Category: Science writing

Thoughts Before Scio14

My Personal Life, Science writing, Sciobeantown, ,

“I’m fine” is one of the easiest lies to tell someone. In the past year it’s a lie that I’ve told often. Mostly because it is the path of least resistance to smile, respond politely that everything is status quo, and then change the subject or simply move on. It limits the possibility of being asked questions I don’t have the answers to, or making someone who really did not want to hear my latest tale of woe really uncomfortable.  Yet, 2013 seems to have presented several stretches of time when things were anything but “fine.”

With Scio14 on the horizon, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about who I was and how I felt attending Scio last year, and where things stand now. Last year I was so excited, and incredibly optimistic about what 2013 might have in store. The conference captured all of that and added fuel to my fire; it made me feel like I could do ambitious things. I met people who were inspiring, and I felt like I belonged (which doesn’t come easily.) It was basically the high-point of last year.

I’m currently at a point in life where I feel like I need to decide what is work and what is for fun, and while I’ve reached some conclusions about how I want to spend my time, I hope attending Scio14 gives me some clarity on others. I’m a science writer professionally, but in 2012 and 2013 I also spent a tremendous amount of my free time (and savings) attending scicomm conferences, networking, writing blog posts, reading and talking to people on Twitter. I attend ScienceOnline (and many other things) completely out of pocket, on vacation days. Yes, in 2013, you folks were my vacation.

I hate getting asked what my hobbies are, because until last fall, scicomm WAS my hobby. I invested a lot of myself in these activities outside of my working hours because I enjoyed them and I thought they were valuable. It was all scicomm all the time with a little bit of friends and family thrown in. I wrote in September that I had lost heart in my online scicomm activity, and while at the time I had some renewed enthusiasm, that spark has nearly been extinguished. It isn’t just that my online scicomm feels different – it’s that I’m different. I’ve always thought that you shouldn’t write blog posts just to write blog posts, because you have to want to be a part of this – and there is a big part of me that simply doesn’t want to do this anymore.

When I think about the things that have had the most influence on how I think, and how I approach the world, 9/11 sits at the top of the list. Last year gave it some company. While I didn’t see it at the time, April is really where 2013 went off the rails for me. I didn’t think the Boston Marathon bombing affected me all that much; after all it was no 9/11. My Dad was a first responder to 9/11, he survived, but it hit us at home – it was personal. I was only 13, but I remember remarking to a classmate that day that nothing was ever going to be the same again, and it certainly wasn’t.

What happened at the Marathon shouldn’t be compared to other events, and drawing such comparisons can be problematic anyway. Still, I have come to believe that the severity of an event like this shouldn’t just be measured in lives lost or in people injured, but in fear. Fear is a deeply personal experience that affects everyone differently, yet I feel comfortable saying that an event like the Marathon bombing spreads fear like a plague. I also think that terror is its own brand of fear – a fear that for me is hauntingly familiar. Though it was different at 25 compared to 13, I still know that fear.

After the bombing I saw a lot of friends struggle with their emotions, the shattered sense of safety, the “how could this happen,” the “who would do something like that.” I didn’t have those same struggles. What kept me up at night were not the nightmares, it was the knowledge that you can try to move on, even think that you have, and still the fear – and those who spread it – will be back. It is simply a condition of being alive that we will consistently find ourselves grappling with fear – but admitting that we are scared of something can be so difficult.

When I think about what scares me the most, I come up with being powerless. I hate the idea that when people I love are in danger, there truly may be nothing that I can do to help. Looking at the world this way – with the fear that anyone you love  can meet harm in an instant, and you will be powerless – it is hard for me to understand how anyone ever finds ‘peace of mind.’ I don’t really understand how in a world where shelter-in-place is a common term, everyone isn’t loosing their shit every minute of everyday. But you have to meet the fear somehow, the only other choice is to let it paralyze and consume you. 

I find it hard to admit that 2013 changed me so much because of fear. I hate the idea that fear has any power – but I’ve found that it changes an awful lot. Things that seemed important before aren’t, things I wanted before I don’t , my goals have changed, and I’ve changed. So what does any of this have to do with scicomm or attending ScienceOnline? Mostly it is just to explain that I’m approaching Scio14 with a very different mindset than I did for Scio13. How I am involved in scicomm and what role I let it play in my life is something I’m re-evaluating.

