There's A New Webbed Science Publication Out There

Yesterday, I learned that there is a new science publication on the web when, out of the blue, the editor for Science Creative Quarterly, David Ng, contacted me, asking permission to republish my essay, "The Greatest of These .. "

The Science Creative Quarterly is a project that explores multiple science writing styles. It is currently being supported by the University of British Columbia and is produced by Dr. Ng (a molecular biologist, who does some writing on the side), a few of his colleagues (generally with various science backgrounds) and some very enthusiastic science journalism and creative writing students. Many of their contributors also write for McSweeney's Internet Tendency (including Ng; see 1, 2, and 3). Its main goal is to engage the general public in the sciences.

Because I am an incurable editor and essay tinkerer, I usually decline to allow the text of an essay to escape my control, unless I am being paid for it, of course. However, this publication looks really good, it is also available as a downloadable PDF and, according to Ng, its promotional site, BioTeach, receives approximately 60,000 unique IPs hits per month. So I went back to edit and polish my essay so I might not embarass myself too badly by being included there, particularly because I don't think that essay is especially "scientific".

They also asked for a "blurb" about me to include with my essay. I couldn't resist temptation, so I wrote this for them;

GrrlScientist is an ornithologist, evolutionary biologist and freelance science writer who somehow scrapes by in New York City, along with her companion parrots. Her wide variety of skills and abilities have uniquely qualified her to be the world's first scientist who is unemployable in any capacity whatsoever. Her writing has appeared in a variety of obscure publications, often without monetary compensation. GrrlScientist will reveal her real-life name in exchange for a reasonable job offer.

Additionally, if you are a writer who is seeking a wider audience for your work, Science Creative Quarterly might be able to help you. Currently, the Science Creative Quarterly is having a fiction writing contest (using evolution as a theme) and the prize is a copy of Stephen Jay Gould's The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (I'd sure like to own a copy of that book!). More details are available on their main page.


tags: science, writing,