High-Achieving Artists and Scientists Have Much to Teach Women and Girls, Says New Book That Probes Their Motives and How They Overcame Obstacles

This book, based on in-depth interviews with prominent women, some never before told, is a "paper mentor" designed to inspire, support, and guide young women to pursue challenging careers.

For immediate release                 Contact: Dr. Karma Kitaj, 617-731-6170

Boston, MA - Can a woman rise to prominence without encouragement from her parents in childhood? Must one concentrate on one field only to succeed, despite multiple passions? Is there some secret strategy achievers use to conquer roadblocks and defeat the odds?

A new book provides illuminating answers from the lives of women artists and scientists who succeeded in a generation when society created even more challenges than today. Women Who Could...and Did: Lives of 26 Exemplary Artists and Scientists, by Brookline, Massachusetts psychotherapist Dr. Karma Kitaj, poses questions about the road to womens success and replies with insights from in-depth interviews conducted with Nobel Prize winner Rosalyn Yalow, holder of 24 patents Martha Thomas, former principal flutist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra Doriot Anthony Dwyer, Poet Laureate for New Hampshire Maxine Kumin, and 22 other exceptional women over 65.

Poignant, humorous, and inspiring anecdotes from the lives of these women interlace in the book with analysis of the factors enabling them to persevere through discrimination, personal losses, and professional disappointments. A paramount lesson emerging from the book is the power of passion and joy to propel women to create and achieve things beyond the ordinary.

Author Dr. Karma Kitaj wrote the book in response to her feeling that too many girls and women today lack mentors. As I became absorbed in gathering the life stories," she says, I became more passionate about my work and a better advocate for myself. My goal was to provide a 'paper mentor for other women to enjoy the same insights and empowerment."

Comments Jean Baker Miller, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine and author of Toward a New Psychology of Women, How did they do it, these women who dreamed and dared before the womens movement? Their fascinating stories move us toward answers. More important, Women Who Could...and Did does not offer a simplistic answer, but a much richer and more varied mosaic. It should help many of todays women, young and older."

Women Who Could...and Did: Lives of 26 Exemplary Artists and Scientists by Karma Kitaj, Ph.D.
$16.95 paperback, 304 pages, ISBN 0-9715957-2-0, Pub. date: May 2002.
Available through bookstores, online or through the publisher:
Huckle Hill Press, P.O. Box 67273, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467.