In our “Natural Habitat” series, we invite science writers to share their working spaces — offices, spare bedrooms, coffee shops, hammocks — and the accoutrements that help them do their best work. (If you’d like to nominate your office to be featured at Natural Habitat, let us know.) Today we drop in on the Brighton, U.K. [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Carpenter’
George Johnson chases lightning
Posted by Siri Carpenter on February 26th, 2013
Some people fret over the chances that lightning might strike the same place twice. After three summers trailing lightning-chaser Tim Samaras on a unique photographic quest, science writer George Johnson would perhaps have been content with it happening just once. On assignment for National Geographic, Johnson patiently waited and watched as Samaras tried to capture a [...]
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews 
Tags: Carpenter, Drafts, Field Reporting, Johnson, National Geographic, Notes, Writer Interview 
2 Comments »Brian Vastag profiles a dinosaur tracker
Posted by Siri Carpenter on December 13th, 2012
When Washington Post science writer Brian Vastag found Ray Stanford, an amateur dinosaur footprint tracker in the D.C. suburbs who had found an unusual baby dinosaur footprint, he thought he had stumbled upon a “nice little day story.” Soon, though, he realized that Stanford’s newest find was only the most recent chapter in a far [...]
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews Tags: Carpenter, Drafts, Edits, Narrative, Reporting, Structure, Vastag, Writer Interview 4 Comments »Jennifer Kahn asks: Can a child psychopath be saved?
Posted by Siri Carpenter on August 2nd, 2012
Of all mental disorders, none elicits more revulsion or less sympathy than psychopathy, a disorder characterized by extreme impulsivity, narcissism, callousness and lack of empathy. Psychopathy is widely considered incurable, but some researchers have theorized that it might be possible to treat “fledgling psychopaths” if they can be identified early enough. When journalist Jennifer Kahn [...]
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews Tags: Carpenter, Kahn, Narrative, Psychology, Structure, Writer Interview 2 Comments »Greg Miller examines mental health care in Indonesia
Posted by Siri Carpenter on June 13th, 2012
For many people in the developing world who are mentally ill, psychiatric care is little more than a prison sentence. In one corner of Indonesia, that’s beginning to change, thanks in part to the 2004 earthquake and tsunami that devastated the region, providing a final impetus to develop a mental health system that had long [...]
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews Tags: Carpenter, Field Reporting, Miller, Notes, Psychiatry, Science, Tools, Writer Interview 1 Comment »Helen Pearson profiles an activist turned scientist
Posted by Siri Carpenter on May 16th, 2012
A good profile of a scientist goes beyond the science itself — and that’s why Helen Pearson’s ears perked up when she learned the personal story of Joe Thornton, a University of Oregon evolutionary biologist whose first career was as a Greenpeace activist, fighting the release of toxic industrial chemicals. Pearson wanted to know what [...]
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews Tags: Carpenter, Drafts, Nature, Notes, Pearson, Pitches, Profile, Writer Interview No Comments »Daniel Engber dissects the ubiquitous laboratory mouse
Posted by Siri Carpenter on January 11th, 2012
When Slate senior editor Daniel Engber took a month off from his usual duties to research a multi-part series on laboratory mice, he had a thesis — that although the ubiquity of mice as model organisms has clear advantages, it is in some ways damaging to biomedicine. What he needed was stories and characters to [...]
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews Tags: Biomedicine, Carpenter, Drafts, Engber, Historical Research, Longform, Notes, Slate, Tools, Writer Interview 3 Comments »Lauren Gravitz relates Nobel laureate Steinman’s poignant story
Posted by Siri Carpenter on November 15th, 2011
For years, journalist Lauren Gravitz had planned to write an in-depth feature on Rockefeller University physician-scientist Ralph Steinman, highlighting the dendritic cells that had been his life’s work and his efforts to use those cells to treat his own cancer. Formerly a science writer at Rockefeller, Gravitz had spoken often with Steinman and knew his [...]
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews Tags: Carpenter, Drafts, Edits, Gravitz, Narrative, Nature, News, Pitches, Profile, Writer Interview 1 Comment »John McPhee on characters, structure, titles, and facing the ‘low dread’ of writing
Posted by Jeanne Erdmann and Siri Carpenter on November 8th, 2011
Is there a science writer alive who has not been schooled by John McPhee? Both of us began our writing careers with a collection of McPhee’s books and articles on our shelves, and over the years, we’ve both returned to his works many times, for pleasure and for sustenance. Writing at the excellent blog Last Word [...]
Posted in Other Resources Tags: Carpenter, Environment, Erdmann, Longform, McPhee, Structure, Writer Interview 5 Comments »Michelle Nijhuis searches for hopeful signs amid a bat plague
Posted by Siri Carpenter on September 6th, 2011
You never know when a story idea will land on your doorstep—or in your mailbox. When award-winning journalist Michelle Nijhuis learned about caver and microbiologist Hazel Barton from a friend, she had no idea Barton would be her ticket into a science story she had been itching to tell, about a fungus that is ravaging [...]
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews Tags: Carpenter, Drafts, Edits, Environment, Field Reporting, Microbiology, Narrative, Nijhuis, Pitches, Smithsonian, Writer Interview 3 Comments »Susan Dominus delves into the lives and minds of a remarkable pair of conjoined twins
Posted by Siri Carpenter on August 22nd, 2011
New York Times Magazine staff writer Susan Dominus spent five days with the family of Tatiana and Krista Hogan, 4-year-old twins who are joined at the head. Observing Tatiana and Krista as they played, fought, ate, and slept, Dominus emerged with a gripping portrait of the girls’ everyday lives, revealing both their astonishing connection and [...]
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews Tags: Carpenter, Dominus, Neuroscience, NYT Mag, Profile, Writer Interview 3 Comments »David Dobbs deconstructs “My Mother’s Lover”
Posted by Siri Carpenter (text) and Jeanne Erdmann (Soundslides) on July 8th, 2011
When journalist David Dobbs’ mother was dying, she shocked her children by asking that her ashes be spread in the waters off the coast of Hawaii, so that she could be with her former lover, “Angus,” who had been shot down over the Pacific in the last days of World War II. This unexpected request, [...]
Podcast: Play in new window
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews Tags: Atavist, Carpenter, Dobbs, Drafts, Erdmann, Longform, Narrative, Notes, Soundslides, Structure, Tools, Writer Interview 4 Comments »