Workshop reports
The bioethics of the brain-machine interface
Image: From “The Emerging Ethics of Innovative Brain Research” in UnDark; Getty Direct electrical/digital interfaces between human brains and machines are advancing rapidly while AI is suddenly infiltrating the process of human thinking at mass scale. Where are we headed? At our September meeting, we discussed a recent Best Science & Nature Writing article…
Read MoreUsing ourselves as characters to help audiences explore the unknown in science
Lecturing at an audience and just “explaining the science” isn’t always the most effective way to communicate. An alternative approach that’s often recommended is using a personal story to connect with an audience first. Even better, if a scientist or writer can present themselves as a relatable human being, they may have a better chance…
Read MoreWhat explains public distrust of science?
A concern frequently voiced by participants in our workshops is the decline of public trust in science. The need to rebuild trust, and strengthen public awareness of the scientific process, are oft-cited goals of science communication, including the kind of science-related creative writing we try to foster in NeuWrite Nordic. Yet how to solve the…
Read MoreGoing deep—the ethics and methods of immersion
What happens when, as we research and write, we take a really deep dive—especially into subject matter that might be outside our expertise, or into a complicated real-world situation, or even into the minds of the people we’re writing about? What ethical problems arise for us as writers? What writing techniques can we use? How…
Read MoreMetaphor & irony
The metaphor of modern medicine as a tower anchored a draft piece of fiction that we workshopped this month. In the story another tower appeared through the mist, too: alternative medicine. This text used concrete visual drama to take an idea and, as the screenwriting teacher Robert McKee puts it, wrap that idea in an…
Read MoreReaching readers
How do you get your message to the audience that needs to hear it—especially if they are likely to resist? For that matter, as writers, how do we learn enough about our intended audience that we can meet them where they are? The author of one of the draft texts we workshopped this month faced…
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