Bay Area Women in Publishing

I recently joined the board of Bay Area Women in Publishing (apparently this is something professional people do in their 40's? Join boards? Or so I hear). Though people think of the whole publishing industry as happening in New York, there is in fact a lot of exciting and vital publishing going on throughout the Bay, and BAWiP, as it's known to its friends, is a great hub for bringing women from a wide range of publishing and publishing-adjacent careers together. I particularly like that their (or, I suppose I should now say: our) mission statement explicitly includes a commitment to advancing "racial, ethnic, and LGBTQ diversity in the publishing industry and to supporting women from varied backgrounds in their efforts to fully realize their professional potential." If you're a publishing person here locally, I'd highly recommend attending one of BAWiP's educational events (the next one is on November 1st in San Francisco) or happy hours (the next one of those is on November 14th in Berkeley). Oh, and if you were wondering -- the photo above is the very lovely view of downtown Oakland from the windows of Berrett-Koehler Publishing, where I attended my first board meeting the other week.