The Write Stiles Blog Intro

Yo! Welcome to the new year and the first of many blog posts.

To make sense of the random topics you’ll see in the future, you need to understand a few things about my life so far. I considered describing it in a 27-volume epic poem or making an autobiographical R&B album, but I’m lazy and can’t sing so I’ll just hit you with the highlights.

Many other authors have always wanted to be writers. Not me. I basically started writing three years ago. In fact, I did not always want to be anything—for a lot of reasons. Due to lack of awareness, lack of options, and other issues, I didn’t pursue my first “real” interest until college.

Look at him smiling at the camera. He doesn’t know he’s got over 200 more experiments to do before he graduates.

The thing I first really got into was science. And honestly, it was mostly because I was headhunted for a program that paid my tuition and gave me a stipend for working in a lab. It was the first interest I was truly made aware of that ticked all of the standard person-from-the-hood-trying-to-do-better checkboxes: Stay in school. Get a job. Do something respectable. Even with this interest though, I didn’t start until relatively late (the summer before my junior year). I spent most of it, and my following college years, teaching rats how to push levers and pull chains for food to learn more about the process of learning. Since I was already trained in academic science and didn’t know what else to do, I just kept following the path.

Eventually, I went to grad school for neuroscience and did new experiments trying to figure out how aerobic exercise enhances memory. Most days I collected and studied thin slices of brains to figure out if cells in an area dedicated to decision-making and memory changed because of exercise. I committed myself to it and began to love learning about new research in my field of science and other fields.

Check out my 3-minute award winning sci-comm talk and the hilarious judge Q&A by clicking the image.

Too often though, what happens in the lab…stays in the lab (or in jargon-filled science articles). I wanted to address that, so I got heavily involved in science communication—telling true stories about research so everyone can appreciate it. I did a bunch of things: made a couple of videos explaining complex science topics, went to local schools to talk about my research, and placed first in a NASA and National Geographic-hosted science communication tournament, competing against roughly 90 other US scientists (think American Idol meets Bill Nye). Through all of this, I figured out what I really enjoyed was informing people and engaging them.

Hear the full story “Falsely Accused” by clicking the image.

On my journey in science (though not necessarily in this order), there were also some not-so-great things. The TL;DR of one incident is that I was accused of stealing cocaine from a lab I worked at. Fun fact: Unless you’re Walter White, no one spends all their time in a lab to become drug dealer. This incident and other events I experienced or saw made me question the idea that science is “above” things like this—or that any place is. Since then, I’ve read many scientific articles, connected with minority colleagues about their experiences, and assessed publicly available stats on gendered and minority outcomes in society and the scientific workforce more deeply—which are often nebulously labeled as “diversity issues.” All of these experiences and info force me to think about certain questions: Who is reflexively given the mantle of being “an authority” in ambiguous situations? Who is implicitly less credible ? How do structural and institutional imbalances feed into all of this?

After I graduated from my neuroscience Ph.D. program, I felt a huge void after I decided to move on. Since midway through college, most of my time and thoughts had solely been focused on science. Doing experiments. Reading science articles. That’s it. Luckily, I had stumbled upon a few recent sci-fi books (including The Fifth Season and All the Birds in the Sky) and got hooked on the idea of writing fiction. Finally, I felt like I found something that was specifically for me. Not because it made me look like a “respectable” minority or made money or had anything to do with school—but purely and simply because I wanted to do it. It was the first deep interest that organically grew from my passions.

When I started putting pen to paper, I learned that I really enjoyed sprinkling a dash of real science into my stories because I think sci-fi is more impactful when the ‘fi’ is based on the ‘sci’. You get to explore the philosophical ramifications, not of discoveries that might be invented—but of those that have and will affect your world. (You can read more about my growing list of publications that feature a dash of ‘sci’ at the published works page.)

So overall, what should you expect from this blog? Basically, everything I mentioned (or bolded). Because of my journey and “write what you know”, I plan on discussing science, diversity, science communication, sci-fi, writing, and interrelated topics. Also, if there are any ideas that you think would be interesting for me to write about, feel free to drop some hot topics in the comment section below.

I promise I’ve got some really great sci-fi stories on the way. Thanks for reading!