Author, journalist and producer Denise Kiernan speaks at San Joaquin Valley Town Hall on her New York Times best seller novel, The Girls of Atomic City, Jan. 17.
With pieces published in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Village Voice, Ms. Magazine, Reader’s Digest and Discover, Kiernan is known for her historical work.
She was also involved in television as well, working with ABC and ESPN. ABC’s, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, had an award-winning first season with her as head writer of the show.
One of Kiernan’s most famous titles include, The Girls of Atomic City. Within a week of being published, her novel became a New York Times best seller. She lectures on circumstances the men and women faced as they created the world’s first nuclear bomb during WWII.
Kiernan was first inspired to create this literary piece after viewing a photograph taken by Ed Westcott, official photographer of Oak Ridge Tennessee. In an interview with Atomic Heritage Foundation, on Dec. 6, 2013, Kiernan shares the source of her inspiration for The Girls of Atomic City,
“My interest in Oak Ridge stemmed from this wonderful photograph taken by Ed Westcott who was the official photographer of Oak Ridge Tennessee during WWII” Kiernan said. “It was this image of these young women sitting in front of these gigantic panels covered in all these knobs and dials. At first I was just captivated by the image itself but then I looked at the accompanying text, and it said something along the lines of, ‘These young women, many of them recent high school graduates from rural Tennessee, are helping to enrich uranium for the first atomic bomb, only they didn’t know that at the time’. It just got me completely hooked.”
She then began her research, and strived to tell the unknown story of these young men and women.
Feather journalists, juniors Kamryn Schultz and Samuel Cross interview Keirnan.
The Feather will be publishing an article with further information within the next week. Be sure to stay tuned!
Slideshow below includes images from Kiernan’s lecture on The Girls of Atomic City at SJV Town Hall.
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For more Feather photos, visit media, photos 2017-18.
