Women’s History Month is a time to honor and celebrate women for their incredible achievements. As a women-founded, mostly women-run, business, we wanted to shine a light on the amazing women that have made Bookclubs what it is today. We also wanted to share some of the challenges we’ve faced growing a tech business in a male-dominated industry, to emphasize the difficulties women in this field continue to face.
Read on for book club pro tips, reading recommendations, and to hear what it’s like as a woman working in tech.
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ANNA FORD, CEO & Co-Founder
About Me
At Bookclubs, I'm the CEO, which means I wear several hats. Some days I'm handling customer service, team management, and HR admin. Other days I get to think strategically about the vision for our company and product roadmap. My biggest job is fundraising to make sure we have the resources we need to keep growing, improving the platform, and remaining free and accessible to readers and book clubs!
Book Club Personality
I am always the de-facto organizer and the one to get and keep the group together. That's why I built Bookclubs!
Book Club Pro Tip
I always come to book club with a question or two to ask the group, one that I jotted down while reading and one from the discussion guide on Bookclubs. I use these to either start the discussion or when there is a lull in conversation. I rarely need them, because my book club members are pretty loquacious and engaged! At the end of every meeting each member shares their numeric rating of the book and why they gave it that rating. It's a tradition we've kept going for years, and it's fun to hear how members' ratings of the book are shaped by our discussion. We also spice things up by changing locations around town, and we often brainstorm who we think should be cast in the book to screen adaptation!
Favorite Book Club Read of 2021
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
What's it like being a woman running a business in the tech industry?
As a woman entrepreneur in tech, I experience all of the noted challenges other women face - It's harder to access capital, I feel like I am regularly defying social expectations, proving someone wrong, or struggling to be taken seriously, I balance running an all-consuming startup and caring for a new baby who needs lots of attention. It's exhausting sometimes! These truisms lurk in the background of my day-to-day, and they motivate me to be a force for change. I give and receive support regularly to other women leading tech companies, and have been really fortunate to have great mentors, both men and women. While I deeply identify as a woman entrepreneur working with a team of amazing women, it's not the only thing that defines me. Connecting people through books is our mission, and it transcends gender. While we predominantly serve women, I hope more and more men will realize the power of being in a book club for social benefits and lifelong learning!
NANCY BROWN, COO & Co-Founder
About Me
Along with helping to grow and support our community of book clubs, I'm in charge of our partnerships with publishers and authors. This involves tasks like preparing our monthly newsletters and building out new ways for authors to reach book clubs with their books!
Book Club Personality
I am both the leader and the procrastinator. I always finish the book, but I'm definitely the club member who has 100 pages left to read the night before.
Book Club Pro Tip
I think you have to be comfortable with pauses and even silence and most importantly letting the discussion travel where it may.
Favorite Book Club Read of 2021
The Lying Life of Adults with our company book club. We had a really fun discussion. We were all together in person for the first time in a while.
As a Co-Founder of Bookclubs, what does being a woman-founder mean to you?
I think it's a source of pride. The playing field is far from level so to be out here building and growing in a male dominated sphere is empowering, but perhaps more importantly it's a reminder of the strength in community. There is a strong undercurrent of support among woman-founders.
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ZOE EPSTEIN, CGO
About Me
My job is to constantly focus on bringing more readers into the Bookclubs community! That includes marketing Bookclubs, partnering with other book-oriented organizations, and building new Bookclubs features that will help us serve more readers.
Book Club Personality
I often drive the discussion, but I am also the book clubber most likely to need help remembering a character's name!
Book Club Pro Tip
One of my favorite questions is "who would you cast in the movie of this book?" It's fun to answer but also makes you think about the characters from different angles.
Favorite Book Club Read of 2021
I laughed and cried through Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, but I think Yolk by Mary H.K. Choi led to our most interesting discussion.
As a woman, what challenges have you faced working to grow a tech business?
I think a lot of women are socialized to be perfectionists. In the startup/tech world, you really need to let go of that and be willing to try a lot of not-yet-perfect things, and accept that many of them will fail.
CARRIE THORNBRUGH, Director of Marketing & Growth
About Me
As part of the growth team leadership, I've got a hand in everything from digital content, PR, product marketing, club development, and partnerships.
Book Club Personality
I'm the Book Broker. I've got a keen knack for selecting the right book. I know what book you want and need before you do. It's a gift--but with great power comes great responsibility.
Book Club Pro Tip
Try new things! Some of my best book club meetings have been when we've strayed from our usual routine such as a poetry open mic night and a screenplay table read.
Favorite Book Club Read of 2021
The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free by Paulina Bren. It's about New York City’s most famous women-only hotel and the story of class and sexual politics in the twentieth century. It's fun, eye-opening, relevant, and nostalgic.
Who are your professional role models?
Stacey Abrams, politician, lawyer, voting rights activist, author, and hero. And Hedy Lamarr, actress, and inventor who pioneered the technology for WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth in 1940!!
