Granby Mom speaks at GeekGirlCon

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Corrina Lawson, a resident of Poet’s Corner and co-founder of GeekMom.com, spoke at GeekGirlCon in Seattle earlier this month.

GeekGirlCon is an annual celebration of the female geek, created to give women a space and a voice in the often-male dominated areas of technology, gaming, science and comics. Speakers this year also included game critic Anita Sarkeesian, who has received death threats for speaking out about problematic issues in some video games.

Lawson was on two panels, “From GeekGirl To GeekMom,” and “Sex From the Female Gaze,” which she jokingly called “the Smut Panel.”

“I went to the con in a double capacity, first as my non-fiction self in connection with GeekMom.Com, a website run by mothers that touches on all areas of geekdom and parenting, and as a published romance novelist.”

Lawson is currently Content Director of GeekMom.com, and also writes for GeekDad.com and CriminalElement.com. She’s the author of ten romance stories, ranging from erotica to steampunk. Ghosts of Christmas Past and Phoenix Inheritance, the latest in her Phoenix Institute superhero romance series, will be released on November 25 and March 3, 2015.

“The GeekMom panel talked about integrating parenting with personal interests, and how to find that balance between having time for yourself and spending time with your children, for mothers working inside and outside the home. But we also spoke about how fun sharing our interests with our kids can be. For instance, I took my kids to Connecticon in Hartford this summer and they had a great time.”

The “Smut Panel” had, obviously, a very different focus and was limited to those over 18. “We had a packed room and they had to turn people away at the door.” However, Lawson said as much fun as they had reading some scenes for the audience, the panel also had a serious purpose, to talk about how female sexuality is so often seen through the eyes of a male-dominated pop culture.

Romance novels, she said, are primarily written for woman and by women, so they’re an excellent example of how women view their own sexuality.

“The only reason to put sex on the page instead of closing the door is if it reveals character,” Lawson said. “Otherwise, there’s no point.”

Lawson, the mother of four, has lived in the Poet’s Corner section of Granby since 2011. Before founding GeekMom.com, she was a newspaper reporter and has a journalism degree from Boston University. You can find more about her at www.corrina-lawson.com or www.GeekMom.com.