I do/teach/breathe science, science writing, and writing. Thanks for visiting.
Jamie Zvirzdin
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Publications

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Subatomic Writing: Six Fundamental Lessons
to Make Language Matter

Johns Hopkins University Press
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A thought experiment designed to reduce chaos in your writing. See www.subatomicwriting.com for the teaser trailer and blurbs!

Publication date: February 21, 2023
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"Dust to Dust: The Cosmic Perspective"

Microlit Almanac

A science sonnet + creation story—a poem + prose flash-nonfiction piece about offering comfort while teaching astronomy in Nicaragua. 
​www.birchbarkediting.com/microlit-almanac/dust-to-dust-zvirzdin

Publication date: February 16, 2023
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Monthly Newspaper Column: Citizen Science

The Freeman's Journal (newspaper), Hometown Oneonta (newspaper), and ​AllOtsego.com (online version), central New York

1/25/23 "Introducing Citizen Science: Finding Intellectual Security"
www.allotsego.com/citizen-science-introduction-to-citizen-science-finding-intellectual-security/ (p. 8 of 1/26/23 newspapers)
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The Complicated Truth of Climate Change
in the Marshall Islands

​The New Republic
January 1, 2021
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Personal essay about how living in the Marshall Islands eroded, shifted, and rebuilt my perceptions of both myself and coral atolls. Also discusses the need for nuanced, science-based climate change narratives.

https://newrepublic.com/article/160768/complicated-truth-climate-change-marshall-islands​

Free download of brochure mentioned in the essay:
University of Hawai'i Sea Grant, A Landowner's Guide to Coastal Protection
​
November 2012
a_landowners_guide_to_coastal_protection_nov_2012.pdf
File Size: 21345 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

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"6 Ways to Calculate a Universe in Flux"

Orion Magazine
Enumeration
September 26, 2019
 
Lyric essay in Autumn 2019 issue on unnatural borders. It describes how my son, diagnosed with ASD, handled our frequent moves in the Foreign Service with the help of a calculator.
​https://orionmagazine.org/article/6-ways-to-calculate-a-universe-in-flux/
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"I Fell Under the Spell of NASA's Most Notorious Thief"

The Atlantic
Science Section
February 15, 2019

Science article about my curious relationship with a curious criminal. 

"Walking by Dogs on a Marshallese Morning"

Brevity Magazine
One-Minute Memoir 
​September 4, 2018

Flash-nonfiction piece about walking with women on Majuro Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Starts at minute 33.
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"The Makeup of a Monster"

Creative Nonfiction Magazine Issue #66
Dangerous Creations: Real-Life Frankenstein Stories Issue
March 2018

Now available online! 
https://creativenonfiction.org/writing/the-makeup-of-a-monster/

Nonfiction essay on the similarity of makeup techniques for both monsters and models, with a historical look at what Boris Karloff's Frankenstein makeup regimen cost him. Includes interviews with my sisters and my mother, all makeup artists.
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"On the Revolution of Revolutions: Nicaraguan Women After War"

CONSEQUENCE Magazine 
Ten-Year Anniversary Issue
​February 2018
Read online here.

Nonfiction essay asking Nicaraguan women if, like the planets, their status and opportunities as women have come full circle even after a political revolution. Includes interviews with former Sandinista commander Dora María Téllez and one of her hostages.
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"'Shuddering Before the Beautiful':
​Trains of Thought Across the Mormon Cosmos"

Creative Nonfiction Magazine (Issue #65) and ​Issues in Science & Technology Magazine
Special Collaborative Issue on Science & Religion (read online here)
October 2017
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Nonfiction essay on the challenges and harmonies between science and religion. Winner of the $5,000 runner-up prize. Launch event of the two magazines was held on October 13, 2017 at the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington, D.C. Sponsored by the Think Write Publish Foundation.
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"Observations of a Science Editor: If Romantic Scientists Pilfered Fiction's Toolbox, So Can You"

The Kenyon Review
Special Issue: ​"The Poetics of Science"
Fall 2016
Nonfiction essay on the intersection of science and literature, adapted from a lecture given at Bennington College, June 2015. Published September 6, 2016 by The Kenyon Review as the centerpiece of a multi-platform discussion of science writing as literary art. Responses to the essay from scientists, writers, and editors were published throughout September and October 2016.
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​Introduction, posted 8/30/16: Sergei Lobanov-Rostovsky: "Welcome to The Poetics of Science!"

