On Books & Flying Buttresses

Hello there, I'm Emily Voigt, another of this year's freelance travel fellows, coming to New Haven from New York City. This will be my first time attending the ScienceWriters conference (thank you NASW!) and I'll be covering the workshop "Great science writing part II: Building the big book" on Saturday afternoon. I love the session's concept of books as "cathedrals of thought, style and fact" designed to outlast our individual attention spans. It's a particularly nice entry-point for panelist and immortality expert Jonathan Weiner (whose class on literary science writing first drew me into the field). If death is the ultimate deadline -- and the impetus for so many pyramid-like human ventures -- could immortality spell the end of books??

I certainly hope not, because I'd really like to live forever AND write a book. I'm currently a freelance journalist and have written and produced science stories for the New York Times, OnEarth Magazine, Radiolab, Isotope, and Odyssey (a science magazine for 12 and up). I came to science by way of literature and used to be an associate book editor at Oxford University Press. I'm especially fond of writing about the intersection of science, philosophy, and art. You can check out my work on my website. I'm looking forward to connecting with many of you this weekend!