Best Australian Science Writing 2014

Thank you to Ashley Hay for letting us know all the details.

Submissions close March 31 – don’t miss out!

Submissions have been coming in for this year’s Best Australian Science Writing for the past couple of months now and there’s just over a month remaining for science communicators to submit their words for consideration. It’s a privilege to sit and read all the pieces as they come in – to see some clear themes start to emerge (stories about climate; stories about communication; stories about the scientific process itself, and the ways in which it might be communicated) and to read stories about new work, new people, new places of discovery.

When NewSouth Books asked me to edit this year’s anthology, I found myself thinking of that famous line from Joan Didion’s White Album: “we tell ourselves stories in order to live”. In many ways, it feels like this has never been more true, and it makes me hope that this collection can try to engage a few new readers with a few more of those stories – and entertain them along the way.

Science is full of extraordinary stories: stories of explanation; stories of innovation; stories of the microcosmic and the macrocosmic and everywhere in between. They talk about the past, the present or the future, and often with some of the most interesting and compelling characters you could find. They unravel our world as it is and help us see other ways it might be.

So if you have some science writing of which you’re particularly proud – a news story, an article, an essay, even a poem or a short story – please send it through. You’ll find information about submitting to the anthology at on the NewSouth website (http://www.newsouthpublishing.com/articles/basw-2014-call-entries/), and entries close on March 31.

This will be the anthology’s fourth year (earlier volumes were edited by Stephen Pincock, Elizabeth Finkel, and Jane McCredie and Natasha Mitchell) and the third year that the Bragg UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing is also on offer. (Jo Chandler and Fred Watson are the previous winners of this prize: details on the prize, which has slightly different entry requirements to BASW, can be found here: http://www.newsouthpublishing.com/scienceprize.)

To revisit those past volumes is to get a particular snapshot of each year’s findings, concerns and ideas. I’m looking forward to seeing the final shape this year’s selection of words creates. ­–Ashley Hay

Please send submissions to basw2014@gmail.com for consideration

2 thoughts on “Best Australian Science Writing 2014

  1. For me, the scientific writer is a special profession which enables versatile development but also requires very hard work. You have to be not only a talented writer to convey to the reader all things in simple terms but also know your topic on hundred one percent. I appreciate the fact that among my friends are a lot of talents.- Lisa from http://essaysamurai.com

  2. “Science is full of extraordinary stories: stories of explanation; stories of innovation; stories of the microcosmic and the macrocosmic and everywhere in between. ” – this is indeed true. It is my life’s mission to tell science stories to my daughter.

    – Layceey of http://www.aussiewriter.com

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