In our centuries-old tradition of interviewing the Persons of LWON who are authors of newly-published books, here is our interview with Jessa about her new book, The Siesta and the Midnight Sun. Q: Your book is about, as you say, “the body clock as a biological universal, a foundation on which cultures lay their own rituals […]
On Writing
As journalists, we are trained to be neutral, to never betray any hint of bias or emotion. There are exceptions, of course — the 9/11 tragedy was so universally devastating, and so deeply unfathomable, that journalists were permitted to show a sense of loss — in fact, it would have been unthinkable not to. But […]
uring my first year at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, I wrote a lot of term papers and played a lot of Tetris on Mac Classics. Squat, sturdy, and pallid, with a postcard-sized monochrome screen, the Classic was three times as heavy as the aluminum-bound MacBook I write on today — with a mere 1/2000 […]
Last month, I recommended a few children’s books that I thought reflected the curious, adventurous, and humble scientific spirit of The Last Word on Nothing. Friends and readers have since added their favorite titles to the list — thank you! May these books bring all of you, and the young explorers in your lives, some […]
As the parent of a three-year-old, I spend a lot of time reading kids’ books. Some are wonderful, a lot are so-so, and a few are so frigging annoying that — I confess — I hide them. I always expect to like science-themed books — this is my kind of brainwashing, I think — but […]
Last September, I posted to my (now defunct) personal blog a cheeky theory: scientists can be categorized into four types, which roughly agree with some of the Myers-Briggs personality test buckets. I’ve re-posted it here, with a few updates and tweaks based on reader comments. I took my first Myers-Briggs personality test in the seventh […]
(This post is the second in a two-part series. I adapted it from a keynote address I delivered in the summer of 2010 at Goddard College, in Plainfield, Vermont, where I teach in the MFA Writing program. The essay is part of a collection of talks by Goddard writing faculty that have been collected in […]
(This post is the first in a two-part series. I adapted it from a keynote address I delivered in the summer of 2010 at Goddard College, in Plainfield, Vermont, where I teach in the MFA Writing program. The essay is part of a collection of talks by Goddard writing faculty that have been collected in […]
