CREW 352: CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP: Science Writing
(20 points)
This is a creative writing workshop focusing on science subjects. Science writing, in this context, is aimed at a general audience and uses the techniques of narrative fiction – such as metaphor, personal anecdote, even humour – to illuminate scientific principles, offer insight into the human condition or our place in the universe, or persuade us of the significance of particular scientific conclusions.
In practice, science writing tends to take forms such as essays, magazine or journal articles, travel narratives, blogs and many other forms of online writing, and even biography and memoir. In this course, students will explore a diverse range of science writing possibilities and will also be able to focus on a particular area of interest. Weekly workshops will be held for the discussion of readings, set exercises, and students’ work in progress. The Course Reader contains characteristic samples and examples and will be available from vicbooks from June.
The conveners of the Science Writing Workshop are Ashleigh Young (course coordinator) and Dr Rebecca Priestley.
Ashleigh Young is an editor at Victoria University Press. She has a special interest in creative nonfiction. Her collection of creative nonfiction won the Adam Foundation
Prize and an essay from the collection won the 2009 Landfall Essay Competition.
She has published a poetry collection, Magnificent Moon , and her essays have appeared in Sport , the Griffith Review , Five Dials , and on her personal blog, eyelashroaming.com
.
Ashleigh writes: To borrow a quote from Steve Braunias, judge of the 2012 Royal
Society of NZ Manhire Prize for Creative Science Writing: ‘Science is universal, science is social – and science is also thrillingly personal.’ In writing creatively about science, it’s possible to be seriously informative as well as human . How can we tell the stories of science in a way that is meaningful to a general audience? How can we educate as well as excite? These are just some of the questions we’ll explore on this course.
Rebecca Priestley is senior lecturer in the Science in Society group in the Faculty of
Science, and an award-winning science writer. Her books include Mad on Radium:
New Zealand in the Atomic Age , The Awa Book of New Zealand Science , and
Atoms, Dinosaurs, & DNA. She writes a fortnightly science column in the New
Zealand Listener and has contributed to publications such as Scientific American
Online , New Zealand Geographic, Te Ara: Encyclopedia of New Zealand and the
Griffith Review . She blogs at rebeccapriestley.com
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International Institute of Modern Letters
Victoria University of Wellington, P O Box 600, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
ENQUIRIES: Tel (04) 463 6854 Email modernletters@vuw.ac.nz
Website: www.vuw.ac.nz/modernletters
Updated 28/7/16

Who Should Apply
This course would be ideal for science students wishing to develop their creative talent and for creative students with an interest in science. No previous experience with writing workshops is required. Writers from all disciplines are encouraged to apply. CREW 352 points can count as either humanities credits or science credits
(and can contribute to a minor in Science in Context).
How to Enrol
Enrolment in CREW 352 is limited to 12 students. The prerequisite is 60 points at
200 level and the approval of the programme director. Because of demand for places the quality of the writing sample which accompanies applications is critical in deciding admissions.
Application and enrolment: must be lodged online. Go to this link: https://signups.victoria.ac.nz/oes/ .
Prospective applicants are recommended to visit the How to Apply page of the website. Go to www.victoria.ac.nz/modernletters for more details.
Workshops
Where: The IIML, 16 Waiteata Road, Kelburn Campus
When: Trimester 2, Tuesdays 2 –5pm.
Assessment
The course is assessed by a folio of writing submitted immediately after the final workshop. Folios are examined on a pass/fail basis by the Course Convenors and one external reader.
Reading
A Course Reader will be available from the IIML prior to commencement of the course. The readings will also be available on Blackboard. The course convenors may distribute further texts in class and make reading suggestions based on your individual project. For example, The Exercise Book presents favourite writing exercises across a variety of genres, including poetry, prose and scriptwriting. The exercises for science writing will differ somewhat from those included in The Exercise
Book and on our blog, but the basic framework of the exercises, and their purpose of generating new writing, are very similar.
Please note that our workshops are not a classroom version of a writing manual: we do not teach a specific set of predetermined skills. Our aim is to develop the imaginative capacity and individual literary skills of emerging writers in a stimulating workshop environment.