links to poems | indexes, bibliography, acknowledgments

The Path of Most Resistance: Poems on Women in Science. Illustrated by Kristin DiVona. London: Gold SF, May 2025. Paperback, $19.95. ISBN 9781915983275. Otherwise Award honor list, Ms. Magazine best poetry 2025-2026.

Mathematics for Ladies: Poems on Women in Science. With a foreword by Pippa Goldschmidt and illustrations by Kristin DiVona of NASA’s Reach Across the Stars project. London: Gold SF, 2022. Paperback, $20. ISBN 9781913380489. Longlisted for the British Science Fiction Association Award.

blurbs

“Wonderful, imaginative, lively, angry in a good way” — Nancy Hopkins

“The only good science fiction poems ever written are by Jessy Randall.” — Annalee Newitz

“I never get tired of learning about women who achieved great things despite obstacles. There are so many of them — and so many of them did not get their due.” — Katha Pollitt

“A must for lovers of poetry and science alike!” — Emily Hockaday

reviews of The Path of Most Resistance

“A fascinating body of work whose sum is a poetic statement on gender. It poignantly explores women in science across eras, restoring lost voices and creating new spaces, ultimately snatching a place for innovative thinkers erased across history by gender biases. A clever and compelling conversation that expresses a diverse array of women’s voices and identities, and asserts their right to be celebrated.” — Otherwise Award jury members Eugen Bacon, Andrew Hook, Cheryl S. Ntumy, K. Ibura, and Rebecca Fraimowdges (honor list)

“Profound but also accessible … As often as they make you laugh, Randall’s words will have you searching for a pillow to scream into.” — Jamie Siebrase, Rocky Mountain Reader

reviews of Mathematics for Ladies

“For science readers who love poetry, poetry readers who love science, and feminists and students of all ages.” — Library Journal, September 22, 2022

“Secondary schools where there is interest in STEM projects, poetry studies, and women’s issues will benefit by adding this multifaceted title to their library or classroom collection.” — School Library Journal, October 28, 2022

“Thought provoking…we are lucky to have this charming book.” — Barbara Keyfitz, AWM Newsletter

“[P]lain spoken, direct, and spare … welcoming to non-scientists … a nice package” — Stephen Payne, The Friday Poem

“Every [poem] made me want to know more about the woman and her work!” — Kathleen Kirk

“Fascinating, at times rage-inducing but always entertaining and engaging … highly recommended” — Jackie Law

“A mix of reverence and vicarious irreverence, outrage and bemusement, anger and equanimity, pride and cheerful self-effacement” — Stuart Kelter

links to poems

chronological by birth year
*Mathematics for Ladies
**The Path of Most Resistance

