Writers’ Rough Drafts – Episode #51 With Heidi Gardner

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Heidi Gardner is a scientist, researcher, blogger, entrepreneur, and activist. While her “full-time gig” is as a research fellow at the Health Services Research Unit at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, after receiving her bachelor’s degree in pharmacology and her doctorate in participant recruitment, she has a lot more going on besides her fascination and love affair with science and improving participant trial experience.

This year, Heidi embarked on an international odyssey as a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust fellow—visiting art installations, chatting to professors and female scientists, and reading tomes upon tomes worth of articles and literature in North America, Europe, and Asia—to find interesting and unique ways that people share scientific research and results so it is more accessible to, and engaging for, the general public. A regular blogger herself, she updates her site with posts not only about her work and pursuits, but also her life as a woman in science and as a human on planet Earth. Which is part of her “side hustle,” an Etsy store and ecommerce brand called “Science on a Postcard,” a fun project that helps to see science in a new light.

What You’ll Learn About Writing This Week:

• Why you need confidence to break writing rules
• The importance of finding gatekeepers and peers who are “on your team”
• How blogs can serve as a great place for a “brain dump”
• Why we should tap into our creativity and retrain our brain to think more creatively, even if you think you’re a “noncreative” person
• How you should find specific sources, information, and experiences to share that no one has written about before
• Why not only being creative but being able to explain parts of that creativity to others often bring you more collaboration and readers
• How we, as writers, can try to write more humanly and less pretentiously no matter what industry we’re in

Mentioned in This Episode (Links and Resources!):

• Her Etsy website, Science on a Postcard
• Winston Churchill Memorial Trust
• National Portrait Gallery
• Elisa’s piece on her writing process and the scientific process

You Can Find More of Heidi and Her Writing On:

• Her blog/website, heidirgardner.com
• Her Twitter account, @heidirgardner

Tweetable Quotes From This Episode:

• “Why am I writing for other people when I don’t have a little corner of the internet for myself?” – @heidirgardner on #WritersRoughDrafts
• On making science writing more accessible: “If it’s easier for the public to understand, then surely it’s easier for scientists to understand … it benefits everyone.” – @heidirgardner on #WritersRoughDrafts
• “Science is an inherently creative thing, and just because we’ve been told for decades that it’s not doesn’t mean it’s not creative.” – @heidirgardner on #WritersRoughDrafts
• On the expectations of scientists: “We’re all human, and often the fact that we’re told that others have a hidden agenda makes communication completely break down.” – @heidirgardner on #WritersRoughDrafts
• “If anybody is going to succeed in life, science, whatever, we need to collaborate more and be less precious about our own skills … What’s the harm in bringing [creatives] in to work with me and not for me? It’s an even relationship.” – @heidirgardner on #WritersRoughDrafts
• “A PhD … is like writing; your project develops faster than you at some point, and you have to rein it back in at some point to refocus and make sure your message is still clear.” – @heidirgardner on #WritersRoughDrafts
• “For writers: Get in touch with scientists. They have cool stories to tell, but they just don’t know how to tell them.” – @heidirgardner on #WritersRoughDrafts

Thanks to our Season 4 sponsor: Coworker.com