FAQ

I've been working for a while to develop a Frequently Asked Questions page to answers the most common reader questions about The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  Well, it's now online, and it addresses questions ranging from why HeLa cells are immortal to how the Lacks family is benefiting from the book. It also includes answers to commonly asked publishing questions, like, How do I break into science writing?  You can read it online here.  If you have burning questions not answered there, leave them in the comments section below -- I'll add to the FAQ as questions arise and time allows. 
I'm posting answers to FAQs about my book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, as an ongoing series on this blog.  In my last FAQ post, I told the story of how I first learned about HeLa cells at sixteen.  A related question I often get has to do with this one sentence in the book's prologue: "I was a kid who'd failed freshman year at the regular public high school because she never showed up. I'd transferred to an alternative school that offered dream studies instead of biology, so I was taking Defler's class for high-school credit, which meant that I was sitting in a college lecture hall…
I mentioned a while ago that I'll be posting answers to FAQs about my book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, as an ongoing series on this blog. I thought I'd start the FAQs with one of the most commonly asked questions: How did you learn about Henrietta and the HeLa cells, and why did they grab you the way they did? Here is the answer, which I also posted about over on Powells.com's book blog this last week as part of a little guest blogging stint: I first learned about Henrietta Lacks in the late 80s, when I was 16 and sitting in a basic biology class at Portland Community College (…
As some of you may have noticed, things have been a weeeeeeee bit quiet here at Culture Dish.  This is what happens when a person embarks on a totally insane book tour.  I've been on the road for two months straight since the publication of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, giving talks, signing books, meeting readers, and doing lots and lots and lots of interviews for TV and radio (talking to folks like Stephen Colbert, Jim Axelrod of CBS Sunday Morning, Terry Gross, and many others).  This has been a wonderful experience, which I will be posting about soon (complete with videos and…
As some sharp-eyed reader may have already spotted, the SciencePunk blog has relocated to the Seed Media Group's ScienceBlogs. Let's take a moment to absorb these new surroundings. OK, done? Those of you who have already run back to check sciencepunk.com will find it too has changed substantially. Drama abounds! From today, the whole SciencePunk caboodle is getting cranked up a notch. Wave goodbye to the version 5 we all knew and loved, and say hello to version 6. (Ah, you always wondered what that stray /v5 signified, didn't you? Why not check out v4? Web 1.0-tastic!) The site has…