Thomas Hayden |
Thomas Hayden, who has worked for Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report, is the co-editor of the new book The Science Writers' Handbook: Everything You Need to Pitch, Publish, and Prosper in the Digital Age. He is also the co-author of On Call in Hell: A Doctor's Iraq War Story, and Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World. He teaches at Stanford University.
Q: What's the
story behind The Science Writers' Handbook, and how is it especially helpful in today's market?
A: The Science Writers’
Handbook grew out of the longest, most circuitous, most fascinating
conversation I’ve ever been part of. For nearly eight years, an informal online
group of 30-plus freelance science writers have been sharing strategies,
celebrating successes and commiserating about frustrations in the field.
We
call ourselves SciLance (science freelancer – get it?), and a few years ago we
realized that we’d confronted most every problem a science writer could run
into, and solved a fair number of them – not least by finding mutual support
within the group.
Sharing our collective insights seemed like the natural next
step, and that’s what The Science Writers’ Handbook is, essentially – a
collected and codified version of our tribal wisdom. It’s a “how to” guide for
writing about science for the public, but also a “why to,” and even a “how not
to go broke or crazy while trying to” guide, too.
We focused in the title on
our shared passion for writing about science. But the book could just as
honestly been called “The Freelance Writers’ Handbook.” We all have been, or
currently are freelance writers. And the lessons we’ve learned – about the
craft of nonfiction writing, certainly, but also about the business side of
freelancing, and even the social and emotional effects of working for oneself
in an often-solitary craft – apply to freelancers in any field.
More people are working as
freelancers than ever before, and interest in science writing is absolutely
exploding. We wrote the book to help current and future colleagues, writing
students, scientists with a passion for communicating with the public and
anyone else interested in science writing to achieve their goals without having
to go through quite as much heartache and angst on the way as we all did.
Q: What is your advice when it comes to pitching a science story to an editor?
A: Be firm in your pitch, but
flexible in the follow up. With the exception of the hardcore science press –
the news sections of academic journals, for example – most publications think
of science stories as optional coverage. That means you’ll often do better with
a feature pitch than a news pitch.
When you first approach an editor with a
science story idea, you’re really showing her how you think, and how well you
can refine a broad area of research into a specific story, with characters,
plot, some sort of narrative arc and crucially, a sense of how the science will
be relevant to the publication’s readers. You need to have a well-defined,
well-developed idea to do that.
Sometimes, success means getting to do the
story you pitch. But for first-timers especially, success just as often means
coming up with a new take, or entirely new story idea, in collaboration with an
editor who simply likes the way you think, but wants you to think about
something else entirely.
Q: You're also the co-author
of On Call In Hell. How did you end up working with Cdr. Richard
Jadick on the book?
A: That was a project of
opportunity, though one that I was very passionate about. I had recently gone
freelance, after working as a staffer first at Newsweek, then at US News &
World Report. A former colleague from Newsweek had unearthed the story at the
heart of the book – the heroic efforts of Navy medical personnel to keep
Marines alive during the second battle of Fallujah, in 2004 – and encouraged my
eventual co-author to share his experiences as their leader. She introduced me
to Jadick, and he enlisted my help to report and write the book.
It isn’t
science writing per se, but like many science journalists I’m a writer first –
I just happen to be passionate about science, too. The human drama of the story
is front and center, though the science of battlefield medicine plays an
important role, too.
Q: In your book Sex and
War, you and your co-author, Malcolm Potts, write that "empowering
women reduces the risk of violent conflict." What led you to that
conclusion, and what steps should be taken, in your opinion, to move in that
direction?
A: It’s a conclusion I
resisted at first -- until I’d spent several years excavating and examining the
evidence from history, biology, anthropology and more. Simply put, human males
are responsible for the great majority of violent conflict through time and
across cultures and developmental stages.
There are very good evolutionary
reasons why this would be so, but at the same time, we live in what is probably
the least violent era of human history. It’s hard to get your head around that
fact, but it’s true – despite our wars and crime, despite our technology of
destruction, an individual’s chance of dying through violent conflict today is
almost certainly lower than at any previous time in human history.
There are
several mechanisms that explain this, including the development of ethical and
moral codes against killing civilians, and the expansion of “in groups” to
include larger and larger swaths of humanity. For every mechanism we examined
though, the relative political power of women was directly linked to lower
rates of violent conflict and violent deaths.
This is very obviously, very
brutally, still not the prevailing situation in many areas of the world,
including such central African countries as The Democratic Republic of Congo,
and in Afghanistan, the tribal regions of Pakistan, and elsewhere.
The two key steps to encourage more
empowerment of women are protection first, and education second.
Simultaneously, really. These same regions of the world are desperate for human
capital, and women very often posses the courage and vision to become agents of
peaceful development, against great odds. But that can’t be achieved without a
baseline level of education and security.
Q: What are you working on
now?
A: The topic is still under
wraps, but my next book will be a collaboration with my father [Michael Hayden], a historian and
author. We share a passion for understanding human nature, from distinct
perspectives. We’re working on blending our historical, scientific and
experiential perspectives to, you know, solve all the world’s problems. Or at
least tell some engaging yarns.
In the meantime, most of my
writing passion is focused on The Last Word on Nothing, a group science blog I contribute to with a dozen
other writers, including my wife, Erika Check Hayden.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: The conversations that
started The Science Writers’ Handbook are still going strong. Only they’re not
just for SciLancers anymore. We’ve started a webpage, at
pitchpublishprosper.com, where we’re discussing the craft, commerce and
community of science writing every day. Come on and join the conversation!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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