Nana Visitor, Star Trek’s Kira Nerys, explores how the series has portrayed and influenced women. Interviews with the stars, writers, producers, and celebrity fans reveal the struggles and triumphs of women both behind and in front of the camera throughout the sixty-year history of Star Trek, and how they have mirrored the experiences of women everywhere.

The groundbreaking casting of Nichelle Nichols as Lt. Uhura in 1966 took women and people of color into a newly-imagined future. But it was the 1960s and she had to do it in a miniskirt.

Since then, each Star Trek show has both re?ected the values of its time and imagined a more future in which all genders were equal. In her first book, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine star Nana Visitor sets out to discover both how Star Trek led the way for women, and how it was trapped in its own era.

For Visitor, this is more than a book about Star Trek. It’s about how society and the stories we tell have evolved in the last 60 years, and how the role of women has changed in that time.

STAR AUTHOR: Written by Star Trek actor Nana Visitor, famous for playing Major Kira Nerys. This is both her story and her journey through the stories of other women involved with Star Trek from the 1960s to the 21st century.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS: Features interviews with almost every woman who has starred in Star Trek, including Kate Mulgrew, Terry Farrell, Denise Crosby, Mary Wiseman, and Rebecca Romijn.

INSPIRING STORIES: Explore how Star Trek has influenced women in the real world, including soldiers, scientists, and even astronauts. In one remarkable episode, author Nana Visitor interviewed astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti while she was in orbit around Earth on the International Space Station.

PIONEERING SERIES: Star Trek has often taken a leading role in promoting women on both sides of the camera. It had women writers when they were rare, and it introduced female captain Kathryn Janeway in Star Trek: Voyager in 1995.

Nana Visitor started her career in the theater as a dancer on Broadway. She starred in Chicago, toured opposite Angela Lansbury in the musical Gypsy, and was Twiggy’s understudy in the musical My One and Only. Besides playing Major Kira in Star Trek: Deep Space 9, Nana has appeared in dozens of guest shots through the years, including Torchwood and Battlestar Galactica. She has many Family Guy episodes to her credit, and an asteroid out there somewhere named in her honor. Nana is very proud of her community on Instagram (@visitornana), where she is Mama Nana and passes on what she’s learned about being human through her personal experience and  through the lens of neuroscience. She is giving a TEDX talk at Space Force on the subject.