*** The next workshop will be May 7 to 12, 2012. Please watch Latest updates as details develop . . .
photo by Terry Asher
We are now taking applications for the 16th annual Santa Fe
Science Writing Workshop, which will begin on Monday evening, May 30 (Memorial Day),
2011, and run through Saturday morning, June 4, in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico. The workshop is directed by
Sandra Blakeslee, a New York Times science writer and co-author of The Body Has a Mind of its Own (with Matthew Blakeslee), Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions (with Stephen L. Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde), and many other books
and George Johnson, a New York Times science writer, whose books include The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments, Miss Leavitt's Stars, and Fire in the Mind: Science, Faith, and the Search for Order.
This year's lineup will also include
Gareth Cook, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the editor of the Ideas section of the Boston Sunday Globe;
Cornelia Dean, senior writer for the New York Times specializing in environmental issues and science policy and the paper's former science editor; and
Adam Rogers, senior editor for Wired magazine.
We'll also be joined during part of the workshop by David Corcoran, deputy science editor of the New York Times, and Lynne Friedmann, who will conduct a special session on freelancing.
Please see the latest updates for details.
Read about last year's workshop.
Last year's daily schedule and class list.
Photos from 2008.
Previous workshops have attracted students from all over
the country (and a few from Japan, Australia, Canada, France, Britain, Switzerland, and Kenya). Some were science writers who wanted to hone their
skills and meet more of their colleagues or work on a book proposal. Some were writers from other
fields hoping to make the switch to science writing. Some were public
information specialists from universities and government laboratories.
And some were scientists who wondered if they might like writing more
than research.
Past instructors have included Daniel Engber, science writer and editor for Slate; Jamie Shreeve, a senior editor for National Geographic Magazine; Frank Clifford, former environment editor for the Los Angeles Times; Benedict Carey, psychology and cognitive science reporter for the New York Times;
Erika Check Hayden, senior reporter for Nature; Jennifer Ouellette, author of Black Bodies and Quantum Cats and director of The Science & Entertainment Exchange;
Laura Helmuth, senior science editor for Smithsonian magazine; David Kestenbaum, a science correspondent for National Public Radio;
Kenneth R. Weiss, an environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times and winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting;
John Horgan, the director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology and the author of The End of Science and The Undiscovered Mind;
Charles Petit, a former science writer for the San Francisco Chronicle and U.S. News and World Report; Peter Lewis, whose many positions have included senior editor and technology columnist for Fortune magazine and assistant science editor for the New York Times; Tim Appenzeller, science editor for National Geographic; Shankar Vedantam, a national correspondent writing about science and human behavior for the Washington Post; Judy Foreman, a nationally syndicated health columnist whose work appears in the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and other newspapers; Denise Grady, health and medicine reporter for the New York Times; Michael Lemonick, senior science writer for Time magazine and author of The Light at the Edge of the Universe; Joe Palca, senior science correspondent for National Public Radio; Laura Chang, science editor of the New York Times; Kenneth Chang, a science reporter for the New York Times, covering chemistry, geology, solid state physics, nanotechnology, and other topics; Glennda Chui, science writer for the San Jose Mercury News; Peter Petre, senior editor-at-large for Fortune magazine, overseeing coverage of infotech, biotech, medicine, industrial technology, and science; Keay Davidson, science writer for The San Francisco Chronicle
and author of Carl Sagan: A Life; Erica Goode, behavioral science writer for The New York Times; Margaret Wertheim,author of The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace and a freelance science writer for numerous publications like New Scientist, Salon, and The Sciences; Robin Marantz Henig, a freelance magazine writer specializing in the life sciences and the author of The Monk in the Garden; Rosie Mestel, a medical writer and columnist for The Los Angeles Times; Andrew Revkin, environmental writer for The New York Times and author of The Burning Season;
Deborah Blum, a Pulitzer
Prize-winning science writer and University of
Wisconsin journalism professor; Shannon Brownlee, a
former senior writer at U.S. News & World Report; Philip
Elmer-DeWitt, assistant managing editor in charge of science,
medicine, and technology coverage for Time magazine; Dr. Lawrence K. Altman, chief medical correspondent for The New York Times;
K.C. Cole of The Los Angeles Times; Pulitzer-prize-winner
John Noble Wilford of the The New York Times;
Laurie Garrett,
Pulitzer-prize-winning reporter for Newsday; Richard
Harris, Peabody-Award-winning science reporter for National
Public Radio; Dennis
Overbye, deputy science editor for The New York Times and
author of Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos; Rick Weiss, science writer for
The Washington Post; Natalie
Angier, science correspondent for The New York Times and
winner of the Pulitzer prize; Jon
Franklin, two-time Pulitzer prize winner and professor of
creative writing at the University of Oregon; Paul Hoffman, former editor-in-chief of Discover
magazine; Cornelia Dean, science editor
of The New York Times; and Timothy
Ferris, author of The Whole Shebang: A State of the
Universe(s) Report and Coming of Age in the Milky Way.
Please burrow into our Web site and see what we did in
2010,
2009,
2008,
2007,
2006,
2005,
2004,
2003,
2002,
2001, 2000,
1999, 1998, 1997, and 1996.
Ghost Ranch Santa Fe and The Santa Fe Science Writing Workshop are nonprofit organizations.
(The background image on our main page is
from a Social Realist mural inside the
administration building at Highlands University in Las
Vegas, New Mexico. It was painted in the 1930s as part of the WPA or "New Deal" Art Project
by an artist named Lloyd Moylan.)
photo by Mitzi Baker