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ERICA ELIOT, Director of Product & Design
About Me
At Bookclubs I lead Product Design, which gives me the opportunity to work with everyone on our team to develop, design, and implement new features (as well as continually improve existing ones). I'm really fortunate in this role to get to learn from our users, too. The readers who use Bookclubs are so engaged, and they're constantly sending great feedback and ideas for the site and app!
Book Club Personality
I always have the best of intentions to read the book well in advance, but I'm usually speed reading the last few chapters the night before book club, and then bingeing on author interviews or reviews the day of. I try to make sure that I contribute to the spread, though — I'm definitely the one to volunteer to bring a cheese board!
Book Club Pro Tip
The most memorable book club discussions I've been a part of are the ones in which we've all been able to add something personal to the book we just read. As readers, we're all interested in stories, and book club really allows us to connect over just that — the stories we read and the ones we tell. I think that being able to identify in some way to a book — the characters, the history, the context, the humanity — and being willing to share that during book club is what sparks the best conversations.
Favorite Book Club Read of 2021
I absolutely loved Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, which I read with my local book club last fall. We met about it twice because we had so much to discuss!
Who is a woman in your industry that you look up to?
Someone I really admire in Design and User Experience is actually one of my closest friends Kate Clayton, who works in healthcare design. When I'm designing, I often think of her mantra: "Be an elegant simplifier." Design is about more than making things beautiful (although that's absolutely part of it). It's always my goal to simplify complexities and make things accessible and delightful for our users, and Kate really inspires this for me. (She wrote about it in Behavioral Scientist here.)
HOA NGUYEN THI THANH, Back-end Developer
About Me
I'm a back-end developer, my role at Bookclubs is handling, making updates, and monitoring the functionality of the site, like emails, notifications, messages, meetings, bookshelves, etc.
What do you like about working in the tech industry?
Working in the tech industry, I like the logic, intelligence, creativity, and applicability of the products.
What's been your favorite project or feature you've worked on at Bookclubs?
I like the email and notification settings feature, which is one of the features I have worked on. Notifications will remind you in case you forgot to do something, but sometimes it can be annoying when you receive too many emails or notifications. Bookclubs’ email and notification settings feature allows you to specify only the certain types of emails and notifications you wish to receive. I think it's a very useful feature.
What's it like being a woman developer in a male-dominated field?
This is a challenge for me. As you know, this field develops at a very fast rate and men are very sensitive, fast and smart. As a woman, besides work, I am also a mother of children. Therefore, I had to work very hard to be able to work at the same pace as other male colleagues. After all, I am very proud that I have done what is supposed to be for men. Besides, working in a male-dominated environment also has many interesting things :D.
Do you have a favorite book or author?
One book I really like is How the Steel Was Tempered by Nikolai Alexeevich Ostrovsky.
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OLIVIA MARKOWSKI, Lead Partnerships Manager
About Me
I am the Lead Partnerships Manager at Bookclubs! I work closely with publishers and authors to connect them with our book clubs and offer reading inspiration to our users. I also am in charge of scheduling and orchestrating our monthly live author interviews through our Bookclubs Author Chats club.
Book Club Personality
I am a very chaotic type of book club leader who schedules the meetings way far in advance and then completely forgets when I scheduled the meeting!
Book Club Pro Tip
One way I love to spark discussion with my club is to ask everyone their yays and nays of a book. What parts did they absolutely love and what could they have gone without. This is always interesting because it amazes me how differently we all experience a book.
Favorite Book Club Read of 2021
My favorite book club read of 2021 would be Crying in H Mart. The book was just so very beautifully written and such an authentic and relatable story about grief, love and family. Beware this one will make you cry! I am actually going to see the author's band with my book club in May!
What do you enjoy most about working with book publishers?
For starters, I love being in the know about all of the exciting upcoming books. However, my favorite part about working in this industry would have to be being surrounded by so many inspiring women. As a recent graduate, I truly am so grateful to be where I am, it is so easy to find so many women to look up to working for Bookclubs and in the publishing industry!
ANNABEL ZANE, Community Manager
About Me
At Bookclubs, I run all of our social media accounts, write content for the blog, manage our fabulous Join a Book Club page, and help many of you with your customer service inquiries!
Book Club Personality
I’m the planner who gets everyone together and often recommends our club’s next pick, but still ends up speed reading the last few chapters the night before.
Book Club Pro Tip
Themed meetings always make book club more fun and give your members even more to look forward to! My club hosted a Valentine’s Day themed meeting last month where we read Pride and Prejudice, ate charcuterie, and watched the movie together!
Favorite Book Club Read of 2021
Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney was probably my favorite book club read last year, with Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters as a close second.
What’s it been like being a woman entering the workforce?
At Bookclubs, I’m fortunate enough to work with an amazing team, of mostly women, who support and uplift me, while helping me grow personally and professionally. This has helped make my transition into the workforce much easier.
We’ve been highlighting women’s stories, voices, and book clubs all month long via our blog, social media, and newsletter so if you enjoyed this feature, subscribe to our blog and create a Bookclubs account to access more reading and club inspiration! Already have an account? Rate and review the books above that you've read, and recommend your favorites to friends.