Dear TON community:
We’re delighted to announce that The Kavli Foundation has awarded The Open Notebook a $48,000 grant to expand and deepen the craft resources we offer to the science writing community. With Kavli’s support, we’ll develop, over the next year, a series of several free email mini-courses that cover various aspects of the craft of science writing.
This new program is a natural extension of the work we’ve been doing for almost ten years. Over the past decade, The Open Notebook has published more than 450 articles on the craft of science writing that provide practical, principled, craft-focused guidance for science writers at all levels of experience. We’ve covered a wide range of topics, from how to read a scientific paper to how to find diverse sources for science stories—and much, much more. Our email mini-courses will expand and deepen the resources we offer to science writers, both in the U.S. and around the world.
Each mini-course will teach readers a skill or habit through a series of six to eight lessons, delivered once per day by email. The courses will both expand on material we’ve previously published at The Open Notebook and incorporate new, previously unpublished materials. By creating this new avenue for exploring the craft of science writing, we hope to both strengthen The Open Notebook’s relationship with our existing community and introduce new and potentially underserved readers to what we have to offer.
In developing our email mini-courses, we’re thrilled to collaborate with Emily Laber-Warren, who is director of the Health and Science Reporting program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. Emily is an experienced educator with deep experience in developing curricula. She has also edited numerous articles at TON and is closely familiar with our mission. Our first step in developing our courses will be to survey members of the community to assess what topics are most welcome and needed.
We’re deeply grateful to The Kavli Foundation for its generous support, and we look forward eagerly to partnering on this exciting project.
