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The Science Write Now (SWN) Podcast is a 3x/monthly podcast for people who love science and the arts. If you’re interested in learning more about great books, plays, and films; writing, research or editing; the lives of scientists; and creative insights into contemporary science; then you’ve come to the right place! The SWN Podcast is hosted by Amanda Niehaus and Jessica White and produced by Taylor Mitchell with funding from the Australia Council for the Arts.sciencewritenow.com
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In this episode, Krystle speaks with Alicia Sometimes about her new poetry book Stellar Atmospheres, a collection that interweaves the scientific, the literary, and the personal. Sometimes’s lyrical yet accessible poems give musicality to cosmic ideas and remind us, in the best way, of our smallness. About Alicia Sometimes: Alicia Sometimes is a writer, award-winning poet and broadcaster. She's given a TEDx talk, edited a national literary journal, and done breakfast radio with the ABC. ...
In this episode, Krystle speaks with Jodi Rodgers about her new book Unique: What autism can teach us about difference, connection and belonging – which Jodi describes as ‘a love letter to autism’. In her book, Jodi reflects on her experiences with autistic and neurodivergent people, and what these experiences have illuminated regarding human connection, empathy and understanding. Additionally, Jodi demystifies common misunderstandings concerning autism, explaining the relevant cognitive scie...
In this episode, Jessica White chats with Amanda Tink, Lauren Poole and Heather Taylor Johnson about the ways that impairments, and historical responses to impairments, shape our bodies and writing.About Amanda Tink:Amanda Tink is a blind and neurodivergent creative, personal and academic essayist. She researches the influence of impairment on writing, most recently in a PhD on the poet Les Murray, who was autistic. Her essays have been published in a range of venues including Sydney Review o...
In this episode, Jess talks to Claire Bowen and Kevin Vinsen about Storyburst, a writing project that they established in 2020. They invited Australian writers of all ages to collaborate with researchers to write science-inspired monologues. The monologues can be performed in any of 15 languages including Auslan, andcan include diverse performance styles such as puppetry, dance, and song.Claire BowenClaire has been a storyteller since she was able to read and write. She has a Bachelor of Arts...
In this episode, Amanda chats with Professor Anne Libera—Director of Comedy Studies at the prestigious comedy club The Second City in Chicago—about how comedy works and why we need it. Anne Libera is an Associate Professor and Director of Comedy Studies at Columbia College Chicago and The Second City and served as Director of Pedagogy for The Second Science Project. She has presented on topics in improvisation and comedy at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Chicago Ideas Week, Chicago Humanities Fest...
In this episode, Amanda speaks with Australian playwrights Oliver Gough and Stephen Carleton about performing climate change on the stage—and the role of absurdity in communicating dire issues.Oliver Gough is an emerging playwright and MPhil Candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Queensland. He was a participant in Playlab’s 2021 ‘Incubator’ program, and his plays have been produced by UQ’s Underground Theatre Company and at Brisbane’s Anywhere Festival. His creative practice seek...
Why do some seeds live for thousands of years, while others only a few? What made Nikolai Vavilov the Indiana Jones of the ‘seed world’? And how do you write a book about something in which you’re not already an expert? In this episode, Amanda talks to science writer Fiona McMillan-Webster about her first book The Age of Seeds: How Plants Hacked Time and Why Our Future Depends on It. Fiona McMillan-Webster is a science writer with degrees in physics and biophysics. She's written f...
In this episode, Jess talks to Danielle Clode about how, from the 18th to the 20th centuries, women have employed great ingenuity to discover new knowledge.Danielle Clode is an award-winning author of Australian non-fiction books. Her writing includes natural history, essays, science writing, historical fiction and best-selling children’s books as well as documentaries. In this episode, we focus on two of Danielle’s books – In Search of the Woman Who Sailed the World, and The Wasp and The Orc...
In this episode, Amanda speaks with Chris Flynn about writing beyond the human, stories led by imagination, and thinking through place beyond setting. Chris Flynn is the author of Mammoth, The Glass Kingdom and A Tiger in Eden. He is Editor-in-Residence at Museums Victoria, and is the creator of Horridus: Journey of a Triceratops, and Horridus and the Hidden Valley. His work has appeared in The Guardian, The Age, The Australian, Griffith Review, Meanjin, Australian Book Review, Th...
In this episode, Amanda talks with novelist Melissa Ashley and our own Jessica White about writing the lives of 19th-century female natural historians in fiction and ecobiography—and the importance of bringing untold stories to the light.Jessica White is the award-winning author of two novels, A Curious Intimacy and Entitlement, and a hybrid memoir about deafness, Hearing Maud. Her short stories and essays have appeared widely in Australian and international literary journals and have been sh...
