Avoiding a Monstrous Email Fail
Noooooooooo! I shouldn’t have sent that email! It was like telling spooky ghost stories around a virtual campfire. In SciLance, we recently swapped tales of email terror, sans the s’mores. One...
View ArticleWriting residencies: A room of one’s own
An artist’s pastels at the Vermont Studio Center A few weeks ago, Michelle Nijhuis (bio) suggested a number of tongue-in-cheek writing retreats in response to the frenzy around the Amtrak writing...
View ArticleKeeping irons in the fire
Today, I’m singing the praises of keeping lots of irons in the fire. Here’s why. One of the tricky things about freelancing – especially when you’re starting out – is managing current projects while...
View ArticleMy New Office Commute to Nowhere
I pause on my “commute” to view the Flatirons. How do you commute when there’s nowhere to go? How do you create some physical and psychic separation between home and work – and keep home a sanctuary —...
View ArticleWhy is storytelling important in science writing?
Last month, I participated in a “Writing Science for the Masses” roundtable discussion with the Center for American Literary Studies at Penn State. My co-panelists, Amy Teitel and A’ndrea Messer, and I...
View ArticleFurther and other dated cultural references
“At times the campaign can look, sound, and smell more like Ken Kesey’s bus than a congressional race.” The sentence, written by Karl Taro Greenfeld in a recent issue of Bloomberg Businessweek, jumped...
View ArticlePhDs in the science writing ecosystem
My PhD graduation from Indiana University. Two weeks later I started an internship at Discover. If you know you want to write for a living, few people would advise the arduous journey of PhD work in...
View ArticleNew routines
It’s 7:00 am on a crisp fall morning in upstate New York and I am walking the dog. I am also dressed — in real clothes. In a half hour, I’ll pack my messenger bag and nag my son out the door for our...
View ArticleStart Writing ASAP
You pitch a story, get an assignment, sign a contract, and start reporting. When do you start writing? When I was first starting out, I would find sources, read papers, interview sources, read more...
View ArticleShould freelancers write native advertising?
A couple of years ago, I posted my portfolio on Contently, an online site said to connect journalists with media outlets that had stories but lacked writers. Its focus soon expanded to include...
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