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 [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Drafts’
George Johnson chases lightning
Posted by Siri Carpenter on February 26th, 2013
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 »Ask TON: Is this draft too long?
Posted by Jeanne Erdmann and Siri Carpenter on September 13th, 2012
Welcome back for another installment of Ask TON. (Click on “Ask TON” above to see previous installments.) Today’s question: How strictly do editors expect writers to stick to the “10% rule”? How far over the assigned word count is acceptable? Do editors appreciate seeing some of that extraneous material and consider it part of their [...]
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 »Deborah Blum traces a poisonous history
Posted by Jyoti Madhusoodanan on November 30th, 2011
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Deborah Blum’s five books have immersed her in the worlds of animal rights, the psychology of affection, the neurology of sex, the search for paranormal phenomena, and the chemistry of poisons. Her best-selling book The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, published in 2010, traces [...]
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews Tags: Blum, Books, Drafts, Edits, Guest Contributor, Madhusoodanan, Narrative, Notes, Poisoner's Handbook, Structure, Writer Interview 1 Comment »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 »Erik Vance scrutinizes a battle over dolphin rights
Posted by Jeanne Erdmann on November 10th, 2011
Reporting from the trenches in the war over dolphin rights, freelance science writer Erik Vance relates the story of Lori Marino and Diana Reiss, dolphin researchers who have spent most of their careers as close colleagues and friends, but whose agendas diverged after Marino moved away from research on captive dolphins and immersed herself in a [...]
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews Tags: Discover, Drafts, Environment, Erdmann, Narrative, Vance, Writer Interview 2 Comments »Adam Rogers shadows a fungus detective
Posted by Ed Yong on October 19th, 2011
For the residents of Lakeshore, Ontario, the black fungus caking their homes was a problem, and they blamed the local distillery. For James Scott, the Sherlock Holmes of fungi, the identity of the unsightly mold was a mystery waiting to be solved. And for Adam Rogers, senior editor at Wired, Scott’s quest was a story that [...]
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews Tags: Biology, Drafts, Guest Contributor, Kavli Awards, Pitches, Rogers, Wired, Writer Interview, Yong 7 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 »Meredith Wadman probes the aftermath of a shooting
Posted by Jeanne Erdmann on August 15th, 2011
On Friday, February 12, 2010, biologist Amy Bishop stood up in a conference room at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and shot six of her colleagues; three died. Nature correspondent Meredith Wadman visited the campus to recount the horror of those moments and efforts to rebuild a shattered department. [Life After Death appeared in [...]
Posted in Behind-the-Story Interviews Tags: Drafts, Erdmann, Field Reporting, Narrative, Nature, Wadman, Writer Interview No 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 »