As a teacher and mentor,
I want to help writers and scientists find new ways to communicate science with diverse audiences. Science is for everyone! Words are incredibly powerful—writers can integrate scientific perspectives, ideas, and characters into creative work, deepening readers’ understanding and appreciation of science. And scientists can use creative techniques to improve citation rates, uptake and memory of information and impact in society. These are the toolkits I want to share with people in my workshops.
I have designed and run workshops that weave science and writing craft techniques, including:
Writing Bodies (Half- to Full-day): Our bodies carry us through our lives, but what do we carry in our bodies, or on them? Bodies are an essential part of fictional or nonfictional worlds, and writers can use biological knowledge of the body to create deeper characters and more immersive scenes.
Writing Change (Half- to Full-day): In this workshop, we will discuss and write the important stories in our lives—our lived experiences, family histories, folk tales and other stories that have shaped who we are—and then relate these stories to the environment and environmental issues we care about. Using prompts, we will generate the bones of an essay that weaves the personal with the environmental, showing participants how personal stories can help readers better connect with scientific ideas and environmental principles to incite change.
Storytelling for Climate Fiction (Half- to Full-day): In this class, we'll discuss the social issues around climate change and—importantly—how writers can make a difference. One of the great challenges of climate change is that it requires us to imagine the world on scales far beyond the human lifetime. We’ll use science as inspiration to drive our writing in exciting new directions. Specifically, we will play with techniques that connect our real, tangible, sensory lives with more-abstract concepts like geological time, memory, and probability. Don’t worry—no science background is needed, just curiosity and a readiness to write.
Writing Science with Impact (Full- or multi-day): In this workshop, participants learn to apply the ‘story formula’ to academic abstracts, introductions to papers, CVs and resumes, and the first pages of grants so that their research is more accessible to more readers—including those choosing grants to fund!
I’m available to work with your group! Learn more about me, my workshops, and create bookings here at Speakers Ink!
