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Today’s podcast episode is a Book Award Winner episode, where we get to know a writer who won the NAIWE Book Award.

Robin Stevens Payes won the 2023 Book Award for her book Find Me in the Time Before in the Young Adult category.

Robin Stevens Payes is a time traveler who reasons that time and space are just inconvenient rules that other people decided the world must follow. She’s author of the award-winning Edge of Yesterday YA time travel adventure book series chronicling a “whip-smart” modern teen’s quest to meet—and interview—all her polymathic “heroes of history” to learn the secrets of their genius. She has recently completed a pilot screenplay adaptation for television or streaming with screenwriting partner Tish Dragonette.

Payes also has two short stories scheduled to appear in anthologies in late 2024. And after decades of trying to fit some notion of “normal,” in 2023, she chose to dive deeper into the offbeat, allowing verse to fill a poetic void. Her poetry has appeared in two anthologies: Maryland Bards Poetry Reviews in 2023 and 2024 and Reflections Maryland Writers’ Association Anthology in 2023.

To make time travel available to teens and those who care for them, Payes has created an accompanying interactive “learning through story” platform where she prompts teens to follow their own inner voice—through poetry, prose, photography, personal reflection and other forms of creative expression.

Here is a preview of today’s discussion:

When did you first have the idea for this book? And what inspired you to actually write this book?

As a science writer, I became fascinated with the brilliant but forgotten 18th-century French woman physicist, mathematician, and philosopher, Emilie, the Marquise du Châtelet, after being introduced to her in a documentary about Einstein’s breakthrough formula for Relativity, based on David Bodanis’s biography of a formula, E=mc2. According to Bodanis, the Marquise laid the foundation for Relativity two centuries before Einstein. Her contribution, F=mv2 the squaring of Newton’s formula for energy, was actually an improvement on Newton’s math. And that she was something of an 18th-century feminist (long before there was such a notion of female empowerment) made her all the more intriguing!

The book’s protagonist, the very 21st-century STEMinista and now-experienced time traveler, Charley Morton, whose ambition in life is to “do it all” and not be confined by what her society tells her she can or cannot become, was dying to learn Emilie’s secrets of polymathic success, so for her high school science fair project, she must refine her time travel app and set it for France in 1736, in the time of Emilie and her lover and science partner, the infamous satirist, poet and playwright (and, fun fact, scientist wannabe) Voltaire.

For curious readers, Charley has captured the life and accomplishments of this “daring genius of the Enlightenment,” in an interview with the great marquise.

Please describe one of your favorite characters from your book.

I love all my characters, but Emilie is such a kick-butt woman that she stands head-and-shoulders above the rest. As I mentioned, she was physicist, mathematician and philosopher, but also mother of four (she died in childbirth with her youngest at the age of 42—that child was neither her husband’s nor Voltaire’s, but a minor court poet at Versailles, Saint-Lambert, a student of Voltaire. She and Voltaire created one of the most modern science laboratories in Europe when they went to live in the château in Cirey, France, where she and Voltaire took up residence for 15 years, and her husband, the Marquis, would visit when he wasn’t off fighting wars for King Louis XV. She had to bring Voltaire to Cirey to save him from exile (again!) after he insulted a member of Louis’s nobility at Versailles.

The two set up a salon where all the greatest minds across Europe would gather to exchange ideas and debate the most modern philosophical and scientific breakthroughs. She built a little theatre at the top of the château to perform Voltaire’s plays, and commandeered their guests to play roles. Emilie also sang opera—and there is now even an opera dedicated to her story.

All was lost when she died at such a relatively young age. There is so much to this amazing woman!

Do you have a tried-and-true writing technique? Please share your writing process.

It’s funny you bring up this question. I was asked in another interview recently whether I am a plotter or a pantser. Being the science writer I am, I love to see the plot laid out before I start writing, and to neatly tie up the story arc, and what’s happening chapter-by-chapter. so I am a plotter by nature.

However, Charley is definitely not! I start writing following my neat outline, and she takes it from there—taking me on the adventure with her. Whatever happens from there, like the aforementioned multi-time leaps from present to past to future to past to present, is a mystery to me until it unfurls.

Charley definitely keeps things fresh.

Today’s podcast episode is a Book Award Winner episode, where we get to know a writer who won the NAIWE Book Award.

Sherry Roberts won the 2024 Book Award for her book The Galaxy According to CeCe in the Middle Grade category.

Sherry is an award-winning author of children’s picture books and middle grade novels. Her debut middle grade book, The Galaxy According to Cece, launched February 24, 2024, and received a Get It: Recommend review from Kirkus Reviews. This book was also featured in the August 2024 list of 40 Indie Books Worth Discovering from Kirkus. Book two of this three book series, The Galaxy According to Cece: The Mysterious Dr. Pruitt, launched August 19, 2024. Book three of the series, The Galaxy According to Cece: The Stars Align, launched February 27, 2025.

Here is a preview of today’s discussion:

When did you first have the idea for this book?

I got the idea of writing this book when I was brainstorming book ideas. It became clearer to me because I am Cece. I’m the girl who moved from North Carolina without much notice to Missouri. I’m the girl who was not really told what the house the university was allowing us to rent, while we looked for a home, was really all about. I was the girl who was in shock when we drove up the driveway. Me riding in the U-Haul truck with my father asking where the house was. I was the girl who heard her dad say, “The house is on the left, the classroom is in the middle, and the observatory is on the right.”

No, my father is not an astronomer but rather a classical musician who was to be the Dean of the music school. Yes, things I describe about the house are from my memory and looking at the blueprint of the observatory online. Yes, it is truly an observatory that is part of the property of the university in the small town.

Many of Cece’s feelings are mine from my multiple moves but as a former middle school teacher and dance team coach, I pulled from that knowledge for much of what else goes on in the book.

What is something you learned while working on this book?

The funny thing about what I learned is that I was dance team coach and two of my nieces played softball throughout middle school, yet I had the characters play soccer. The choice of team was based on friends who have children playing soccer. I didn’t want it to be dance because that was more limiting for readers. I learned so much about soccer while writing this book.

I loved learning more about astronomy as I was writing but this was not challenging. I found it fascinating.

I also learned that I say “just,” “okay,” and “that” often! As a writer we often write like we talk and then realize this might not be the best thing when writing.

Please share your writing process.

I like to brainstorm. I find participating in StoryStorm in January is always a good time to brainstorm story ideas for picture books or even chapter books. I have several topics of interest that I would like to create a story about but need to decide the exact genre.

Once an idea begins to ‘grow’ in my head, I begin to write the idea down. It will go through multiple edits at the beginning before I even let anyone look at it. I might talk about it but not let it be seen until it is a more solid story. I don’t have a designated time to write. When the “mood” strikes, I write. Sometimes that is several days I a row and sometimes it is maybe several days before I write. I find I’m not one who can write because I have carved out time each day to write. It just doesn’t work that way for me. If I tell myself, it is time to write, I can guarantee that I won’t be able to write a word. If I wait to let the idea or thought evolve naturally, I can take off with an idea. I wish I could be more disciplined about the process.