Winners Announced for 15th Annual DCSWA Newsbrief Award

For Immediate Release
March 15, 2024

Contact: newsbriefaward@gmail.com

Winners Announced for 15th Annual DCSWA Newsbrief Award

Washington, D.C.—A story about the contribution of a racing heart to the emotion of anxiety won the 15th annual D.C. Science Writers Association’s Newsbrief Award.

Longform journalism often gets the field’s accolades, but short pieces are the true workhorses of science communication. In the spirit of recognizing these unsung works of excellence, DCSWA has been offering the Newsbrief Awards since 2009. 

For the 2023 Newsbrief Award, a panel of science writers judged all entries within a single category, which honors short science writing in any medium and at any outlet.

As this year’s winner, the judges named Bethany Brookshire for her article in Science News, “In mice, anxiety isn’t all in the head. It can start in the heart.”

Brookshire is an award-winning freelance science journalist and author of the 2022 book Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains. She has a Ph.D. in Physiology and Pharmacology. Brookshire writes on human-animal conflict, ecology, environmental science, and neuroscience. She is fascinated by the way humans perceive the environment and their place in it. Her work has appeared in Science News, Science News Explores, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Slate, The Guardian, The Atlantic and other outlets. She is based in Washington, D.C.

“Superb,” said one judge. “Well explained, good reporting, great flow, interesting topic, even some history. It’s one of those pieces that feels much more expansive than its 500 words.”

The judges also awarded two honorable mentions. Chris Gorski took one for his article in Chemical and Engineering News, “Beep-Beep.Flash.Save!.”

Gorski is a news editor at Chemical and Engineering News. His writing explores how science influences and explains what happens in the world — from the big questions about the universe to sports performance and food science. His stories have appeared in C&EN, as well as Knowable Magazine, Science News, Popular Mechanics, Inside Science, and others. 

One judge praised the story for being “well written, super interesting, [and] very engaging.” Another “appreciated the unexpected second source and the personal touch at the end.”

A second honorable mention was awarded to Bob Hirshon for his Science Update video, “Soft Robot Brain Implant.”

Hirshon heads up Springtail Media, specializing in science media and digital entertainment. He produces video, podcasts, and other media for SciStarter, a hub for citizen science resources. He was recently Principal Investigator for the NSF-supported National Park Science Challenge, for which he created and implemented the augmented reality adventure Wild Spot. Hirshon headed up the Kinetic City family of science projects, including the Peabody Award-winning children’s radio drama Kinetic City Super Crew, McGraw-Hill book series and Codie Award winning website and education program. Hirshon can occasionally be heard on XM/Sirius Radio’s Kids Place Live as “Bob the Science Slob,” sharing science news and answering children’s questions.

“Very witty and potentially important,” said one judge of Hirshon’s entry. “Or, as the author says, maybe not.”

DCSWA will celebrate the awardees in a ceremony at the DCSWA Professional Development Day on May 4. The winner will be presented with $300 and a framed certificate; those awarded honorable mentions will receive framed certificates.

This year’s judging panel consisted of Jag Bhalla, Miriam Fauzia, David Frey, Judy Lavelle, and Ben Stein. 

DCSWA members were eligible to submit entries in any medium and at any outlet published between January 1 and December 31, 2023. The D.C. Science Writers Association is an organization of more than 300 science reporters, editors, authors, and public information officers based in the national capital area. Details on how to enter the 2024 Newsbrief Award will appear on the DCSWA website by the end of the year.

Photos of the winners are available upon request.

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DCSWA Happy Hour @ Calico DC

Join us for a happy hour at Calico DC (50 Blagden Alley NW, Washington, DC 20001) starting at 6:00 pm on Tuesday, March 26th. DCSWA will be at 2 large picnic tables on the lower patio.

No registration needed, hope to see you there!

Professional Development Day 2024 (In-Person & Virtual)

Professional Development Day, a career development event for science writers, has been DCSWA’s signature event since 2006. Every year, over 100 science reporters, PIOs, editors, radio and video producers, and freelancers gather for a fun and exciting day of networking and skill-building

Please join us on Saturday, May 4th, from 8:30 am – 4:00 pm at George Washington University’s Student Center on the 3rd floor

Our full-day event will include a keynote talk, panel discussions and workshops geared toward both journalists and PIOs, lunch with local scientists, an editor meet and greet, and a happy hour. We will also have live streaming — with dedicated specialist support — for those who want to attend the talk and panel discussions virtually. Coffee, breakfast pastries and lunch will be provided. There will also be an in-person raffle of science books.

We are excited for our slate of programming (more details to come in the next couple of weeks!) and hope to see you on May 4th. 

 

DCSWA member Ryan Prior in conversation with Susannah Fox about his book The Long Haul

Join DCSWA member Ryan Prior at People’s Book in Takoma Park, Maryland on Saturday, March 23 from 2:00 – 3:00 pm. 

