Category: Miscellaneous

Starting a new job as a Science Writer!

I will be starting a new job as a Science Writer for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) from August 1! Very excited to actually get a full-time job as a science writer, and the work sounds like it’ll be fun. It’s been a busy few months–I drove cross-country from Santa Cruz […]

Off The Grid

Over spring break, a few weeks back, I went to Mexico with a bunch of friends. More importantly, I spent several days without checking email or browsing the web. And I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised to find that I really didn’t miss my lack of connectivity. At least for the few days […]

Dead Prose 2: How Zinsser Improves a Videogame review

The internet isn’t exactly known for providing a consistently high quality of writing. And I don’t think most people have particularly high literary expectations of video game reviews. So I was surprised to see a badly-written video game review elicit strong responses from readers, and prompt a discussion on the craft of writing that references […]

Love and Pain, and the start of a whole new quarter

Now that it’s 2011, and I’m back from a nice trip home to India, it’s time to begin the new quarter and the challenges of longer-form writing. Feature writing, profiles and essays all sound somewhat intimidating, but I’m heartened by the fact that so many of my program’s alumni seem to have made a living […]

Learning about fear with rats and Legos

As I wrote in my last post, fear can be a real problem for writers. So much so that there’s actually a book on how writers can overcome it, called The Courage to Write by Ralph Keyes. But fear isn’t all bad. It’s a crucial evolutionary response that keeps us away from danger, and scientists […]

Enjoyment, Fear and Confidence – Zinsser’s take

photo © 2008 hojusaram | more info (via: Wylio) I was reading the closing chapters of Zinsser’s “On Writing Well”. Zinsser has an uncanny knack of pointing out things that I hadn’t thought of before, but that seem obvious once he says them. His chapter on “Enjoyment, Fear and Confidence” is full of good advice. […]

Happy Thanksgiving! and my 100th post!

The Neverending Beauty of the War Between Sun and Earth. Aurora Borealis timelapse HD – Tromsø 2010 from Tor Even Mathisen on Vimeo. Happy Thanksgiving! Here’s a gorgeous HD video of the Northern Lights in Norway to enjoy. Definitely watch it in full-screen mode. [Via Gizmodo] And just to keep the turkey day theme going, […]

A new website to share scientific images

As part of our social media class at UC Santa Cruz, a couple of classmates and I came up with the idea to create a site where scientists could easily share striking scientific images. (All of us used to work in lab and take pretty scientific photos that we didn’t know where to share.) The […]

NASW and writing about Statistics

I got back from NASW last week, I had a lot of fun but was really busy. I found the sessions really useful, and I met a whole bunch of science writers and editors. The ScienceWriters2010 blog was actually really helpful in learning what went on in the sessions I missed. And it was a […]