Molly Miriam Esther Holzschlag (January 25, 1963 – September 5, 2023) was an American author, lecturer and advocate of the

Open Web Web standards are the formal, non-proprietary standards and other technical specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web. In recent years, the term has been more frequently associated with the trend of endorsing a set of st ...

. She wrote or co-authored 35 books on

web design Web design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design; user interface design (UI design); authoring, including standardised code a ...

and

open standard An open standard is a standard that is openly accessible and usable by anyone. It is also a common prerequisite that open standards use an open license that provides for extensibility. Typically, anybody can participate in their development due to ...

s, including '' The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web'' (co-authored with Dave Shea). She was nicknamed the "Fairy Godmother of the Web".

Campaigning for web standards

Holzschlag conceived and led the first five years of Open Web Camp, a free event in

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

from 2009 to 2013. Her work focused on Open Web technologies, web design, and accessibility. She was the 2004–2006 group lead for the

Web Standards Project The Web Standards Project (WaSP) was a group of professional web developers dedicated to disseminating and encouraging the use of the web standards recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium, along with other groups and standards bodies, with ...

(WaSP), a coalition that campaigned browser makers such as

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

, Opera, and

Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California, and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was o ...

to support modern web standards. Her obituary in the ''

Tucson Sentinel The ''Tucson Sentinel'' is a nonprofit online newspaper in Tucson, founded in 2009 and began publishing full-time in January 2010, with a focus on Arizona and regional news. History The Sentinel was founded in 2009 after the shutdown in May 2009 ...

'' reported that "more than once, she challenged

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American businessman and philanthropist. A pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, he co-founded the software company Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend ...

face-to-face to fix problems with

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated as IE or MSIE) is a deprecation, retired series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft that were u ...

". She participated as a

World Wide Web Consortium The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working together in ...

(W3C) invited expert on the CSS Working Group, chaired the CSS Accessibility Community Group, and was an invited expert on the HTML and GEO working groups.

Teaching work

In 2011, Holzschlag worked for Knowbility, teaching classes on Open Web technologies such as

HTML5 HTML5 (Hypertext Markup Language 5) is a markup language used for structuring and presenting hypertext documents on the World Wide Web. It was the fifth and final major HTML version that is now a retired World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommend ...

and

ARIA In music, an aria (, ; : , ; ''arias'' in common usage; diminutive form: arietta, ; : ariette; in English simply air (music), air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrument (music), instrumental or orchestral accompan ...

, with a strong emphasis on using inclusive design to overcome accessibility barriers. She also taught webmaster courses for the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it ...

University of Georgia The University of Georgia (UGA or Georgia) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia, United States. Chartered in 1785, it is the oldest public university in th ...

University of Phoenix University of Phoenix (UoPX) is a Private university, private For-profit higher education in the United States, for-profit university headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. Founded in 1976, the university confers certificates and degrees at the Ac ...

New School University The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...

, and

Pima Community College Pima Community College (PCC) is a Public university, public community college in Pima County, Arizona. It serves the Tucson, Arizona, Tucson metropolitan area with a community college district consisting of five campuses, four education centers, ...

Writing

Holzschlag wrote or co-authored 35 books on web design and open standards, including '' The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web'' (co-authored with Dave Shea). She also reported on music for the ''

Tucson Weekly The ''Tucson Weekly'' is an alternative newsweekly that was founded in 1984 by Douglas Biggers and Mark Goehring, and serves the Tucson, Arizona, metropolitan area of about 1,000,000 residents. The paper is a member of the Association of Altern ...

'' in the 1990s.

Personal life

Holzschlag was born on January 25, 1963, in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

. She was diagnosed with

aplastic anemia Aplastic anemia (AA) is a severe hematologic condition in which the body fails to make blood cells in sufficient numbers. Normally, blood cells are produced in the bone marrow by stem cells that reside there, but patients with aplastic anemia ...

in 2014. She had spoken about the problems with health care funding and raised over $70,000 through

GoFundMe GoFundMe is an American for-profit crowdfunding platform that allows people to raise money for events ranging from life events such as celebrations and graduations to challenging circumstances like accidents and illnesses. From 2010 to the ...

in 2013 to fund her chemotherapy. Holzschlag was found dead at home in Tucson, Arizona, on September 5, 2023, at age 60.

Notable awards

* 2016, O'Reilly Web Platform Award * 2015, Net Award for Outstanding contribution * 1998, named one of the Webgrrls San Francisco chapter's Top 25 Women on the

Web Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by ...

Bibliography

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References

External links

Molly Holzschlag ArchivesMolly Holzschlag About from 2011
{{DEFAULTSORT:Holzschlag, Molly 1963 births 2023 deaths American technology writers Web developers American computer programmers American women computer scientists American computer scientists Women technology writers 21st-century American women writers People from Brooklyn People from Tucson, Arizona