Episode 195: #FromPeopletoSciAmerican

How do you become a science writer? What if you didn’t even think you liked science as a kid? What if, instead of “serious journalism”, you spent the first half of your career covering celebrities and royals, even becoming the London Bureau Chief for People magazine?

Then you’re in perfect shape, at least if you’re our guest, Lydia Denworth. She tells us how she made that transition, going from People through Redbook to Scientific American using the dual powers of curiosity and ignorance (and more relevantly, the willingness to admit it). We also discuss getting grants for non-fiction research, pitching scientific topics and the literary aspect of science writing—and Friendship, which just happens to be both the topic and the title of Denworth’s latest book.

Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, did you love last week’s #WritersTopFive: Top 5 Ways to Win at Newsletter Subject Lines? Because I did (and I’m winning.) This Monday: Top 5 Things to Do When Your WIP Feels Like It’s In Flames. Support the podcast you love AND get weekly #WriterTopFives with actionable advice you can use for just $7 a month.

As always, this episode (and every episode) will appear for all subscribers in your usual podcast listening places, totally free as the #AmWriting Podcast has always been. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it with the shownotes and a transcript every time there’s a new episode.

LINKS FROM THE PODCAST

#AmReading (Watching, Listening)

Jess: Open Season (Joe Gunther Mysteries #1), Archer Mayor

KJ: Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman (catch it on my #BooksThatWon’tBumYouOut series HERE)

Lydia: The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission that Changed Our Understanding of Madness, Susannah Cahalan

The Ruin, Dervla McTiernan

Bonus Book Rec for Lydia: The Mountains Wild, Sarah Stewart Taylor (because “those Irish really know how to do dark”).

Our guest for this episode is Lydia Denworth.

This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwritingfor details, special offers and Jennie Nash’s Inside-Outline template.

Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.

Follow KJ on Instagram for her #BooksThatWon’tBumYouOut series: short reviews of books that won’t make you hate yourself and all humanity.

If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest you check out Marginally, a podcast about writing, work and friendship.

Transcript (We use an AI service for transcription, and while we do clean it up a bit, some errors are the price of admission here. We hope it’s still helpful.)

KJ: 00:01 Hey there listeners, it’s KJ. Our guest today is a science writer extraordinare, and we’ll be talking everything from grants to the literary and storytelling aspects of that form of nonfiction—but before we do, here’s something else for the nonfiction authors out there: If that’s the your kind of work, our sponsor, Author Accelerator, can help—and you don’t have to go all in with full-on book coaching if you’re not ready. Check out their new four-week long nonfiction framework program that will help you nail down your structure before you start to write (or after you’re writing and realizing—dang, this thing needs a backbone!). Authors of self-help, how-to and academic texts will find the shape of their books, create a working one-page summary that reveals that shape at a glance and develop a flexible table of contents to guide you through the drafting and revision process. You can find a lot more (including previews of much of the material) by going to https://www.authoraccelerator.com/nonfictionframework. Is it recording?

Jess: 01:11 Now it's recording.

KJ: 01:13 Yay!

Jess: 01:13 Go ahead.

KJ: 01:14 This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I was supposed to be doing.

Jess: 01:14 Alright, let's start over.

KJ: 01:14 Awkward pause, I'm going to rustle some papers.

Jess: 01:14 Okay.

KJ: 01:14 Now one, two, three. Hey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting. #AmWriting is the podcast about writing all the things. Writing fiction, nonfiction, short fiction, long nonfiction, short nonfiction, I could probably go on like that forever. We are the podcast about writing pitches, proposals, essays, and essentially, as I say, every week, this is the podcast about sitting down