Base Ten (Women Writing Science Project)

Compelling and fiercely honest, Base Ten exposes the daily battles of women scientists fighting to preserve a family life and succeed in a discipline that functions on the archaic belief that every scientist has a “wife” at home.

Reared to believe that she could do anything, astrophysicist Jillian Greer dreamed of going into space. When she and her research partner Kera Sullivan invented a specialized telescope, it looked as though these two dogged scientists would fulfill the dream they shared.

But ten years later, as Kera trains in a space simulator, Jillian is married and a mother, packing lunches and helping her kids with homework. As her fortieth birthday (the unofficial age limit of the space program) draws near, Jillian decides that things have to change. Leaving her family for ten days, one day for each year she has put her career on hold, she seeks solitude in the sand dunes of Lake Michigan, where she struggles to see if she can find her way back to the stars.

Playwright Maryann Lesert’s work has appeared in The Art of the One-Act and Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2007. Lesert currently teaches writing at Grand Rapids Community College in Michigan. Base Ten is her first novel.