-based event parking is available in surrounding parking facilities. Free parking is available at Pasadena Central Library, 285 E. Walnut St.

Rise of the Rocket Girls is the riveting true story of the women who launched America into space. In the 1940s and 50s, when the newly minted Jet Propulsion Laboratory needed quick-thinking mathematicians to calculate velocities and plot trajectories, they didn’t turn to male graduates. Rather, they recruited an elite group of young women who, with only pencil, paper and mathematical prowess, transformed rocket design, helped bring about the first American satellites, and made the exploration of the solar system possible.

For the first time, Rise of the Rocket Girls tells the stories of these women — known as “human computers”– who broke the boundaries of both gender and science. Based on extensive research and interviews with all the living members of the team, Rise of the Rocket Girls offers a unique perspective on the role of women in science — both where we’ve been, and the far reaches of space to which we’re heading.

Holt is a science writer and author of Cured: The People who Defeated HIV, also a New York Times bestseller. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, Slate, Popular Science and Time. She has trained at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard University, the University of Southern California and Tulane University. She lives with her husband and their two daughters in Boston, Mass.

Pasadena Public Library’s annual One City, One Story program is designed to broaden and deepen an appreciation of reading in Pasadena by engaging the community in dialog around a single literary work. For more information on this year’s One City, One Story activities, visit http://cityofpasadena.libguides.com/onecityonestory or call (626) 744-7076.

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