Jamila Rowser
Jamila Rowser is an American writer and publisher. She created the blog Girl Gone Geek (2010–2016), which was devoted to "nerd culture" topics like cosplay, video games, and anime. Rowser founded Black Josei Press as a publishing platform for Black and Brown women comic writers, and published her first comic book, "Wash Day", under the press in 2018. Early life and education. Rowser's mother was in the Air Force, which required their family move around frequently. Rowser was born in England, and lived for short periods in several locales including the Netherlands, Germany, Hawaii, California, and New  York. Her father was a teacher. She is Afro-Latina, and of Black, Dominican, and Puerto Rican descent. She received her bachelor's degree in communication from New York Institute of Technology, after which she moved to Boca Raton to be near her mother in 2016. Career. Rowser created the blog Girl Gone Geek in 2010 to discuss her passions like video games, "Star Wars", and "Doctor Who", because she had few real life friends who were interested in them. She developed an international meetup group called Geek Girl Brunch with her friends Rachel and Yissel to create a space  for women and non-binary people to connect about nerd culture. She also developed Straight Outta Gotham, a Tumblr that examines the intersection of hip hop and geek culture. She runs the site with Jemar Souza. Rowser created the publishing platform Black Josei Press to publish comics and merchandise by Black and Brown women creatives. She was inspired by "josei" manga to create the platform because she admires the scope of comics represented within this subtype of manga. In 2018 Rowser published her debut comic book, "Wash Day", under Black Josei Press, the first from the company. The book was  illustrated by Robyn Smith and follows a 26-year-old Kimana's Sunday morning hair washing routine. To fundraise for the book, Rowser created a Kickstarter campaign with a $5,000 goal that eventually exceeded $16,000 in donations by closing. That year she also published "Wobbledy 3000", illustrated by Sabii Borno, a sci-fi comic about an extraterrestrial named Latoya who finds twerking difficult. In 2020, Rowser co-edited "Sun and Sand", an anthology of ten comics by South Florida-based artists with Neil Brideau, who approached her to help develop the project to be released on Free Comic  Book Day (May 2). She wrote a comic included in the collection, "As Above, So Below". Rowser was hired as a comics outreach consultant at Kickstarter in August 2021. She resigned from the position a few months later in December, citing the company's new blockchain protocol. Personal life. Rowser resides in Miami.