Dear Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. This post will be my last and, as such, it gives me cause to reflect on my experience as your writer-in-residence. Before I do, there is one overarching banner I’d like to drape across this post, and it’s Thank you! Thank you all for embracing me, my book project, and the position of writer-in-residence at WID. I leave enriched with the wisdom you shared and the kindness you showed me.

It is every science-curious writer’s dream to have an office nestled between real-life laboratories that are making real-life discoveries. It was the perfect place for me to capture the magic of science for young readers, and I hope that many more writers have the chance to benefit similarly by participating in WID’s unique program.

By Aedan Gardill

Throughout my residency, I enjoyed interviewing many of you and chatting with still more of you over tea and puzzle breaks. During these one-to-ones I learned about what it takes to be a scientist: the rhythm of your days, years, careers, and the joys, obstacles and values that drive you. I listened, mesmerized by your stories. How you conducted experiments in your childhood homes, setting fire to grass and exploding peas! How you developed early fascinations with particular species or ideas and how these interests evolved over time to become both broader and narrower. I learned how your curiosities had been stoked by various role models along the way, be them teachers, parents or famous scientists you had read about. Through conversations on themes such as success, failure, resilience and science at large, I realized that there is no single way of being a scientist, thinking like a scientist, or doing science, and it is that diversity of opinion and life experience that I want to integrate into my writing as I complete my science-based novel for kids.

Alongside interviews, many of you kindly showed me around your labs, explained your experiments, and even helped me to do the experiments that my characters perform in the book. This hands-on experience was super fun and hugely helpful (even if I did faint at the sight of my own blood under a microscope…) because doing science made me think like a scientist and, therefore, like many of my characters as well.

I will always remember WID as a hub of deeply passionate, brilliant, big-picture thinkers working to alleviate some of humanities most pressing issues. I hope that, in the future, my novel can inspire readers as you did me! I wish each and every one of you all the best in your endeavors and thank you so much for the opportunity to be your second writer-in-residence!

-Kayla Cohen