To the world’s public health authorities, Covid-19 would be either a deadly disease for some or a simple respiratory illness for most, its symptoms clearing up in just a matter of weeks. But then tens of millions around the world got sick and stayed sick. With scientists and doctors caught off guard, these Long Covid patients often found solace only with one another, organizing support groups across oceans and continents while ill in bed. In The Long Haul, CNN journalist Ryan Prior weaves his own life, the stories of activist patients, and the latest science into a captivating tale of regular people crying out for care that actually works.

What Covid “long haulers” found was that their new illness was not so new. In fact, it resembled other post-viral syndromes: difficult to treat and neglected by science. In riveting and accessible prose, Prior follows an innovative band of patients who took matters into their own hands and researched the disease themselves, thereby flipping the script and illustrating a new paradigm for research. In these unprecedented times, the CDC and the WHO came to them. As Covid continues to circulate, its long-term effects could grow as well, weighing on the healthcare system for decades to come. But, as Prior shows, getting Long Covid  treatments right could help revolutionize care for all complex and chronic illnesses.

Ryan Prior is a journalist and former Journalist-in-Residence at the Century Foundation. He covered the COVID-19 pandemic as a features writer for CNN and writes the Patient Revolution column for Psychology Today. He has also written for USA Today, STAT, the Guardian, and the Nation. He directed the documentary Forgotten Plague, is a board member at the ME Action Network, and was a Stanford Medicine ePatient Scholar.

Susannah Fox helps people navigate health and technology. She served as Chief Technology Officer for the US Department of Health and Human Services, where she led an open data and innovation lab. Prior to that, she was the entrepreneur-in-residence at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and directed the health portfolio at the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project.

Pizza social at Sonny’s in DC

On Thursday, February 8th, starting at 6:00 pm, come grab a slice with fellow DCSWA members, and bring along friends who are considering joining!

Sonny’s is just 4 blocks from the Columbia Heights metro stop.

*There will be dairy free and gluten free pizza, for those with dietary restrictions! 

The Future of SciComm: A Conversation with Dr. Francis Collins

Dr. Francis Collins was the longest-serving Director in the history of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) — from 2009 to 2021 — spanning three Presidential administrations, giving him a unique perspective on the importance and future of science communication.

On Wednesday, February 21st at 6:30 pm join DCSWA for a virtual Q&A with Dr. Collins, moderated by journalist, professor and scientist Dr. Bruce Y. Lee.

Free and open to all. Click HERE to register.

Happy Hour @ Calico DC!

Join us for a happy hour at Calico DC (50 Blagden Alley NW, Washington, DC 20001) starting at 6:00 pm on Wednesday, January 17th. 

No registration needed, hope to see you there!

 

What Should Global Climate Justice Mean?

Register to attend the *free* panel HERE.

DCSWA will be hosting a panel on climate justice at 6:30 pm on Wednesday, January 24th. The term “climate justice” is widely used — for instance in the United Nations Paris Agreement on Climate of 2015 — but it’s far from clear what it concretely means. The typical answer in the UN’s language is that “justice demands that those who have contributed more to the problem assume a greater responsibility for solving it. Heavy emitters have to act first and fast in cutting emissions.” And wealthier nations must provide “finance to countries with more limited means so they can keep up with enormous financial burdens as climate change accelerates.”

In this panel, two leading experts will expand on what global “climate justice” means, or should mean, in practice. Dr. Farhana Sultana, Professor of Geography and the Environment, Syracuse University is an interdisciplinary scholar, speaker, and author who works on political ecology and climate justice. Dr. Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò is Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University and the author of Reconsidering Reparations and related essays including The Fight for Reparations Cannot Ignore Climate Change. The panel will be moderated by DCSWA board member Jag Bhalla.

Professional Development Boot Camp with Jamie Zvirzdin

If you’re serious about science writing, do not miss this opportunity to level up your writing skills, network with other science writers, and glean industry secrets about the publishing world. Whether you’re just starting out or need a jump-start to keep going, this eight-day informative boost, led by award-winning Johns Hopkins instructor Jamie Zvirzdin, will take you to the next level of professional writing, networking, and publishing. The virtual course will run from Sunday, January 21st – Sunday, January 28th, but will only meet on the first and last day. The rest will be done individually. 

Zvirzdin has been teaching the popular Subatomic Writing course for the Science Writing graduate program at JHU since 2019, and we are delighted to experience a slice of Subatomic Writing during this boot camp. The new textbook, Subatomic Writing: Six Fundamental Lessons to Make Language Matter, is now widely available from Johns Hopkins University Press and received remarkable reviews from Mary Roach, author of Fuzz and Stiff, Deborah Blum, director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT and founder of Undark Magazine, Steven C. Martin, senior programmer at NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Christopher Joyce, NPR Science Desk Correspondent, and many other distinguished journalists and scientists. 