*First Scientist (? – ?) in Analog
**Tapputi-Belatekallim (ca. 1200 BCE) in Star*Line
**Pandrosion (ca. 300-360) in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet
**Hypatia (ca. 360-415) in Snakeskin
**Trota of Salerno (ca. 11th-12th century) in Escape into Life
*Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)
** Katherine Jones, Viscountess Ranelagh (1615-1691) in Analog
Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673)
*Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717)
*Émilie du Châtelet (1706-1749) in Escape into Life
*Laura Bassi (1711-1778)
Anna Morandi Manzolini (1716-1774)
*Maria Gaetana, the Witch of Agnesi (1718-1799) in Redheaded Stepchild
**Jane Colden (1724-1766) in Eclectica
*Caroline Herschel (1750-1848) in Poetry Northwest
*Wang Zhenyi (1769-1797) in Escape into Life
*Marie-Sophie Germain (1776-1831) in Intersections
*Mary Somerville (1780-1872)
*James Miranda Barry / Margaret Ann Bulkley (ca. 1789-1865) in Escape into Life
**Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps (1793-1884) in Mobius: The Journal of Social Change
**Anna Atkins (1799-1871) in Escape into Life
*Mary Anning (1799-1847) in Escape into Life
**Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) in Asimov’s (finalist for Readers’ Award)
*Maria Mitchell (1818-1889) in Escape into Life
**Eunice Newton Foote (1819-1888) in Dreams and Nightmares
*Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910) 1: Zuzu’s Petals, Injecting Dreams into Cows; 2: LCRW; 3: Sendecki
*Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz (1822-1907) in Scientific American
*Mary Treat (1830-1923) in Ethel
*Rebecca Lee Crumpler (1831-1895) in Women’s Review of Books
*Rachel Bodley (1831-1888) in NAILED
**Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836-1917) in Escape into Life
*Josephine Garis Cochrane (1839-1913)
*Ellen H. Swallow Richards (1842-1911) Another Chicago Magazine
*Emily Roebling (1843-1903) in Dreams and Nightmares
*Sarah Frances Whiting (1847-1927)
**Ellen Eglin (before 1849-after 1890) in Mobius: The Journal of Social Change; Best of the Net finalist 2025
*Bertha Benz (1849-1944) in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet
*Sofya Kovalefskaya (1850-1891)
**Ellen Hayes (1851-1930) in Diode
*Hertha Ayrton (1854-1923) in Analog
**Laura Hecox (1854–1919) in Eclectica
**Fanny Hesse (1858-1934) in Escape into Life
*Charlotte Angas Scott (1858-1931) in Escape into Life
*Alice Eastwood (1859-1953) in Escape into Life
*Alicia Boole Stott (1860-1940)
*Nettie Stevens (1861-1912)
*Annie Jump Cannon (1863-1941) in Asimov’s, Colorado Encyclopedia, and Dwarf Stars
*Anna Wessels Williams (1863-1954) in NAILED
*Susan La Flesche Picotte (1865-1950)
**Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) in Strange Horizons
**Ida Gray (1867-1953)
**Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868-1921)
*Marie Curie (1867-1934)
*Mary Agnes Chase (1869-1963) in Strange Horizons (with audio)
**Maud Slye (1869-1954) in Poetry Northwest
*Ynes Mexia (1870-1938)
*Lillian Gilbreth (1878-1972)
*Lise Meitner (1878-1968) in NAILED
*Agnes Arber (1879-1960) in Escape into Life
*Emmy Noether (1882-1935)
**Edith Clarke (1883-1959)
**Johanna Westerdijk (1883-1961) in Asimov’s
*Margaret Morse Nice (1883-1974) in NAILED
**Elizabeth Lee Hazen (1885-1975)
**Elsie Maud Wakefield (1886-1972) in Escape into Life
*Libbie Henrietta Hyman (1888-1969) in Women’s Review of Books
*Alice Ball (1892-1916)
**Sallie Pero Mead (1893-1981)
*Hilda Geiringer von Mises (1893-1973) in Diode
*Gerty Cori (1896-1957)
**May Edward Chinn (1896-1980)
**Elzada Clover (1897-1980)
*Joan Beauchamp Procter (1897-1931) in The Mom Egg
**Rachel Fuller Brown (1898-1980)
**Hilde Mangold (1898-1924) in Asimov’s
*Helen Taussig (1898-1986) in Asimov’s
*Charlotte Auerbach (1899-1994) in NAILED
**Roger Arliner Young (1899-1964) in Snakeskin
*Honor Fell (1900-1986) in Escape into Life
*Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (1900-1979)
*Nina Karlovna Bari (1901-1961) in Strange Horizons
Barbara McClintock (1902-1992)
Marion Gray (1902-1979)
**Mina Rees (1902-1997) in Snakeskin
**Flemmie Pansy Kittrell (1904-1980) in Eclectica
*Grace Brewster Murray Hopper (1906-1992)
*Maria Goeppert Mayer (1906-1972) in NAILED
*Frances Hamerstrom (1907-1998) in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet
*Bertha Parker Pallan (1907-1978) excerpted in Library Journal
**Rachel Carson (1907-1964) in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet
*Mary G. Ross (1908-2008)
*Virginia Apgar (1909-1974) in Diode
**Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909-2012) in Star*Line
**Georgia Caldwell Smith (1909-1961) in Snakeskin
Laura Hunter Colwin (1911-2006) in Escape into Life
**Elizabeth Hayes (1912-1984) in Quail Bell Magazine
*Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997) in Escape into Life
**Dorothy Bernstein (1914-1988) in Snakeskin
**Lois Jotter (1914-2013)
*Frances Oldham Kelsey (1914-2015)
**Hedy Lamarr (1914-2000)
*Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958)
**Carolyn Attneave (1920-1992)
Helen Rodríguez-Trías (1920-2001)
*Marie Tharp (1920-2006) in Women’s Review of Books
**Ursula Franklin (1921-2016)
**Eugenie Clark (1922-2015)
**Odette Shotwell (1922-1998) in Quail Bell Magazine
**Beatrice Medicine (1923-2005)
**Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat (1923-2025) in Eclectica
**Jewel Isadora Plummer Cobb (1924-2017) in Snakeskin
*Mary Ellen Rudin (1924-2013) in Escape into Life, reprinted in Van Vleck Vector, UNC-Wilmington’s math newsletter
*Evelyn Boyd Granville (1924-2023) in Intersections and Pink Panther
*Fay Ajzenberg-Selove (1926-2012) in paper in Analog, reprinted in The Heartbeat of the Universe, online at the blog
**June Bacon-Bercey (1928-2019) in Utopia Science Fiction
**Margaret Kivelson (b. 1928) in Eclectica
*Helen Rodríguez-Trías (1929-2001)
**Carolyn Shoemaker (1929-2021) in Escape into Life
Mildred Dresselhaus (1930-2017)
**Gladys West (1930-2026)
**Joan Murrell Owens (1933-2011)
*Jane Goodall (1934-2025) in Mobius: The Journal of Social Change
*Roberta Eike (b. 1934)
*Raye Montague (1935-2018) in Zocalo Public Square
*Jocelyn Bell Burnell (b. 1943) in Another Chicago Magazine
**Lydia Villa-Komaroff (b. 1947) in Star*Line
Diana Garcia-Prichard (b. 1949)
**Mae Jemison (b. 1956) in Hog River
*Maryam Mirzakhani (1977-2017) in paper in Analog, reprinted in The Heartbeat of the Universe, and online here

