Keeper L. Sharkey is a co-author on Quantum Chemistry and Computing for the Curious with Alain Chance. We got the chance to find out about her author journey and experience of writing with Packt. Find below:
Q: What are your specialist tech area(s)?
Keeper: Quantum Chemistry and Computing
Q: How did you become an author for Packt? Tell us about your journey. What was your motivation for writing this book?
Keeper: I became familiar with Packt when Dancing with Qubits was first being promoted and I meet Robert Sutor at Quantum.Tech Boston 2019, and then Ravit Jain asked me to do an amazon review of that book. After that Tushar Gupta contacted me about an idea for chemistry and I said “I had already been thinking about it for while” since I had published over 30 articles on the topic. Writing the book is the “cherry on top”.
Q: What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching before beginning the book?
Keeper: Since I am a professional quantum chemist, I already have sufficient knowledge and information about the needs of the industry to write the book.
Q: Did you face any challenges during the writing process? How did you overcome them?
Keeper: Juggling family life while also being an entrepreneur was a challenge, and I had to offload work to the co-author who was 8 hours ahead of me.
Q. What’s your take on the technologies discussed in the book? Where do you see these technologies heading in the future?
Keeper: Read the book! It is a spoiler to answer this question. See Chapter 6; Beyond Born-Oppenheimer.
Q: Why should readers choose this book over others already on the market? How would you differentiate your book from its competition?
Keeper: Most books on quantum chemistry do not provide code for solving problems, and this is in fact what set our book apart from others. You can run your own experiments.
Q. What are the key takeaways you want readers to come away from the book with?
Keeper: That they can make a difference in the industry by learning a new way to think about quantum chemistry and computing.
Q. What advice would you give to readers learning tech? Do you have any top tips?
Keeper: Pave your own way by being creative.
Q. Do you have a blog that readers can follow?
Keeper: Twitter
Q. Do you belong to any tech community groups?
Keeper: Phys.org
Q. How would you describe your author journey with Packt? Would you recommend Packt to aspiring authors?
Keeper: Eventful
Q. What are your favorite tech journals? How do you keep yourself up to date on tech?
Keeper: Journal of Chemical Physics and others.
Q. Do you belong to any tech community groups?
Keeper: Yes.
Q. How did you organize, plan, and prioritize your work and write the book?
Keeper: We stay ahead of the curve and had daily conference calls with the co-author
Q. What is the one writing tip that you found most crucial and would like to share with aspiring authors?
Keeper: Be yourself and discuss your experience.
You can find Keeper and Alain’s book on Amazon by following this link: Please click here.
