We have always supported up-and-coming talent with Ada Lovelace Day Live, giving new speakers a platform alongside established names, and now we want to do the same thing with our second collection of essays about women in STEM. Science writers Veronique Greenwood, Jennifer Ouellette and Ed Yong have agreed to mentor two unpublished writers, providing structural and stylistic feedback and helping them to improve their craft.

We’re looking for two women who have never been professionally published before (not counting academic papers or blog posts). We are looking for enthusiasm, potential and a passion for communication. There are no age limitations, so if whether you’re at school or university, or looking for a mid-career change of direction, we want to hear from you. We don’t mind what you do, where you live, or what your area of expertise is, we just want you to be able to tell the story of a woman or group of women in STEM in a compelling and captivating way.

If you’d like to apply, please take a look at our our brief, style guide, and author notes, and submit your idea via this web form before 21 March. And please do help us by spreading the word about our mentorship programme as widely as you can!

We have had a fantastic response to our call for submissions for our next book, with some fascinating women suggested for inclusion. There has been, however, a focus primarily on women in science and medicine, so in order to get a more balanced anthology we’d like to urge people to volunteer chapters on women in engineering and maths, as well as women inventors. We’d also like to encourage people to explore the amazing women in STEM from minority groups, as well as living women, so that we can broaden the types of stories that we tell and really shine the spotlight on women who are too often overlooked.

We’re also lacking diversity amongst our writers with, so far, not a single man proposing a chapter and no one from minority groups (as far as we can tell, though names aren’t the best way to assess diversity!). If you’re a guy, or identify as a member of any minority group, then please do consider becoming a part of this project! It’s very important that we have a wide variety not just in the women we celebrate, but in the voices joining that celebration. 

If you want to contribute a chapter, or can encourage a man you know to take part in the project, then all you need to do is fill in the form at the bottom of this page before 21 March. And any help you can give us in spreading the word about the projects, and the mentorships on offer, would be much appreciated!

Our first anthology of writing about women in STEM, A Passion for Science: Stories of Discovery and Invention, has been a fantastic success and it’s time to start thinking about the next one! This time, we are opening up a formal call for contributions of articles about notable women or groups of women in science, technology, engineering and maths, as well as interesting users of technology. We would like to get a fairly even distribution across these categories, but also are open to other ideas that don’t fit in so neatly.

Initially, we would like you to send us 250 words on the woman or women that you want to write about, explaining why they are notable or interesting, along with a link to a sample of your writing. Ultimately, we’re looking for 20 articles of between 2,000 and 6,000 words. At this point, we don’t have any kind of budget, but we’re hoping to raise some money to pay for editing, cover design and an honorarium for writers. Profits go towards supporting Ada Lovelace Day, which remains essentially a budgetless organisation run by a very small group of volunteers.

To find out more, take a look at our call for submissions, author notes, and style guide. The deadline to submit your idea is 28 February 14.