Event coverage

Coverage begins in 2006 for the ScienceWriters meeting and 2009 for the AAAS meeting. To see programs for past ScienceWriters meetings, go to the ScienceWriters meeting site.

“How Science Writing Saved My Life,” was one of the highlights of the ScienceWriters 2011 opening session, which followed the high-energy format of an Ignite event. In rapid succession, ten presenters had exactly five minutes each to speak on a topic of their choice. Each presenter used twenty slides, which were set to auto-advance every 15 seconds.

Saturday I attended a couple of workshops about "New Media" ("Experiments in new media: Beautiful failures and startling successes" before lunch and "Rebooting science journalism: Adapting to the new media landscape" afterwards.) Together they convinced me that neither revolution nor evolution are the right metaphors for the impact of digital media.

What does a tweeter like me add to a meeting like ScienceWriters2010? As promised, you can compare the twitter vs. blog coverage.

Three new online ventures in publishing have two things in common: top editors with old-school, self-described dead-tree credentials, and decent traffic — 150,000 or more unique views per month — for even long-form narratives. And all are managing to avoid or not rely on advertising to pay the bills.

Voice, story, character, structure, and authority. The elements of a great novel wouldn’t look much different (with the possible exception of authority). And the message of this afternoon's session "Great science writing part II: Building the big book" was clear: science writing, at its very best, is great literature.

Nov. 6, 2010

Near the end of "Great science writing II: Building the big book" session, Robert Lee Hotz presented the panelists with a thought experiment. It was an update / modern cousin of the classic scenario: If your house is burning and you can grab one book from your bookshelf, what would it be?

Nov. 6, 2010

In little over 60 minutes, Christie Nicholson and Eric Olson delivered a crash course on video reporting for beginners. They passed around a sample starter kit (a $112 Kodak Zi6 pocket video camera, a tripod, and an ear mic) and got down to business by offering tips via video example.

Nov. 6, 2010