Boot Camp Schedule

The DCSWA Professional Development Boot Camp starts at 4 p.m. ET on Sunday, January 21, with a practical Zoom workshop on identifying and improving your writing voice, plus a discussion of the best ChatGPT practices and pitfalls during the writing process. From Monday to Saturday, you’ll receive daily emails from Zvirzdin on Lessons I through VI, accompanied by manageable reading and writing assignments (skimming 20–40 pages a day, writing 100 words a day). 

The boot camp concludes on Sunday, January 28, with another virtual workshop on how to write cover letters/pitches and industry secrets on how to increase your publication odds. After each workshop, you’ll have a chance to meet and develop working relationships with other science writers, with opportunities to interact during the week. This workshop is meant to be intensive but amenable to working professionals with families.

As part of the course, you are invited to obtain your own copy of the Subatomic Writing textbook to “binge-skim” during the boot camp. The textbook is based on an analogy that particles of language are like particles of matter, but no previous expertise in (or love of) physics is required, just a willingness to engage with the material and improve in all the small stuff of writing. You can find the book at your local library or purchase the book through Johns Hopkins University Press, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, or your local bookstore. There is no punishment if you do not finish (or even start) the book! However, the reward for binge-skimming Subatomic Writing is facing your own writing demons, learning how to “go subatomic” during the revision process, and deepening your mastery of moving all the particles of language around with more precision and concision.

More About Jamie Zvirzdin

Zvirzdin received the Teaching in Excellence Award in 2017 and the Distinguished Professional Achievement Award in 2023, both from JHU. Many of her former JHU students go on to publish in major outlets. Zvirzdin’s former high school student, Sophia Fratta, won the 2023 Gold Medal Writing Portfolio Award from Scholastic—one of the highest honors offered to high school students—and Sophia’s science portfolio, ROOTED, was sponsored by the New York Times

Starting as a freelance editor, Zvirzdin edited science newspaper articles and upper-level STEM textbooks for ten years, then received an MFA in Writing & Literature from Bennington College and published science articles and essays in The AtlanticThe Kenyon ReviewIssues in Science & TechnologyOrion MagazineNew RepublicCONSEQUENCE MagazineCreative Nonfiction MagazineBrevity Magazine, and elsewhere. She also researches ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays for the Telescope Array Collaboration, which recently published a study in Science on the detection of Amaterasu, a cosmic ray whose energy rivals only the Oh-My-God particle found in 1991. 

Zvirzdin also writes a monthly science column called Citizen Science for Central New York newspapers. She likes coffee, cats, and StarCraft.

‘Women in Science Now’ book signing (plus discounted holiday shopping & prizes for DCSWA members!)

Join us at Because Science on Saturday, December 2nd from 3:00 – 4:30 pm. DCSWA member Lisa M. P. Munoz will be signing her new book Women in Science Now: Stories and Strategies for Achieving Equity. DCSWA members who attend will receive a 10% off coupon for holiday shopping and can take part in an in-store scavenger hunt to win prizes.

After the event, anyone who’s interested in continuing the conversation can join us at Baja Tap down the street. 

More about Lisa and Women in Science Now:

Women working in the sciences face obstacles at virtually every step along their career paths. From subtle slights to blatant biases, deep systemic problems block women from advancing or push them out of science and technology entirely.

Women in Science Now examines solutions to this persistent gender gap, offering new perspectives on how to make science more equitable and inclusive for all. This book shares stories and insights of women from a range of backgrounds working in various disciplines, illustrating the journeys that brought them to the sciences, the challenges they faced along the way, and the important contributions they have made to their fields. Lisa M. P. Munoz combines these narratives with a wealth of data to illuminate the size and scope of the challenges women scientists face, while highlighting research-based solutions to help overcome these obstacles. She presents groundbreaking studies in social psychology and organizational behavior that are informing novel approaches for combating historic and ongoing inequities.

Through a combined focus on personal experiences and social-science research, this timely book provides both a path toward greater gender equity and an inspiring vision of science and scientists.

Lisa M. P. Munoz is a science writer and the founder and president of SciComm Services, a science communications consulting firm. A former journalist and press officer, she has more than twenty years of experience crafting science content for scientists and the public alike. Munoz holds an engineering degree from Cornell University.

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The D.C. Science Writers Association is a group of journalists, writers, public information officers (PIOs), and audio and video producers who cover breaking research, science and technology. Our events bring together science writers for socializing, networking, science-based tours and events, and professional development workshops. The D.C. Science Writers Association is dedicated to providing a safe and welcoming experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, national origin, or religion. DCSWA does not tolerate harassment of members in any form.