Posted 9/6/16: Justin Wymer: “A Response to Jamie Zvirzdin’s ‘Observations of a Science Editor’”
Posted 9/8/16: Natalie Mesnard: “A Response to Jamie Zvirzdin’s ‘Observations of a Science Editor’”
Posted 9/13/16: Patrick D. Watson: “A Response to Jamie Zvirzdin’s ‘Observations of a Science Editor’”
Posted 9/14/16: Diane K. Martin: “A Response to Jamie Zvirzdin’s ‘Observations of a Science Editor’”
Posted 9/16/16: Jennifer Bowen Hicks: “A Response to Jamie Zvirzdin’s ‘Observations of a Science Editor’”
Posted 9/20/16: Leah Falk: “A Response to Jamie Zvirzdin’s ‘Observations of a Science Editor’”
Posted 9/22/16: Joseph Osmundson: “A Response to Jamie Zvirzdin’s ‘Observations of a Science Editor’”
Posted 9/26/16: L. Shapley Bassen: “A Response to Jamie Zvirzdin’s ‘Observations of a Science Editor’”
Posted 9/28/16: Helen Betya Rubinstein: “A Response to Jamie Zvirzdin’s ‘Observations of a Science Editor’”
Posted 9/30/16: Benjamin Kolp: “A Response to Jamie Zvirzdin’s ‘Observations of a Science Editor’”
Posted 10/4/16: Brian Doyle: “A Response to Jamie Zvirzdin’s ‘Observations of a Science Editor’”
Posted 10/6/16: Karen Luper: “A Response to Jamie Zvirzdin’s ‘Observations of a Science Editor’”
Posted 10/10/16: E. A. Farro: “A Response to Jamie Zvirzdin’s ‘Observations of a Science Editor’”
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Fresh Courage Take: New Directions by Mormon Women

Nonfiction anthology project published July 2015 by Signature Books. Book is available on Amazon here. Nominated by the John Whitmer Historical Association for 2016 Best Anthology and a finalist for the 2015 Smith-Pettit Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mormon Letters in Creative Nonfiction.

Joanna Brooks, a Mormon feminist and the author of The Book of Mormon Girl, has written the foreword for this book.

More about this book here!
Fresh Courage Take

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"Gaia Mission versus Star Trek: The Data Challenge"

Nonfiction science article published here on Gigaom's Science & Energy page. Published October 11, 2014. Summary: To gather precise data on more than a billion stars and other phenomena in our galaxy requires some intense data collection equipment and processing tools.
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"On Inhaling Books"

Room Magazine
"Geek Girls" edition, Volume 37.3

Nonfiction article on the science and hobby of smelling books, published September 2014 in Room, Canada's oldest literary journal by and about women. Copies can be purchased for USD $12.00 here.
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My Story as a Survivor of U.S. Nuclear Tests in the Marshall Islands

By Katner Tima, edited by Jamie Zvirzdin. A short memoir detailing Tima's experience surviving the fallout from the Castle Bravo nuclear test, which was conducted by the United States government in the Marshall Islands on March 1, 1954. Kindle version free for Amazon Prime members.

The Unbound Bookmaker Project: Marshallese-English Children's Books

Click here for more information on the creation and completion of this project.
Books written and illustrated by children in the Marshall Islands.
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"Look at That Fat White Baby: Moving to a Developing Country"

Essay in Moving Your Household Without Losing Your Mind about the experience moving to the Marshall Islands and the delights and difficulties of adjusting to a new culture. This book, a collection of essays from Foreign Service officers and their family members, is the first in a series detailing life in the American Foreign Service. It was published May 2013 and was sponsored by the Associates of the American Foreign Service Worldwide (AAFSW).

A large portion of the essay can be read via Amazon's "Look Inside" feature. (Click on the thumbnail image for link.) More about this project is described here.
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Illustration & The Divine Comedy

Ghostwriter/Translator for Wolfango Peretti Poggi, a celebrated local painter in Bologna, Italy, who illustrated all of Dante's ​Divine Comedy. This booklet was prepared for Peretti's lecture series at Notre Dame University, Chicago, April 1–2, 2009.


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Goldilocks II

Mrs. Caldwell's fifth-grade class, 1995. Goldilocks breaks into a dentistry.
© Jamie Zvirzdin 2023. All Rights Reserved