Blending Science, Religion, and Science Fiction
Written by Jan Jaben-Eilon Wednesday, August 10 2011
Snapshot: Joanna Z. Ray, author
Joanna Z. Ray has broken gender barriers in nearly everything she has done. She is a microbiologist, and science, of course, is mostly male populated. She has been a priest in the Church of England since 1994. And she has written a number of books of science fiction, a male-dominated genre. Born in Trinidad, she now lives in London.
Her latest book is One of the Good Guys. It is the fourth in her Sikaran sequence, following alien warriors who are on the side of earth in a galactic space war. Ray has been a medical research worker, teacher, and lecturer, as well as a chaplain for deaf people in the mental health field. A member of the Association of Christian Writers, Ray lectures and writes part-time. Her master’s degree in science education and bachelor’s in microbiology serve her well in her writing and make sci-fi a natural choice.
Womenetics: Who inspired you to write science fiction novels?
Joanna Ray: Some of the classical greats in science fiction have inspired me: Isaac Azimov, John Wyndham, and Arthur C. Clarke are just three of many.
Womenetics: You are also a microbiologist and minister, but does most of your income come from your writing?
Ray: The majority of my income comes from my lecturing work now and not from my writing. I have never earned anything very much from book sales. I write because I enjoy it and don’t look for financial gain; my aim is to produce a good, readable, fun book for the reading public to enjoy.
Womenetics: You were writing science fiction even as a child. Did you become a scientist to better inform your writing?
Ray: I started writing sci-fi when I was 11 years old and became a scientist primarily to learn more about science. This led me to being able to integrate it into my writing. The more science I read, the more fascinated I became about how the universe functions.
Womenetics: What was your biggest challenge in entering the science field as a woman?
Ray: The biggest challenge was convincing the men I worked with that I was a serious worker; they would not believe that I wanted a science career and would keep asking me when I was going to start a family. So I ignored them.
Womenetics: The U.S. Labor Department reports that women account for only 10 percent of the nation’s civil and aerospace engineers, 8 percent of the electrical engineers, and 7 percent of the mechanical engineers. What can be done to attract more women to science?
Ray: I think that science would be more accessible to women if they were mentored at high school (from about age 14 years upward) by university workers who were willing to encourage them to explore the natural world and the wonders of the universe. Summer projects could be arranged especially for them to do science in industry or in a university laboratory. This should not just be available for the most intelligent, but for all female students so that there are equal opportunities for all the women.
Womenetics: The Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Coalition is a U.S. alliance of more than 500 business, professional, and education organizations that encourages the best and brightest students, especially those from underrepresented or disadvantaged groups, to study in STEM fields. Do you think organizations like this are helpful?
Ray: I think that these kinds of organizations are extremely helpful, but there are not enough of them. More funding also needs to be put in to help underrepresented or disadvantaged groups, not only in the United States but in Europe as well.
Womenetics: How are faith and science compatible in your mind?
Ray: God works to benefit us in every way. The energy that God has supplied to our earth through the sun's light has been shown to be involved in the most intricate carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen cycles within nature, and these have been discovered by scientists. All the wonders of the plant and animal kingdoms are brought to our attention by botanists, zoologists, and biologists.
Finding out the life cycle of a star and other developments in astronomy enlightens us as to the wonders of God's created universe. All the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology, which we continually bring to light, tell us that God is the greatest scientist of all.
Womenetics: In all the various fields you’ve been a part of, what failures have you experienced?
Ray: I’ve experienced failures by being blocked by male colleagues in furthering my science research career. Also it took me 10 years to find a literary agent, and when I did find one nothing useful came of it, so that was a great disappointment for me.
Womenetics: Who has mentored you the most?
Ray: My husband, David. He was a professor and U.K. expert in toxicology and neuroscience. David died in November 2010 from lung cancer. We were married for 33 years, and it’s a terrible loss for me. It was very important to David that I should continue with my writing after he had passed away, and I am fully intending to do so. I hope to have a new book written and produced by the end of 2012.
Womenetics: What have been the lessons learned; what would you have done differently?
Ray: If I'd had the funding early on in life, I would have dedicated much more time and energy to my writing, as it is one of the things together with my church work that I have really felt was worthwhile.
Womenetics: What do you do to take care of yourself, in your spare time?
Ray: I love to read anything and everything, in particular, sci-fi, fantasy novels, and religion and science articles. In religion I’m interested in issues of disability and spirituality, liberation theology, and black theology.
In science I like to keep up with the latest developments in molecular biology and astrophysics. I also enjoy the history of science. I love holidays abroad on sun-drenched beaches and to meet and mix with people of other cultures and learn from them.
Unfortunately being good at cooking passed me by, but I do good chemistry. I also enjoy listening to the classics in music, especially composers like Schubert, Shostakovich, and Beethoven. I like to listen to other people and to try to help with their problems when I can.
Jan Jaben-Eilon was a founding staff writer of the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Since then, she has been the international editor of Advertising Age magazine and has written for such publications as The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Washington Journalism Review, and Consumer Reports. She is the author of soon-to-be-published (There is) Life After Cancer. Jan and her husband have homes in Atlanta and Jerusalem.