This is something I was struggling with when the scicomm “community” imploded in October.  After everything that happened, (which if you read my site, you know about, so I’m not going to rehash, and if you don’t know…Google) I withdrew from online scicomm even more. It’s fear again. Fear that I’m a poor judge of character. Fear that people you trust aren’t who you think they are. Fear that I don’t deserve to be here, not now, and maybe I never did. Fear that now that people are actually listening, they will notice that I never belonged.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my life, and while I can’t claim to have had any major revelation, I have seen that how I spend my time is one thing that I can control. I want to be more thoughtful about it, and a big part of that is scicomm outside of working hours.  I still think online scicomm has tremendous value, but I need to figure out how much of my life should be devoted to it. I really think it is time to get some new hobbies. I’m not writing off ScienceOnline, I still intend to manage ScioBoston and I have no plans to kill my blog or twitter completely, but  I don’t intend to maintain them with any consistency either.

My main goal for Scio14 is to come away with a better idea of how to run ScioBoston effectively, and figure out how my work in development can fit into the scicomm ecosystem.  I’m looking forward to finding what I hope are answers in the many conversations that will take place. I’m looking forward to seeing friends and making new connections. I also find it scary and intimidating in a way that I never did before. So, here’s to not letting fear win. See you at Scio14.

Book Review: Best American Science & Nature Writing 2013

Book Review, Public Perceptions, Science writing

Lately I’ve really enjoy reading collections of stories, I love being exposed to different writers and most importantly I can typically get through at least one story before falling asleep. I say typically because a few nights ago as I was reading  a Sherlock Holmes story on my Nook I actually did doze off, and my device slipped from my hands smacking me in the face – a fun night to be sure. But I digress, in general, collections make solid pre-bedtime reading.

For the last week or so I’ve been reading The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2013 (on honest to goodness paper, so no technology induced injuries here. ) I was given the opportunity to review the book, which is available today, in advance and encouraged to share my thoughts. Well, my thoughts are mixed – there are good and bad things about this particular collection, and despite my enthusiasm for collections for me it highlghted a general downside.

science-medium-2013[1]One of the most valuable things about collections is that they presumably do a lot of work for you. The BEST implies that some authoratative figure has done the druggery of sorting through the entire body of work in a field, in this case science writing, for you. For this collection these authoratative figures are series editor Tim Folger and edition editor Siddhartha Mukherjee. Mukherjee is author of the pulitzer prize winning The Emperor of All Maladies – A Biography of Cancer, which I read and think is deserving of all the praise it has garnered.

I was so optimistic about this collection upon seeing that the edition editor was Mukherjee because I admire his work quite a bit. His own writing certainly doesn’t disappoint – I honestly think checking out the collection is worth your time just to read his introduction. It is a lovely description of science writing painted against the background of the “father of genetics” Gregor Mendel. The book includes writing that I think is terrific, and I have no problem with it being held up as exemplary of the best science writers among us – I was happy to see names like Michael Moyer, John Pavlus, Michelle Nijhuis, David Quammen and Katherine Harmon. As it seems with all good things though, there is always a “but” and I do have an issue with this collection.

You enter into a bit of a contract with the authority figures who determine what is featured in a collection when you purchase a book like this. The relationship brings with it the promise that the stories have all been vetted and are the BESTof what is out there. You trust that you are in for a good show, a quality show. However, the collection of what is the best is merely an opinion. We all have opinions, and my opinion isn’t always going to match your opinion, or Mukherjee’s opinion, or anyone else’s opinion.

Continue reading →

I’m Back, Back in a Blogging Groove

Blogging, Cancer, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Science writing, , ,

So, if you are reading this, you’re in a new place! Science Decoded officially now lives here on my main website, and I’d love to know what you think of the design/functionality. The fact that you are reading this also means that I’ve broken my blogging hiatus. I never actually meant to take a break from blogging, but for something that is strictly a labor of love I completely lost heart somewhere in the late spring, and it just cascaded from there.

When I talked to friends and colleagues about why I let the blog trail off into nothingness I most often was met with the assessment that I was having a “quarter life crisis” or and “existential crisis” but crisis feels like a strong term for simply not wanting to do something that I didn’t think mattered. Though I suppose it is somewhat existential and conveniently timed to turning 25 that I took to questioning not only what role I play in this whole science communication ecosystem, but also what the point is of having a blog when so many others exist that seem to have far more purpose and clear direction.

