2023 - 11/2023 Meeting

Page Created: 09/15/23. Last Updated: 11/30/23.

ADEENA MIGNOGNA

ONLINE

Website: https://adeenamignogna.com/

SOCIAL MEDIA

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/AdeenaMignognaAuthor/

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/196817.Adeena_Mignogna

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adeenamig/

Podcast / The BIG Sci-Fi Podcast (with 3 others): https://trekgeeks.com/bigscifipodcast

Twitter: https://twitter.com/adeena?lang=en

BOOKS

Science Fiction:

Lunar Logic (forthcoming)

The Robot Galaxy Series

.....Crazy Foolish Robots

.....Robots, Robots, Everywhere!

.....Silly, Insane Humans

.....Eleven Little Robots

Nonfiction:

.....Cute Little Store

.....Cute Little Store 2: What Happened to That Cute Little Store?

.....Minding My Business: The Complete, No Nonsense, Start-to-Finish Guide to Owning and Running Your Store

Meeting Date: November 11, 2023

Meeting Site: Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Attendance: 24 + 5.

Meeting Program: Talk, Q & A with Science Fiction Author / Aerospace Engineer.

Notes:

Eleven people participated in the Ice-Nine pre-meeting discussion.

Seven of us made it to the Stateline Diner after the event.

Newsletter Account:

The November 11, 2023 General Meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County was held at the Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Science fiction writer / aerospace engineer Adeena Mignogna was our speaker.

Adeena Mignogna is the author of the Robot Galaxy series: CRAZY, FOOLISH ROBOTS; ROBOTS, ROBOTS EVERYWHERE; SILLY, INSANE HUMANS; and ELEVEN LITTLE ROBOTS; and the forthcoming standalone, LUNAR LOGIC. She is a Systems & Software Engineer working on aerospace projects for Northrop Grumman and is active in promoting STEM careers for young people.

Our speaker was six-years-old when she decided that her mission in life was to be on the moon with R2D2. She started reading science fiction in eighth grade and never looked back.

Adeena's father and brother are engineers, so she understood the engineering mindset from a young age. Despite learning to code while in grade school, she was not particularly gifted at math and pursued a variety of interests after college, including opening up a pottery shop and writing a book about her experiences.

The book was CUTE LITTLE STORE, a humorous account of running her business. It and its sequel were published by a small press. The books sold well, but the publisher went out of business. She sold the store and moved on to other things. So she was surprised and flattered when a different publisher offered her a small advance to reprint the work. It was a decision she would come to regret.

Her new publisher retitled and repositioned it as a How To book with the title, MINDING MY BUSINESS: THE COMPLETE, NO NONSENSE, START-TO-FINISH GUIDE TO OWNING AND RUNNING YOUR STORE. Our speaker had sold the store by this time and pretty much washed her hands of the book.

Adeena returned to the aerospace industry (she had worked for a short time at AlliedSignal on a NASA satellite project just out of college) with a position at Orbital Sciences Corporation. She applied for one position, but was hired for a different, higher-level post. The company President (this was a small firm) felt she knew the computer end of things well enough to muddle by and that her background and experiences would make her a capable Project Manager. This resulted in her taking her first college course on computers at age 42.

Our guest had started a number of science fiction books over the years, but never finished them. It was not until the 2007 NaNoWriMo that she completed her first book. The book was not good, but getting it done was a major accomplishment for her.

The first book in the Robot Galaxy series came out of the 2012 NaNoWriMo. The Frederick Writer's Salon provided lots of useful feedback on the story and on the self-publishing process. She established a LLC to publish the books.

Our speaker said she writes the sort of books she likes to read. Her fiction brings in bits of real science. She wants to be on the side of making people trust science.

She stated that her work experience as a Project Manager was a great help in the production of a book, both in the process of its writing and in the vital post-publication marketing of the work. It is essential to have an overall vision of the writing / marketing, the ability to break the task down into smaller components, and the organizational skill to hit the deadlines for each of those component parts.

LUNAR LOGIC, Adeena's next book, will be out in January 2024. She referred to the novel as Sci-Phi (science philosophy). This is a first contact work about moon-dwelling androids who were created and abandoned by an alien race whose first interest is philosophy.

Much of Ms Mignogna' talk focused on developments in the aerospace industry and at NASA. She often talks about STEM carrers at schools and science fiction conventions, and brought one of her props, a globe of the moon, to the meeting. There were many comments and questions from people in the audience. More can be found at the club webite under Meeting: 2023 - 11/2023 Meeting.

Meeting Notes (most material which was worked into the above Newsletter Account has been deleted):

Her mom lives on Long Island.

University of Maryland.

College radio station.

Had to lose her accent.

Brought basketball-sized moon with her.

Works at Northrop Grumman's satellite group.

.....Cygus Shuttle resupply

.....Now on HALO, NASA human module.

.....Previously worked for Orbital Sciences Corporation which was bought by Grumman.

.....Worked at AlliedSignal on a NASA satellite project, first job out of college.

Books are not YA, but they are YA friendly.

Started programing when she was in grade school, learning basic.

C++ was a new language to her.

She is an indifferent computer scientist but is always a team leader because of her organization, communication, and management skills.

There are lots of people with computer skills, but few people in computers have the needed people skills.

Has not encountered sexism on the job.

Northrup Gromman promotes diversity.

She is never the only woman on the team.

There has been a decline in STEM education in the USA.

You can still build starships if you suck at math.

Systems Engineering is not math-intensive.

Her dad was an engineer. He never considered that one of his offspring would not want to be one.

Wanted to write since high school and college.

Was working on a book set on Ceres. Then came The Expanse and it went out the window.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is her favorite book.

Has plans for a book featuring a time-traveling toilet.

The book is SciPhi Philosophical science fiction.

A fan sent a waffle maker to her Post Office Box because of something she mentioned in one of her books.

A newsletter is the best publicity.

The Lunar Logic book POV character was originally a supporting character. The book wasn't working the way Adeena wanted. She expanded the character's role and eventually made her the lead.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with some bits of Asimov's robot tales, were the inspiration for the Robot Galaxy books.

There is a lot less after school and enrichment programs than there used to be.

Adeena is pretty hands-off with the audio books. She was happy to get a narrator with a British accent.

Grumman project is the Human Operated Support Group for NASA's HALO mission.

Adeena is one of the four hosts of The BIG Sci-Fi Podcast.