From Science Center Creator to Novelist – Sheila Grinell : 2BB 072

Our guest on this episode is not only interesting but smart as well. Her name is Sheila Grinell and she has had a successful 40-year career as the creator of science museums. Before entering her second act of life, following her mother’s heart attack and stroke that led to losing memories, words and a sense of herself, Sheila felt compelled to write her mother’s story down. She then realized she wanted to write more. Not analytic material like she did at the museum, but something looser and broader. And so, she wrote a novel called “Appetite”

Coming to you this time from the Boomer Broads Self-Realization Center

About the Book

The book is about the conflict between Boomer parents and Millennial kids and how you should lead your life. It’s told from the point of view of the parents. The mother is a suburban housewife, and the father a cancer biologist who runs a lab in Manhattan. Their marriage has become tired over the years. They suddenly find out their 25-year-old daughter wants to run off and marry a man from India who is a guru. Naturally, the parents freak out. We won’t tell you the rest. You’ll have to read the book.

Sheila would love to know what you think of “Appetite” and speaks at book clubs via Skype or Facetime. She lives in Phoenix and if you are located there, or in Tucson, she would be happy to show up in person.

She asked some of her friends a question. When you were young and growing up, did you identify as the Roadrunner or the Coyote?  Most say the Roadrunner, but as we get older, we start identifying as the coyote, because we’ve fallen off many cliffs in life. What about you? Who do you identify with? Please leave a comment below. Sheila believes you need both the Roadrunner and the Coyote to have a good story.

The book is called “Appetite” but isn’t focused on food. It was given that name because people have such a wide range of appetites. The cover is an empty plate with a window that looks out under stormy distance.

She compares the Boomers with the Millennials and finds that in some way we are the same and in others very different.

Sheila Grinell – Math and Science Major

Sheila went to the Bronx High School of Science in New York City and she was picked to be in an experimental math program for three years. Her teachers and the program was outstanding and she absolutely loved it.

She went to college with all sorts of math and science. However, because she loved math, she thought she’d have to take physics.  Electricity and magnetism stumped her and she became overwhelmed. Because of it, she changed her major to English composition.

She realized that what she liked about math and what she liked about poetry was the same thing. Each case is like a little language. A poem or math is in a box and there are operations you can do with each. When you get really good at it, you can jump out of the box. She found it was all about learning how to learn so it didn’t matter what she majored in.

After college, she went out in the world with her education in math, science, and humanities but felt she didn’t know how the world works. She decided to enroll in graduate school and major in sociology. Because she had grown up and went to college on the east coast, she went to California for graduate school where it was “all happening.”  It was right after the summer of love. She loved it because it was so interesting.  She soon realized that she was not an academic by temperament. Despite that, she finished graduate school and then moved to San Francisco.

Science Museum Creator

Sheila Grinell ran into Frank Oppenheimer, the brother of J.