I very much want what I do to have value, and yet it has increasingly felt like I just need to back away slowly from the Internet and stop contributing to the noise. In my most grouchy “get off my lawn” moments, that is what a lot of my engagement with science and other science communicators started to feel like, noise. People with opinions about stuff. You are never going to run out of people with opinions about stuff. Sure, I have opinions about stuff, but who gives a damn? Thinking this way forced me to turn inward and stop sharing things altogether.

So I attended this workshop at MIT

With this situation brewing for months, I found myself invited to a two day workshop hosted by MIT on the “Evolving Culture of Science Engagement.” Fancy, right? Kind of I guess,  it was mildly intimidating and imposter syndrome inducing to find myself grouped together with a fascinating and accomplished collection of science communicators.  Our task was to talk about the myriad ways that people run up against science on the daily – in a closed door meeting. Continue reading →

Wake Up Sweetheart, You’re A Feminist (Book Review: The Good Girls Revolt)

#sci4hels, Book Review, Journalism, Real Women In Science, Science writing, State of Journalism,

I hope you read that title with the sarcasm with which it was meant, and that you never try to call me sweetheart. It won’t go well. It’s been a while since I did a book review here at Science Decoded (mostly because I don’t have the time to read that I used to) but I just finished Lynn Povich’s The Good Girls Revolt and it spurred me to want to write this post which has been kicking around in my brain for months now. The Good Girls Revolt is the story of the first all female class action lawsuit filed by the women who worked for Newsweek.

Even just two years ago, if you had asked me if I was a feminist I would have told you no. Back then the idea that women needed to form a movement to be treated equal seemed extreme. Equality isn’t hard, it’s a pretty simple concept really. So who wants to be all extreme and label themselves and fight for…what…what are we fighting for? I didn’t know. I had plenty of opportunities, I interacted with professional women a lot. It didn’t feel necessary. Besides, I like shaving my legs (though you should read this post about choosing not to). I have a closet full of dresses and high heels. You’re unlikely to catch me outside the house without makeup. I was vice president of my sorority for crying out loud. Feminist? Psh. But you know what feminism isn’t about? Those things. Any of it.

GoodGirlsRevoltComing from a relatively well-off, educated background where I was always expected to go to college and then work, I never thought of myself as a feminist. My Dad’s attitude toward my career as a science writer has always simply been, go get ’em. I have surrounded myself in life by people, men and women, who value my intelligence and drive to succeed. Growing up I never felt like I was being compared to my brother or any other guy. I never felt like I was less or that less was expected of me. Feminists were an other, and if anything made me feel intimidated. The judgement of other women is scary, sometimes it feels scarier than the idea of walking into a room full of men to tell them what’s what. But, spending a little time in the world, talking to people, and reading things like Povich’s book or Dr. Isis’ Feminist Awakening has a wonderfully eye opening effect.

I think most women in the workplace have a so-and-so said this absolutely jack ass comment to me about xyz story, at least I do, and I’ve heard many stories in a similar vein. The types of things that make people look at you like you’ve got six heads because surely someone didn’t actually SAY that. You might not even have realized it, because at the time I didn’t really see it as sexism. I knew I was upset that good ideas were being shot down. The thought that anyone would take the way I look and my gender and use that to gauge my ability as a writer before actually reading anything I wrote was so completely absurd to me, that I didn’t even realize at first that it was happening.

In hindsight, this made me blame myself – maybe it really isn’t that good an idea, maybe I’m not working hard enough, maybe if I’m here later and put in more hours, maybe if I prove myself…no. I want to grab unpaid intern Erin and shake her and say don’t you dare write that crappy story that you know is bullshit while the paid male intern gets the better story. Walk out. Leave. You’re better than that. I’ve heard it said before that my generation is lazy and entitled. Well in my not so humble opinion, myself and my friends and other young people like us more often assume deeply personal responsibility for failure. If I don’t get that story it’s because I did something wrong. Me. I’m not good enough. How could it ever be that there is a system ingrained in society that is going to hold us back? This is 2013. It can’t possibly be true that we’re still dealing with this.

Povich’s book chronicles events from the 60’s and 70’s, we can’t still be having this same problem? No, no we’re not. The problem back then was flagrant, out in the open, so egregious that it couldn’t be ignored. That is still happening, oh, does it happen. But there is also a subtle sexism – a mild slight, a passing comment, a raise that’s just a little less, a promotion that takes a little longer to get. These are the things that are harder to pinpoint, harder to blame on sexism, but are ultimately what made me wake up to the fact that I’m a feminist. Part of Povich’s book focuses on today, on three women from my generation working for Newsweek: Jessica Bennet, Jesse Ellison and Sarah Ball and the story they wrote in 2010 “Are We There Yet?” questioning if the battle of the sexes is really over. Their experiences resonated with me a lot.

