nonfiction

Earlier this week I discussed how to find a publisher for your book and how blogs can be useful tools in that process, but what about the effort that goes into completing a manuscript? As Michael has pointed out in his latest blog-length contribution to our conversation, every writer is different. How Michael approached writing Sand was very different from how I went about composing Written in Stone, so rather than try to lay out a precise set of writing rules I will attempt to summarize my unique writing experience. By the time I signed with Bellevue Literary Press in the autumn of 2009…

I was recently reading A Scientist's Guide to Talking With the Media, a useful and clearheaded book by Richard Hayes and Daniel Grossman of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Emphasizing the importance of science outreach, Hayes and Grossman praise the pop-sci luminaries who followed in the footsteps of Carl Sagan: With his intriguing investigations into the activities of everyday life, Fisher joins a distinguished fraternity of public scientists that includes Barry Commoner, Jared Diamond, Sylvia Earle, Paul Erlich, and E.O. Wilson. These are some of the most famous of the hundreds of…