News
August workshop coming up
We’re on summer hiatus during July and will return for our next creative science writing dinner & workshop on August 14. If you have a writing project you’d like to receive feedback on, get in touch! Image: Martin Köbsch, Vecteezy.
Read MoreMedicine meets literature
A talk organized by NeuWrite Nordic board member Jussi Valtonen: Time: 7 May (Wednesday), 16:00 / 4pm Place: Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies Common Room 3rd floor Fabianinkatu 24a Description: Narrative medicine brings healthcare into conversation with literature. It begins with a comparison between listening and reading, with the physician as the “reader” and interpreter…
Read MoreStorytelling or spinning narratives—what’s the difference?
On 28 March 2025, NeuWrite Nordic director Trevor Corson met with the University of Helsinki branch of the international ReproducibiliTea journal club to discuss the downside of narratives in science. Bias and the spinning of results have become endemic, especially in medical research. What, actually, are the differences between justified storytelling to convey robust scientific…
Read MoreAward for Buckminster Fuller project
Congratulations to NeuWrite Nordic participant, science journalist, and scholar Pasi Toiviainen for winning the prestigious Aalto University dissertation award for his psychobiographical reinterpretation of the life and works of Buckminster Fuller. At NeuWrite we’ve been excited to try to help workshop the development of Pasi’s project on Fuller into a possible story about science for…
Read MoreBrain, mind, and science communication—panel discussion
NeuWrite Nordic director Trevor Corson discussed journalism, storytelling, and creative writing about science as part of a panel discussion on science communication, during the concluding event of the Brain & Mind Symposium in Helsinki on October 25. The panel brought together a rich mix of perspectives from: eNeuro, the journal of the Society for Neuroscience—panelist:…
Read MorePoetry performance / art exhibition explores scientific ideas
NeuWrite Nordic participant, doctoral researcher from the University of Helsinki’s Neuroscience Center, and internationally published writer, poet and visual artist Rakenduvadhana Srinivasan will perform her original poetry as part of the Surrealism Festival at Yö Gallery in Helsinki, where her art will be on sale and projected (see the neuroscience-themed work above). Titled “Inexorable filaments…
Read MoreArticle about surgical fads and secret agents published
Perhaps it was a stretch to compare the rise and fall of medical techniques with the love life of James Bond, but that’s exactly the origin of one of the more memorable charts to have appeared in the British Medical Journal. For the first time, the full story of the comparison, and the connection to…
Read MoreClimate action novel published
“Engrossing, insightful, and entirely credible.” —Markku Kulmala University of Helsinki Academy Professor and atmospheric scientist “Frighteningly believable.” —Kati Halonen, poet At NeuWrite Nordic we’ve workshopped several sections of a novel about climate change, in which dramatic scenes of destruction and chaos have stripped away the polite politicking of national leaders and climate scientists…
Read More“Hair-Power Performativity” published
An illustration called “Cut It Out” by the Italian artist Marco Melgrati in support of Iranian women’s protest (center image, above) was the inspiration for a draft text we workshopped at NeuWrite Nordic last autumn. The text, a collaborative hybrid of social-science and storytelling titled “Hair-Power Performativity,” was published this week in the Barcelona-based journal…
Read MoreDance first, think later
The number-one most-read article at the moment in the Finnish Medical Journal (Lääkärilehti) is a new column by NeuWrite Nordic board member Jussi Valtonen, award-winning novelist and a researcher in psychology at the University of Helsinki. Valtonen poses some very pointed questions for the medical establishment as he considers the results of a recent meta-analysis…
Read More