Since I entered college and started writing and trying to get my work published, I’ve been lucky in that the sexism I’ve faced has been mild. Sad state of affairs that it makes me feel lucky, but it does. Right now where I work my superiors are all women – my boss, her boss, her boss’ boss, her boss’ boss’ boss…but my awesome situation isn’t common (and believe me, I don’t take it for granted.) But that doesn’t mean that sexism isn’t still here, and that other people aren’t dealing with much worse on a regular basis. I’m a feminist for myself because yes, I want a fair shake, I want to be recognized for the value of my work and not whether or not my hair looks shiny that day. But, adding my voice to the other feminist voices out there is about more than just me. I’ve got it pretty good. I’m not trying to argue that I don’t. But I can support the women out there who are dealing with overt sexism, who are being attacked. I can try to be an ally. That to me is the real value of feminism, of standing together.

It’s my opinion that a lot of the yelling that happens on the internet (if you could only hear how loudly I am typing!!) happens because we’ve gotten so wrapped up in judging the world based on our personal perspective that we can’t see the things that happen outside ourselves. I’ve never encountered sexism therefore sexism doesn’t exist. We have GOT to shake off this way of invalidating the experiences of others. Once you start listening, I think you’ll find like I did that the need for feminism is impossible to ignore. Participating in #sci4hels, and working with Rose, Lena, and Kathleen (follow us in Helsinki next week!) is another thing that has driven home for me the need for women to support each other. We’ve already used our platform to have a conversation about being female science writers, and I hope that discussion is one that will continue in the future.

Feminism, for me, is a way to recognize that we’ve come a long way but we still have a long way to go. We still need to get out there, and support each other, and continue having these conversations because equality might be a simple concept, but that doesn’t make it any less evasive. I’ve had these conversations a lot lately, and have been asked, “do you think people don’t take you seriously because…you know…you’re good looking?” Typically, I answer something along the lines of making smart decisions is optional, and if anyone doesn’t take me seriously for any reason that’s their mistake to make. I don’t think it’s a bad answer, but until that answer is a resounding “no” we’re just not done yet.

So, if you’ve been in the journalism business for less than 20 years, The Good Girls Revolt is a must-read. Hell, if you’ve been in the business for more than 20 years, it’s still a good read. Recommended.

Overheard at Sciobeantown with NESW

#sci4hels, Science, Science writing, Sciobeantown, Twitter, ,

On June 6th, Sciobeantown and the New England Science Writers teamed up for a joint mixer at Boston’s Beehive. If you couldn’t join us, here are a few snippets (taken 100% out of context) to show you what you missed. If you have any questions about Sciobeantown, feel free to contact me, or any of the other organizers: Haley Bridger, Biochembelle, or Alberta Chu. You can also check out the website, twitter, and googlegroup.

  • Let’s just say I’m cautiously optimistic…
  • So, the Mighty Ducks is actually all about class warfare.
  • Wait, since when am I the youngest?!?
  • There’s so much scicomm, we’re going to need to coordinate these dates.
  • You’re tweeting this aren’t you?
  • I went right home after you mentioned it and convinced my boss I had to go to ScioOceans.
  • You lied, we could totally still register!
  • Biochem AND a Belle… wow, that’s intimidating.
  • You weren’t at the Storycollider? It was so good!
  • Just cover one story, really, really well, that’s how you get a Pulitzer.
  • I came to Boston for all of the astronomy, there is an amazing amount here.
  • You just have to look at the statistics!
  • Just assume the doctor stance.
  • Wait, there are liberal antivaxers?
  • You might want to look at that study again, it might not be total bullshit.
  • Are the science writers about to throw down?
  • Look, I flail when I talk.
  • Of course, everyone knows Bora.
  • Well now you’re just making stuff up.
  • Tweet from @sciobeantown in Finland, we’ll cheer you on!
  • What exactly makes you a killer?
  • Mermaids? I mean how was that even a thing?
  • Try to describe something without using any adjectives! At all!
  • Your career is your oyster…or something like that.
  • Ooh, is there going to be music?
  • We’ll see you in July!

Thank you to NESW for sponsoring this event, and to everyone who came out to share ideas and build our Sciobeantown community!