readings, interviews, panels, etc.

2026 readings: Texarkana, USA and Toulouse, France.

Her Maths Story piece on Annie Jump Cannon and Nina Bari, September 17, 2025.

Colorado College Visiting Writers / library book launch, Tutt Library, September 16, 2025.

Oak Bluffs Public Library, Martha’s Vineyard, Saturday, June 28, 2025.

“Delving In” interview with Stuart Kelter, May 2025.

York County Senior College reading, Path of Most Resistance, March 19, 2024 (virtual).

Womanthology podcast, May 16, 2024.

Reading, American Association of University Women annual meeting, Colorado Springs, May 3, 2024.

Lost Women of Science podcast, May 2, 2024.

Reading, Pikes Peak chapter of the Colorado Archaeological Society, August 15, 2023.

Interview with T.D. Walker, Interstellar Flight Magazine, July 7, 2023.

Reading, American Association of University Women, March 17, 2023.

R Gallery, Boulder, Colorado, Tuesday, February 21.

Hitchcock Project interview with Dina Wood, December 23, 2022.

When It Changed: Women in SF/F Since 1972 panel discussion, Saturday, December 3, 2022, Science Fiction Foundation, University of Glasgow.

“Delving In” radio interview with Stuart Kelter, November 13, 2022. 2nd place, New Mexico Press Women Communications Contest, 2023.

Feature article in Library Journal, October 2022.

Colorado College Visiting Writers Series, October 11, 2022, South Hall, 4:30 reception, 5:00 reading, free books to first fifty guests.

Una McCormack reads “First Scientist” on BBC4 Radio at the 39:36 mark, October 6, 2022.

Rattlecast reading and interview, September 19, 2022 (video).

Home-made five-minute promo for the Pikes Peak Library District’s Author Showcase, July 2022.

Interview with the founders of Gold SF at the Analog blog, June 2022.

York County Senior College presentation, February 23, 2022.

Colorado College “Irons in the Fire” presentation, May 2021.

Normal Public Library “Poetry is Normal” illustrated presentation, March 2021.