Being Geek Chic is a blog for stylish geeks, sophisticated nerds and people who enjoy the musings of a complete dork. Join us as we dream of driving the TARDIS, cuddle with our eBooks and test out an iPad sleeve. It's written by Elizabeth Giorgi and a team of brilliant lady nerds. Meet the team.
Meet Emily Farquharson (aka Frogmella, @frogmellaink on Twitter). She’s the co-founder of Geek Girl Pen Pals, a wonderful online community of geeks who write letters to other geeks. On the 15th of every month, Emily and her comrade Leslie match all participants with a pen pal so they can write, tweet, and bleat to each other.
Farquharson also makes up one half of House of the Fickle Queen, an über cute jewelry and accessories store inspired by pop culture. Using a combination of upcycled old jewelry she’s been collecting for years and armed with her wits, some pliers and access to a laser cutting machine and the Internet, Farquharson and her pal Ms. Firth create whimsical and charming pieces, totally fit for a chic geek.
So read Farquharson’s interview with Being Geek Chic and discover her passions, advice, memoir title, and geeky crush…
Q: What led you to your passion?
A: Oh so many things! From a very, very young age I read whatever I could get my hands on. By the time I was 8 I had read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Hobbit and pretty much everything Roald Dahl wrote for children, which set my imagination off and opened up so many other doors. I also loved art a lot as a young one, particularly Dali and Picasso, which lead me to painting, drawing and generally being crafty. I am very lucky to have wonderful parents who did nothing by encourage me to explore, learn, read and it is something I have taken with me through my life. I am passionate about so much, not just books and art, but music, fashion, films and television, comics, science, baking and food, travel, ancient history, animation and more. I could fill a book with the things I am passionate about, because they have all shaped me into who I am in some way!
Meet this week’s Lady Geek of the Week: Kaitlin Stewart. Liz first introduced Stewart on Being Geek Chic a few weeks ago and announced that Stewart’s instagram account, PwnLove, “is the coolest instagram account out there.” Liz wasn’t exaggerating.
Stewart’s currently on day 125 of a “365 Days of Video Games Fashion” quest. So cool, right? Sometimes the geekiness is subtle, sometimes it’s loud, and sometimes, it’s a pair of socks. Whatever the occasion, whatever the day brings, Stewart pulls off these geeky fashions like nobody’s business.
Check out Stewart’s blog PwnLove.com for even more geeky garment goodness.
Stewart’s raking in the PR buzz, too. Check out her interviews with The Daily Dot and the Geeky Hostess. Being Geek Chic’s interview gets a little more personal. We dive into her passions and frustrations of being a geek – which include being forced into the role of Donatello when she actually had an affinity for Raphael…
Q: What has led you to your passion?
A: Since I was little, my parents always encouraged me to play video games. The first video game was a Sesame Street counting game on the computer quickly followed by beating Mario and Adventures in the Magic Kingdom on the NES.
I fell in love with fashion when I was a tween. I loved clothes, make up and accessories. I love to take fashion risks and try something new. I could spend hours flipping through catalogs and magazines, exploring different style websites, watching runway shows and shopping for clothes. My bedroom in my childhood home is covered in magazine clippings of my favorite outfits, ads, pictures and inspiration. It wasn’t an instant connection to combine my two passions of video games and fashion but when I look back now, it seems like a natural fit.
Ever dreamed of living in Silicon Valley? This week’s Lady Geek is for you. Meet Kamilah Taylor (@kamilah), a Software Engineer at LinkedIn. (I’ll let her fill you in on living in the Valley…)
Taylor’s professional bio will tell you that she was born in Jamaica and grew up in both Kingston and Atlanta, Georgia. She spent her childhood “playing with Legos, reading books, swimming at the beach, and looking for fairies.” After studying computer science and math at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, she did her M.Sc. at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Check out her full resume here.
