Changing Course: How a Failed Chemist Became a Successful Writer (published in HMS Beagle, Jan 30, 1998)
At a recent meeting in Seattle, a friend of mine who is a geneticist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center offered this observation:
The job market in the biological sciences stinks.
This scenario is being played out everywhere, it seems.
Indeed. Those comments drew me back to my days in the organic chemistry department at Indiana University, when I was a Ph.D. candidate struggling vainly to overcome poor lab skills. I loved the classes and the informal 'chalkboard chemistry' pursued feverishly in organic chemistry labs everywhere, but three years of working as a bench chemist at the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly - followed by two years of graduate research - finally drove home the lesson that I neither enjoyed doing lab work, nor was I very good at it.
I considered my prospects for a successful scientific career, and I was not encouraged. Although the job market for organic chemists is better than for geneticists, I nonetheless foresaw a bleak future as a second-rate research chemist.
In the summer of 1995, with a research project that was going nowhere and a floundering scientific career, I determined that it was time to find an occupation better suited to my talents. After considering pharmaceutical sales and biotech investing (and another couple of years hustling after an MBA), I settled on science writing. My reasoning: I loved reading and talking about science, but I didn't like doing science. As a writer, I would get paid to learn about new science, and then explain it to others.
That reasoning was sound. I love what I do, and today I make a decent living as a freelance writer and consultant.
My career path has been unusual in that I have no formal training in writing or journalism, although I am by no means the only science writer who has made that direct transition. What follows is my story followed by a discussion of other resources and educational opportunities geared for those who would rather write about science than practice it.
My first step was to begin writing a science column for a local arts and entertainment magazine, called The Ryder. I wrote articles on the evolution of the AIDS virus, antibiotic resistance, prions (infectious proteins), and even a description of the bone scan I had undergone after I severely sprained an ankle playing basketball.
Those columns were an excellent training ground - I wrote about topics of my own choice (usually gleaned from research articles in Science, Nature, or the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science), and was given a gentle introduction into the world of editing. Watching someone read your sculpted prose (besides your mother or your significant other), who then has the nerve to suggest changing it in some manner, is an ego-blow that many new writers have trouble adjusting to. Although the indignation never vanishes completely, you do get used to it in time. But the best response to an edit is to ask, why? A good editor will have a good explanation for the change, and armed with new insight, your writing will improve. Of course, not all editorial suggestions are good ones, leaving the writer to discern the valuable lessons from the red herrings.
My next step was to sit in on a science writing course being offered by the journalism department. Although my schedule limited my visits to only five or six, I took the time to introduce myself to the instructor, a visiting professor from New York University's science journalism department by the name of Lynn Payer, whose writing credits included Science, the New York Times, and a wide range of health magazines. She liked my work, and offered guidance and pointed questions as I struggled with my decision to leave graduate school for a writing career. Later that semester, she forwarded to me a job announcement for an internship at the Cancer Research Institute in New York City.
Now, being an Iowa farm-boy (okay, not quite - I grew up in corn- and soybean-nestled Iowa suburbia), the prospect of six months in Manhattan was a bit daunting. But I applied using the clips I'd collected in The Ryder, and not long after that I got a call asking, how soon could I be in New York?
The next six months are a hazy blur of Times Square, Central Park, Rockefeller Center, Wall Street, Chinatown, and, oh yeah, writing press releases and promoting scientific meetings for the Cancer Research Institute. It was also my first really heavy dose of editing. I suffered through a steep learning curve, but when I left the internship my writing was much more polished.
I came to my second real crossroads at the end of the internship, when the New York Academy of Sciences offered me a position in their public affairs department. Meanwhile, in El Paso, Texas, my girlfriend offered to pay my bills for a couple of months if I wanted to make a go at freelancing. I weighed $30,000 a year in New York City against an uncertain income in El Paso, and decided to take the plunge.
I figured that my best shot was to write for the trade magazines, which cover hard-core science news, rather than join the multitudes clamoring at Discover and the New York Times to publish their work. There isn't as much glory in the trades, but there is far more available work. So I went to the library and looked up a copy of the Bacon's Magazine Directory, which lists magazines by the subjects they cover (your librarian can point you to other, similar sources). When I learned of a meeting being held a few hundred miles to the north - in Taos, NM, about gene therapy in hematopoietic stem cells - I wrote a cover letter (with a few clips and a resume) to the managing editor of each of the 30 or so trades that were listed, suggesting that I cover the meeting for their news section. I received just two replies, but one was from Nature Biotechnology, which immediately assigned me to cover the meeting. The other reply came from R&D magazine, which, as it turned out, couldn't have cared less about gene therapy in hematopoietic stem cells - but they liked my credentials and assigned me several articles.
As soon as I published in those magazines, I sent another round of letters to the same magazines as before - with these
For those less interested in the trials and tribulations of freelance writing, there are plenty of opportunities to land staff positions, especially at trade magazines, newsletters, and other specialty publications. Scientific publishers are also looking for acquisition editors (i.e., someone to peruse submitted manuscripts) and copy editors. These sorts of positions are an excellent way to hone your writing and editing skills while developing contacts within the industry.
Probably the least bumpy route to landing a staff position is to go to journalism school. Whether or not you believe your writing and reporting skills need refinement (and for most, they do), a year or two of J-school will garner you numerous contacts within the publishing world, and you'll have an inside track to top internships at places like Science, Scientific American, and Science News. I didn't go to J-school, but I sometimes wish that I had. There is something of an old-boy's network that radiates from the top science writing programs, and in science writing, as in most any discipline, who you know can be almost as important as what you know.
Probably the top science writing program is run out of the University of California at Santa Cruz. Program director John Wilkes requires that applicants have an advanced degree in science as well as research experience. The program's other steep entrance requirements make it exclusive, but it graduates many first-tier science writers who have gone on to star at Science, the New York Times, and Discover, among other media outlets.
The New York University science writing program is also highly regarded, though its standards for admission are not as stringent. Boston University offers another first-tier science journalism program.
Of course, if you already know your science (and I'm assuming you do), you might also consider J-schools that do not specialize in science journalism. In such a program you'll likely receive a more rounded education in writing and reporting - but keep in mind, science reporting has its own challenges and idiosyncrasies, and a school that specializes in science writing will give you a better education in avoiding pitfalls and discovering the scientific resources that can make or break a story.
I certainly wouldn't recommend my profession to everyone, but for you free-thinkers out there who love science in general and feed on the challenge of communicating it, science writing can be a rewarding way to make a living.