Book Contract!

 

The Lorenz Attractor

I'm thrilled to announce that I've just signed a contract with World Scientific to publish my book, Spiritual Insights from the New Science. This book has been "in progress" for almost thirty years and bringing it into the world has been my dream for all of that time--which means that this is, literally, a dream come true. 

World Scientific is a major science publisher based in Singapore, producing upwards of 600 books per year as well as almost 150 scientific journals. They also have a growing list of popular science titles, of which my book will be a part. We don't have a firm publication date, yet, but I'm guessing it will be in late 2021. 

Here is a description of the book:

Spiritual Insights from the New Science is both a memoir of a life in science and a guide to the deep spiritual wisdom drawn from one of the newest areas of science, the study of complex systems.  The author, a former research scientist with three decades of experience in the field of complexity science, tells her story of being attracted, as a young student, to the study of self-organizing systems where she encountered the strange and beautiful topics of chaos, fractals and other concepts that comprise complexity science. Using the events of her life, she describes lessons drawn from this science that provide insights into not only her own life, but all our lives. These insights show us how to weather the often disruptive events we all experience when we are growing and changing.

The book goes on to explore, through the unfolding story of the author’s life as a practicing scientist, other key concepts from the science of complex systems: cycles and rhythms, attractors and bifurcations, chaos, fractals, self-organization, and emergence. Examples drawn from religious ritual, dance, philosophical teachings, mysticism, native American spirituality, and other sources are used to illustrate how these scientific insights apply to all aspects of life, especially the spiritual. Spiritual Insights from the New Science shows the links between this new science and our human spirituality and presents, in engaging, accessible language, the argument that the study of nature can lead to a better understanding of the deepest meaning of our lives.

I am so grateful to all those who have helped bring this book this far--my critique partners, writing instructors, and all those who have cheered me on. When I first got the idea for this book, I had written nothing but scientific articles and memos for work, and did not have a clue about how to write this type of book. This is one reason why it's taken me almost 30 years to bring it into the world. 

The other is, of course, life, which has a way of intervening. I do think, though, that the experience I've gained over the last several decades in writing about science for the public and writing fiction has equipped me for this undertaking. I expect the book will be a lot better than it would have been back in the 1990s when I first started scribbling notes for it.

I look forward to posting more information about this exciting publishing adventure as it becomes available. Stay tuned!