In this episode, Jessica White speaks Ashley Hay and Simon Cleary about thinking—and writing—through rivers and trees, and how they connect people, places, histories, ecologies, landscapes and myths.Ashley Hay is the author of three novels and four books of narrative non-fiction. Her most recent novel, A Hundred Small Lessons, was published in 2017. Her second novel, The Railwayman’s Wife, was published in 2013. It won the 2013 Colin Roderick Prize and the People’s Choice Award at the 2014 NS...
In this episode, Amanda Niehaus chats with biologist Michael Angilletta about his collaborative work building virtual reality science labs with Hollywood-born Dreamscape Immersive, student engagement through story, and the power of immersion— as well as Amanda’s aphantasia and Mike’s hard-learned rules of surviving the Zoom era.Michael Angilletta is President's Professor and Director of the Center for Science Learning Innovation at Arizona State University. Mike established an international r...
In this episode, Amanda Niehaus chats with writer & AGNI co-editor Sven Birkerts about time, memory, and the patterns that shape our writing. Sven Birkerts is the author of eleven books of essays and memoirs, most recently 'Speak, Memory', a personal reading of Nabokov's memoir. He is the former director of the Bennington Writing Seminars, and he co-edits the journal AGNI at Boston University.Purchase Sven’s smart and personal analysis of Vladimir Nabokov’s Speak Memory here.The Science W...
In this episode, Amanda Niehaus chats with speculative fiction writer and Associate Professor of Fiction (Arizona State University) Matt Bell about his new craft book Refuse to be Done, the iterative craft of writing and rewriting, and conceptualising the vast timescales of climate change into his recent novel Appleseed.Matt Bell is the author most recently of the novels Appleseed (a New York Times Notable Book of 2021), Scrapper (a Michigan Notable Book), and In the House upon the Dirt Betwe...
In this episode, Amanda Niehaus chats with David Morton, Creative Director of Dead Puppet Society, about taking young Darwin from the page — and the Galapagos — to the stage, in The Wider Earth.David Morton is a writer, director and designer, and the Creative Director of Dead Puppet Society. Over the last decade he has led DPS in the creation of large-scale visual theatre works developed with international teams. The Wider Earth (DPS, Queensland Theatre, Trish Wadley Productions, Glass Half F...
In this episode, Amanda Niehaus chats with award-winning writer and illustrator Kathleen Jennings about stitching together her observations into stories and worlds, writing with texture and creating narratives using mood.Kathleen Jennings is an illustrator and writer based in Brisbane, Australia. As an illustrator, she has won one World Fantasy Award (and been a finalist three other times), and has been shortlisted once for the Hugos, and once for the Locus Awards, as well as winning a number...
In this episode, Amanda Niehaus chats with Inda Ahmad Zahri about writing stories embedded in nature and creating across forms. Inda Ahmad Zahri believes in a world of wonder. She lives in Brisbane where she illustrates and writes for children and adults. Her stories are inspired by natural and cultural gems curated from her travels and lovingly added to her Malaysian heritage. She is also a surgical doctor, swapping her writer's hat and paintbrush for scrubs and scalpel when duty calls.Purch...
In this episode, Amanda Niehaus chats with writer and psychologist Andrea Baldwin about writing eco-fiction and crafting stories about the environment for different audiences and age groups. Andrea Baldwin is a psychologist and author who works at the intersection between arts, health and the environment. She holds PhDs in psychology and creative writing and a Masters in drama. Currently, Andrea is the clinical consultant supporting Queensland Health's response to children and young people af...
In this episode, Amanda Niehaus chats with Renée Treml about graphic novels and picture books, science for kids, designing museums (and specimens!) for books, and changing careers from science to art. Renée Treml was inspired by Australia’s wildlife and native birds after moving from the USA to Australia in 2007. She loves to create artworks that highlight the subtle details of nature with delicacy and humour. Renée’s books have won or been listed for awards including the CBCA Crichton ...
In this episode, Amanda Niehaus chats with University of New South Wales evolutionary biologist and author Rob Brooks about the future of sex, his new book Artificial Intimacy, and the science and politics of human relationships.Rob Brooks is an evolutionary biologist who studies the conflicting interests that make sex sizzle and render reproduction complicated. As Scientia Professor of Evolution at UNSW in Sydney, Australia, he studies the behaviour and evolution of humans and non-human...
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