Monday, April 7, 5 pm, at the University of Vermont, I’ll talk about how to shape a mess of reading and reporting into a magazine story — specifically, “Beautiful Brains,” my National Geographic cover story about adolescent brain and behavior.

If you’re around Burlington, come join us. Event is free and open to the public. Here’s a map showing Old Mill, the building in which you’ll find the Dewey Lounge, where the talk will take place.

And here’s the full event description from the UVM press office. Below that you can find some related reading. 

Award-winning science and medical writer David Dobbs will speak on campus Monday, April 7, from 5 to 6:30 p.m. in John Dewey Lounge, Old Mill. The free, public event, “An Evening with David Dobbs,” is hosted by the Department of English and English 1. Dobbs’ work has been featured in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, National Geographic, The Atlantic, Slate, Wired, NewYorker.com, and The Best American Science and Nature Writing. Also the author of four books, Dobbs is particularly adept at making issues in science and medicine accessible and engaging to a broader audience. In this talk, Dobbs will draw on his recent National Geographic cover story, “Beautiful Brains,” to discuss with students how he handles challenges in research and writing.

Information: 802 656-3056

Map: http://j.mp/QI2B1G

Related reading:

Paris Review – The Art of Nonfiction No. 3, John McPhee Solid gold, with some especially rich discussion of structure. For more that, see John McPhee: Structure, at The New Yorker

Paris Review – The Art of Nonfiction No. 4, Janet Malcolm

How I Write: With Spies, Revolvers, Whiskey, and Luck

How To End a Story – One Minute Wisdom via The Open Notebook

How To Pick Apart Great Writing: Joan Didion on Ernest Hemingway

At first, even Michael Lewis sucked. Here’s how he got better.