URMA Live Sept. 2026: Bringing Science Stories to Life

Speakers: Joe Fassler and Sam Apple, director and assistant director of the MA in Science Writing program at Johns Hopkins Science and health stories come ready-made with human drama — the researcher's quest to solve a longstanding puzzle, the patient's search for a life-saving treatment. Yet telling these stories in a captivating way can be challenging, even for skilled journalists. In this interactive presentation, the leaders of the Johns Hopkins MA in Science Writing program will discuss how to bring science and health articles to life. Topics covered will include how to distinguish between a "topic" and a "story," how to tell a great story in your lede, and how to write a nut graph that leaves readers hungry for more information.  Joe Fassler is the author of two books: Light the Dark: Authors on Writing, Creativity, and the Artistic Process, which builds on his "By Heart" column for The Atlantic, and a novel, The Sky Was Ours. His reporting and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Bloomberg Businessweek, Fast Company, Wired, and many other publications. Sam Apple is the author of three books, including his most recent, Ravenous: Otto Warburg, The Nazis, and the Search for the Cancer-Diet Connection. Apple’s work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Wired, The Los Angeles Times, The Financial Times Magazine, ESPN The Magazine, The MIT Technology Review, and McSweeney’s, among many other publications. He was a finalist for the PEN America Award for a first work of nonfiction.