BAD DIRECTIONS ISSUE #12 PUBLISHED
The twelfth issue of Bad Directions, my monthly newsletter about writing and travel, is out! Subscribers get to read an interview with a book designer and my recommendations for shows about statecraft. Subscribers also have access to all previously published editions, which include stories from Paris and Budapest (Issue #2), Baja (Issue #3), Ellis Island […]
BAD DIRECTIONS ISSUE #11 PUBLISHED
The eleventh issue of Bad Directions, my monthly newsletter about writing and travel, is out! Subscribers get to read about a heavenly Mexican beachtown, a new highway in Oaxaca, and five places to find top-notch travel writing. Plus, a roundup of writing and publishing advice from authors and booksellers. Subscribers also have access to all […]
Bad Directions Issue #8 Published
The eighth issue of Bad Directions, my monthly newsletter on writing and travel, was published on November 26th, 2023. Subscribers get to read about Puerto Rico, Toronto, my forthcoming novel, and tech that has changed the way we travel.
The Writers’ Carnival Comes to Town
The AWP Conference and Bookfair descends on Seattle in a few weeks. Ten thousand writers are expected to attend in the city’s sparkling, newly remodeled convention center. If you think that sounds overwhelming, you’re not alone: Several fully legit writer friends have told me they don’t attend because they feel like it’s not “for them” or because it would make them anxious.
But for some – especially anyone who’s done an MFA or taught at a university – it’s the reunion of the year, an opportunity to do the things people do at conferences for bankers and marketers and software vendors: network, stay up late, break a few New Year’s resolutions. Writer Carolyn Kellogg called it a “roving literary carnival.” This year’s is bound to be the biggest AWP since the pandemic began. With hundreds of panels and God knows how many offsite events, the FOMO alone could knock you out.
I’m not a regular AWP attendee, but this year it’s in my city so I’ll make the rounds as best I can. My writing group is using it as an excuse to get our two out-of-towners into the city for lunch. I know writers returning from Belize and Korea to attend. We’re hosting a charming visitor from Florida in the guest bedroom. And Min Jin Lee is the keynote speaker, hurrah!
Heading in. Wish me luck.
REVISITING LAB LEAKS
Before Covid-19, and the current effort to figure out its origins, I began work on my story Hot Zone in the Heartland, co-published by The New Yorker and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. It’s about the risks posed by high-containment laboratories — those rated BSL-3 or BSL-4 — where scientists handle the most lethal and contagious diseases.
My story explored why the US government is putting such a lab smack in the middle of Kansas, where a leak could destroy the beef industry, as well as why it is allowing them to be built at an exponential rate despite the risks.
The piece was published a year ago this week, just as the world was locking down to contain a rampant pandemic and spiking death rate. When someone asked me in an interview about the origins of the virus, I said it came from bats. Which it originally did.
What we still don’t know is the trajectory Covid-19 took from bats to humans, and whether the virus happened to pass through, or change within, any high-containment labs. (More…)
WHY IS AMERICA GETTING A NEW $100 BILLION NUCLEAR WEAPON?
Today, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published my story by that title, in which I try to answer the question.
This piece took me from Montana missile fields to a Utah rocket-testing range to an underground launch control center — as well as into the lobbying records of major weapons makers. (More…)