By Jill Adams, Programs Committee chair
The NASW Programs Committee has been hard at work planning the 2019 program for ScienceWriters2019 in Happy Valley, Pennsylvania. Our team of 16 members read and reviewed 45 workshop proposals and discussed their merits while keeping in mind the wants and needs of our quite varied membership — freelancers, PIOs, journalists, educators, students, staffers, editors, writers, podcasters, broadcasters, as well as science writers in various stages of their careers.
It wasn’t easy to winnow down to 17 selections, but we feel pretty darned good about the result — the workshops cover a range of topics of increasing importance to science writers, evergreen concerns, and fun new approaches to storytelling. The program will tackle diversity, with a plenary session about broadening science writers' sourcing and a workshop on inclusion in our own science writer ranks. Other workshops will address conflicts of interest, of science writers and the scientists that we cover. Two popular sessions are back — the Power Pitch workshop, in which writers to pitch story ideas directly to editors, and the SciWri Congress, in which regional science writer groups will share ideas and strategies. Novel workshop ideas will introduce science writers to using tools such as incorporating maps into science reporting and learning improvisational skills to stretch creative muscles.
In the next couple of months, workshop organizers will confirm speakers and finalize logistics with the help of Programs Committee members. The final program for Science Writers 2019 will be available in July.
Image: Old Main on Penn State's University Park campus by Patrick Mansell.
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