Ali Hazelwood, STEM backdrops and feel-good storylines..
Last week at a Science Journalism workshop at CCMB, I found myself surrounded by some very capable young Phd scholars and science journalists. I sheepishly brought up my newfound love for Ali Hazelwood. Ali is the writer behind many of my latest obsessions, including ‘Love on the Brain’.
Love on the brain is a book I love, most ardently, and one I gush about to anyone who cares to listen. It is a romance novel but set against a S(Science) T(Technology) E (Engineering)Mathematics and academia backdrop.
Ali is a pseudonym that is used by an Italian neuroscientist who is now a professor and lives in the States, but she remains elusive and away from the public eye.
[Back to the workshop] The women on the table with me is not snicker as I continued to talk about Ali’s work. Their excitement felt genuine.
As I got the green light I was seeking, I continued to talk about Ali, which led to google searches that reported that she was Italian.
For the heck of it and because Italian is a beautiful language, I would now like to insert the few choice Italian words I know. La dolce vita — belissimo — prego — buenosera — arrividerchi. Thank you for indulging me, but I think it’s time to hang my hat up and say Ciao (I know that arrividerci is spelled incorrectly but oh well. But I apologize to my Italian brethren. As stated earlier I will now stop).
I have to confess that when I began writing this story with my morning cup of blue tokai coffee, I thought I wanted to draw some parallels between me discussing this writer who wrote about romance and love at a science workshop, amongst these intellectuals, almost scared that I would be ostracized for my trivial interests. But this is starting to sound alot like promotional material (which I promise you is in no way sponsored or commissioned),just me being enamored by another cool woman.
But here we are! Over the past year, I have owned my work title of ‘Science Writer’ and, in some capacity, a science communicator. But through the year I found myself doing most “sciencey” things like a chore while I used my spare time to indulge in what I deemed fun stuff. Oh, the irony!
Over the course of the year, I read a few books, where the chunk of books I consumed were non-literary or just not about science or writing. With a smattering of books on how to communicate about science, a Stephen Hawkins memoir on writing or songs of a cell by Siddhartha Mukherjee(that still remains unread) my interests were undeniable.
Among the books I added to my kindle library, I had the books I thought I should read to ‘make me smart’ and the books I just wanted to read for purely entertainment purposes.
Before I started work, I looked up sci-fi books and came across the dune series. I am saddened to report that this has not been touched yet. I also read some Andy Weir and bought a book my friend Ramita recommended called ‘Flowers of Algernon’. The book had potential, but alas lies in the pile of books that remain untouched.
This post may seem like I’m name dropping and the honest truth is… that I really am. To be in the profession of writing or something similar, you find yourself with the age-old conundrum of reading for pleasure versus reading for skills and knowledge and ‘all that jazz’..but the heart does win this battle most of the time. Maybe I made reading some books for work a chore, a textbook I could fall asleep to. Except in this case it wasn’t as simple as a mid term examination or a pass or fail but a precariously held reign of your future work self.
[Let me pulling back to the science journalism workshop] By the end of the day I realized something I thought was profound. Those that have interacted with me in the past year would have told you this without much thought though. It was harder for me to recognize my own follies as I patiently got used to the grind and the chore of writing and reading and communicating.
But this begs the question : As writers and creatives how important is it for your passion and interests to align with the work you pursue?
I would think that my sister (who is a lawyer) reads through depositions and large legal documents does not love every single page of the document she is reading, but the entire process is still interesting? Enough for her to do it for a long time.
But maybe, some work tasks are meant to be mundane and dull, with a whole lotta grime work. To get from that work-in-progress draft to the final pages of that last chapter.
