Siri Carpenter on Why She Self-Published First — and How It Led to a Traditional Book Deal

Siri, you've worn so many hats during the course of your career.

You're a science writer.

You're an editor.

You're an educator.

You are also the executive director of The Open Notebook.

Will you tell me a little bit about all of these various roles and how they've led you to where you are now?

I started out in science.

I was getting my PhD in social psychology when I realized that science writing was a job, and that I wanted that job.

And for a long time in my career, I was mostly freelance.

I was, I was writing for a variety of magazines and newspapers and websites, and kind of learning on the job.

I started having in my sights the idea of turning this little labor of love side project, The Open Notebook, into something bigger and something that could eventually be my job.

Can you tell us a little bit about The Open Notebook and the impetus for founding it, and why it's so important not only to you, but to science journalism and journalism more broadly?

As I was moving along in my, in my freelance career, um, sometimes I just kind of felt-- One, I felt lonely.

I just, I didn't feel like I had a real community of people around me who were doing what I did, and who I could compare notes with and troubleshoot with, and so on.

But I got to be friends with, um, a woman named Jeannie Erdmann, who is a health and medical journalist based in Missouri, and a lot of times we found ourselves talking about stories that we had just read that we liked, and, you know, we'd say like, "I wonder how that person got that idea for that story," or, "I wonder how they began to report it." And somewhere along the way, we had the idea of, just kind of for our own edification, to interview a bunch of science writers about specific stories that we had read and liked and admired.

And then we were like, "You know, these are really interesting.

You know, maybe some other people would think they're interesting, too.

Maybe we should put them up on the internet somewhere." But it was just really a little side, um, project for us, and not something that we ever intended to grow into a major nonprofit organization.

[chuckles]

Yeah, what it is today.

I-- When wa- when was this? What year was this?

Uh, that was 2010.

We just celebrated our 15th anniversary.

Siri, you've worn so many hats during the course of your career.

You're a science writer.

You're an editor.

You're an educator.

You are also the executive director of The Open Notebook.

Will you tell me a little bit about all of these various roles and how they've led you to where you are now?

I started out in science.

I was getting my PhD in social psychology when I realized that science writing was a job, and that I wanted that job.

And for a long time in my career, I was mostly freelance.

I was, I was writing for a variety of magazines and newspapers and websites, and kind of learning on the job.

I started having in my sights the idea of turning this little labor of love side project, The Open Notebook, into something bigger and something that could eventually be my job.

Can you tell us a little bit about The Open Notebook and the impetus for founding it, and why it's so important not only to you, but to science journalism and journalism more broadly?

As I was moving along in my, in my freelance career, um, sometimes I just kind of felt-- One, I felt lonely.

I just, I didn't feel like I had a real community of people around me who were doing what I did, and who I could compare notes with and troubleshoot with, and so on.

But I got to be friends with, um, a woman named Jeannie Erdmann, who is a health and medical journalist based in Missouri, and a lot of times we found ourselves talking about stories that we had just read that we liked, and, you know, we'd say like, "I wonder how that person got that idea for that story," or, "I wonder how they began to report it." And somewhere along the way, we had the idea of, just kind of for our own edification, to interview a bunch of science writers about specific stories that we had read and liked and admired.

And then we were like, "You know, these are really interesting.

You know, maybe some other people would think they're interesting, too.

Maybe we should put them up on the internet somewhere." But it was just really a little side, um, project for us, and not something that we ever intended to grow into a major nonprofit organization.

[chuckles]

Yeah, what it is today.

I-- When wa- when was this? What year was this?

Uh, that was 2010.

We just celebrated our 15th anniversary.