I started researching Hidden Figures in 2010, after a conversation between my father, a retired NASA-Langley research scientist, and my husband, made me curious about some of the women he worked with, women I had known since I was a little girl. That first job was not to be my last job, however: I pulled several stints in internet startups and even moved to Mexico to start an English-language magazine with my husband before walking down the path to becoming a professional writer. I was good at English, but also good at math and science I studied finance in college and my first job was as an investment banker in New York. Many of my parents’ friends, or my friends’ parents, also worked at NASA, or as teachers, or shipyard workers or served in the military. My mother was an English professor at Hampton University, my father a research scientist at the NASA Langley Research Center. I remember writing poetry, a play and even a “book” during elementary and junior high school, but it never occurred to me that being a writer was something that one could actually do for a living. We are honored to feature Margot Lee Shetterly on Day 12 of 28 Days Later…and we thank her for bringing this essential piece of our collective history to glorious light. It too, of course, became a NYT bestseller. In November 2016, HarperCollins released the Young Readers’ version of Hidden Figures for middle grade readers. The book pays homage to four trailblazing African American human computers–Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden–who served as an integral part of NASA/NACA at the height of the Space Race between America and Russia. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monae, was based on her New York Times bestselling book, Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race (William Morrow/HC, September 2016). Hidden Figures, the $125 million-grossing movie starring Taraji P.

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Margot lee shetterly books