Los Angeles freelance science writer and editor
The standard sterile classroom environment-fluorescent lights, pale yellow paint on cinder block walls, a blackboard-emphasized the drudgery ahead for learning a language. It was also January, the darkest part of the year, the rainiest part of the year, when I began Norwegian class in Folkeuniversitetet in the Bergen city center on the southwest coast of... Continue Reading →
You never know how Christmas is going to fall out. Even with the simplest of plans. A few days before Christmas, my brother’s wife panicked about the prosciutto crudo, the cured ham sliced from, depending on the source, a special breed of pig legs. The Bristol Farms in the area had closed, and it was... Continue Reading →
Slump City these days in my creative life. Even my painting has fallen out of its orbit. And the one little painting I sold got held up in the mail for over two weeks. I panicked, imagined an original work of art lying on a cold dirty floor or blowing like a discarded plastic bag... Continue Reading →
It's that time of year again, the Easy Reader News writing and photo contest. I didn't win, but they published my story and my photo. It's really about how art is not so easy even though it might look simple. Here's the link: Behind every good photo is a good story.
The revelation after my six years of study and lab work to complete a PhD in biology is that I wasn’t on an automatic path to career fulfillment, or happiness. And I had an envious PhD experience. My principal investigator had a clear vision. He was so sure about his goals that our only problem... Continue Reading →
My idea of a digital nomad: running an international business from my computer in a country where I could afford to have a small cottage by the sea. After returning from my seven-year stint abroad in Norway, I thought I would stay in the USA until I got my editing and writing business going and... Continue Reading →
Slow and travel are two words that don’t seem to belong together. But slow travel is a philosophy, an attitude. It’s the kind of travel where you stay in one place for a while to know it rather than the touch and go style of travel where you say you’ve been everywhere but leave your heart... Continue Reading →
I’m about to launch a second book. On my own. In just a few days. It’s a little more than a collection of some of my travel essays and stories I’ve been posting on my blog. A few stories are "new". Some I cover without enough detail, maybe because there’s too much there to write... Continue Reading →
Someone asked me after I got vaccinated why I got vaccinated. I have science based reasons (as a biologist, I get asked a lot)-that the technology has been around for a couple of decades, it’s been used safely for other infectious diseases and cancer, and it’s less of a risk than getting COVID. But I follow... Continue Reading →
I enter a story in the Easy Reader contest for writing and photography each year. They usually print my stories about my adventures as honorable mention. This year I wasn't sure they would print it, as it's more of a personal essay (a shorter version of a post from a few months ago). But they... Continue Reading →
Janice Nigro 