From pitch letter to editing, Michelle Nijhuis offers a behind-the-scenes look at her July-August 2011 Smithsonian story on a deadly fungal disease that is spreading through U.S. bat colonies. "One part of the science that I was unexpectedly impressed with along the way, and that I tried to emphasize, was the sort of evil perfection of this fungus — it’s just perfectly suited to take hold in hibernating bat populations," she tells The Open Notebook web site.