Her Being Geek Chic interview will tell you about her failed biology experiment resulting in dead pansies, the not-so-corporate culture of LinkedIn, and what she would drink with Dumbledore.
Read on!
Q: What has led you to your passion?
A: I’ve always loved to solve puzzles, this is a constant theme in my earliest memories. Math was always a favorite subject, and I treasured getting computer time on my dad’s computer. At some point, I declared I wanted to go to space, so my parents told me I needed to do science. Then, in middle school and high school, I went through a series of science fair projects that sort of eliminated different parts of science for me. There was the pansy experiment that ended with dead pansies, and then the ozone testing that unfortunately involved expired chemicals. I decided that biology and chemistry weren’t for me.
Meet Megan Gotch, aka The Nerdy Girlie. She lives in sunny San Diego where she anticipates her favorite event of the year: San Diego Comic Con. She blogs about this anticipation over at The Nerdy Girlie. Head over to her blog for tips on what to wear, who to photograph, what to pack, where to park, what to watch for, etc. Don’t plan on attending SDCC? Head over to The Nerdy Girlie anyway. Her tips her applicable to many different conferences, and her witty writing and adorable photos are definitely worth checking out.
Gotch also blogs about nerdy passions like Doctor Who (check out her premier party with Being Geek Chic printable napkin rings!), Dexter, Entertainment Weekly, and a subject near to my heart: ballet!
Need more Gotch? Find her as @thenerdygirlie on Twitter and Instagram. And check out her interview with Being Geek Chic to discover when she first realized she was a geek and what she’d tell her middle-school self.
Have you ever wished that Being Geek Chic readers could all sit down together, eat veggie burgers, and talk about our lives, goals, struggles, and loves? I have. Meet our Lady Geek of the Week, Sarah Lamb, who had a similar idea.
Back in 2005, Lamb was at a dinner of geeks when she realized just how isolated women in the industry could feel. (The dinner guests were mostly men.) The summer of that year, she hosted a dinner for lady geeks and called it Girl Geek Dinners. 35 geeks attended.
Years later, Girl Geek Dinners has gone global to 53 different cities in 24 different counties, with over 28,000 geeks participating. Lamb has extended Girl Geek Dinners to include aspects like a mentorship program and a video series of inspirational women. Pretty neat, huh?
But that’s just Lamb’s night gig. By day, she’s a Consultant at TechNet & MSDN Editor at Microsoft. She also founded GirlyGeekdom, a news and reviews site for all things geeky from cartoons and comics to science, engineering, and technology.
So check out this British bombshell’s interview with Being Geek Chic and then pop over to Twitter and follow her at @geekylamb. You’ll adore her, I promise.
Introducing this week’s Lady Geek of the Week: Amy Webb. She’s the CEO of Webbmedia Group, a digital strategy agency that’s solving the problems of Fortune 100 and Global 1000 companies, government agencies, media organizations, and foundations. You can follower her on Twitter @webbmedia.
But perhaps the reason why we love her the best is that she recently authored “Data, A Love Story.” After attempting – and failing – to find love via online dating, she took matters into her own hands. Or rather, the hands of her male alter ego. Using digital strategy and sharp intellect, she met her ideal man (now husband!). And for the benefit of her fellow lady geeks, she turned her story into a written memoir.
And that memoir is now receiving national press from the likes of People Magazine, Time, Washington Post, the New York Times, Elle Magazine, Good Morning America, The View, Marketplace, Wall Street Journal, Slate, Huffington Post, CNN, CNN Radio, The Guardian, 20/20 and more. To top it off, check out Webb’s accompanying TED Talk.
As a bonus, Webb speaks fluent Japanese, has been a reporter for Newsweek (Tokyo) and the Wall Street Journal (Hong Kong), and kills at the classical clarinet. Who knew!
So check out Webb’s interview with Being Geek Chic to glean inspirations that will fuel your own passions. And, discover Webb’s number one piece of advice. Given her fast paced career in digital strategy, you might be surprised…
