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  • Oct 16 2004

    In Memoriam: Howard J. Lewis

    NASW member Howard J. Lewis, former editor of ScienceWriters and founding member of the International Association of Science Writers, died of cancer Oct. 13 in his Bethesda, Md., home.

  • Aug 31 2004

    How to deal: negotiating a better contract

    At the NASW Annual Meeting in February of 2004, two experts offered their experiences and insights in a workshop devoted to freelance contract negotiation. According to Erik Sherman, "The best first thing to do is say, 'I'd like to see your first North American Serial Rights Contract, please," while Kraig Baker suggests, "If you want to be successful, your first tactic should be whatever tactic keeps the publisher's lawyer out of it." Special Thanks to Alan Kelly, Owner, Verbatim Instant Transcripts, for generating this complimentary transcript for NASW

  • Jul 29 2004

    NASW Protests U.S. Visa Rules for Foreign Journalists

    The National Association of Science Writers, Society of Environmental Journalists and Association of Health Care Journalists have sent a letter to U.S. government officials protesting visa requirements for foreign journalists. The letter was sent to U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert C. Bonner, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge and key members of Congress.

  • Jul 20 2004

    Information Is Power: Join Our New FOIA Discussion List

    NASW has created a new listserv for discussion of freedom of information issues. The new discussion list is NASW-FOIA. This list is for general discussion of freedom of information issues; any messages posted to the list should be relevant to those topics.

  • Jun 1 2004

    Writing for scientists, especially on the web

    (This is Part 1 of a much-expanded version of an article that is scheduled to appear in the second edition of NASW's A Field Guide for Science Writers, edited by Deborah Blum, Mary Knudson, and Robin Marantz Henig, which Oxford University Press is scheduled to publish next year.)

  • Mar 12 2004

    Resources for Science Writing Teachers

    Do you teach science writing - or do you want to do so? The NASW education committee has created several new resources for people who teach science writing, including an e-mail discussion list called NASW-TEACH and a Web site containing suggestions for classroom exercises and reading lists.

  • Feb 29 2004

    Agents: to know them is to love them

    Do you need an agent to sell your book? How do you find a good one? In November 2003, The nasw-freelance list featured a discussion on this topic with much advice from experienced authors. Highlights (and there were lots) are collected here.

  • Jan 1 2004

    Beyond search engines

    Past time for a roundup of a few Web sites particularly useful to freelance science writers, not least because they are all free. All but one, anyway.

  • Dec 31 2003

    Secondary rights: a lot of heat, not much light right now

    Secondary rights are the rights to resell your work after its first publication. With all-rights contracts growing like kudzu, some authors' groups are trying to work out collective deals and micropayments in order to facilitate reselling stories. Here, freelance Jeff Hecht relates some recent news on these efforts.

  • Dec 1 2003

    (The sad state of) health insurance options for freelances

    Looming over the otherwise idyllic life of the freelance writer is the dark cloud known as health insurance, for which the only silver lining seems to be the silver lining the pockets of the insurance companies. In this report, David Lindley provides a snapshot of how NASW freelances are getting their insurance (or not), and provides some recommendations, both for the individual freelance and for NASW as a whole.