Science-Medical Writing at Hopkins
Become a Journalist, Essayist, Author
or Professional Writer in Health, Medicine,
Nature, Technology, or Related Fields
Prestige, Quality, Value: Our graduate writing program reflects the international reputation for academic quality, creative innovation, and professional value at Johns Hopkins University, a pioneer in research, writing, science, and medicine.
- Experience exciting classes inside world-famous Johns Hopkins Hospital, learning directly from doctors about the challenges of practicing medicine.
- Study conveniently near the Metro at Dupont Circle in Washington or at our main Homewood campus in Baltimore.
- Learn from nationally known, award-winning writers, editors, and leaders in U.S. science writing organizations.
- Develop your work in writing workshops that target magazines, newsletters, websites, journals, newspapers, and books.
- Take only one or two courses or earn a full graduate degree in evening and weekend classes designed for working adults.
- Critically examine the best medical and science literature, and learn how politics and lobbying affect health and science policy.
- Observe and interview renowned scientists in their own labs.
- Apply and start year-round; study at your own pace.
Read below for more information about our graduate writing program in science-medical writing – its courses, teachers, and what it might help you achieve. Or contact program director David Everett at deverett@jhu.edu for more information.
What Our Students and Graduates Have Achieved
Science-Medical Writing students and alumni publish in or edit magazines, websites, newspapers, newsletters, literary journals, trade publications, and many other venues. Since 1994, they have been among the Writing Program students and graduates who have published scores of articles, short stories, poems, essays and other work, including 52 books and counting -- novels, essay/short story/poetry collections, history, travel, memoir, science, narrative journalism, consumer, nature, creative nonfiction, medicine, and architecture. Our program students’ or graduates’ work has appeared in National Geographic, Washington Post, Smithsonian, GQ, New York Times, Salon.com, Esquire, USA Today, National Public Radio, Preservation magazine, ABC News / Nightline, WebMD, Los Angeles Times, USA Weekend, and Washingtonian, among many other venues. Students also work or contribute to publications at: National Institutes of Health, American Association for the Advancement of Science, U.S. Senate Energy Committee, American Chemical Society, Johns Hopkins Hospital and School of Medicine, School of Public Health, and Johns Hopkins Magazine, American Association of Retired Persons, American Red Cross, The Brookings Institution, American Geophysical Union, and many federal departments and agencies. Graduates of our program also regularly earn adjunct teaching jobs in composition, writing, and journalism at a range of universities, including University of Maryland, American University, George Washington University, Towson University, Georgetown University, and many others.
A Sampling of Our Students’ and Graduates’ Writing and Honors
- Mike Klesius, freelance writer, former staff writer at National Geographic, was published in Best American Science Writing 2003 (chosen by Oliver Sacks)
- Molly Caldwell Crosby’s book, American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic that Shaped Our History, was a Barnes and Noble “Discover Great New Writers” winner.
- Nonfiction student Monica Hesse was recently hired as a staff writer by the Washington Post Style section after interning there.
- Cathy Alter, author of Virgin Territory: Stories from the Road to Womanhood, will publish Up For Renewal: What Magazines Taught Me About Love, Sex, and Starting Over in 2008.
Who Will Teach You
- Mary Knudson: Co-author Living Well With Heart Failure: The Misnamed, Misunderstood Disease, was a longtime medical writer for The Sun in Baltimore and co-editor of A Field Guide for Science Writers.
- Nancy Shute: Contributor and former senior writer U.S. News & World Report, freelance contributor to Outside, New York Times, Smithsonian, was a Fulbright Scholar in Russia.
- Melissa Hendricks: Freelance for Johns Hopkins Public Health, National Parks, AARP The Magazine, Ladies’ Home Journal, New Scientist, and USA Weekend, formerly did research at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Tufts University.
- Rick Borchelt: Communications director for the Genetics & Public Policy Center at Hopkins, formerly held public affairs positions at the U.S. House of Representatives Science Committee, Executive Office of the President, and National Academy of Sciences.
Special Lecturers
David Brown: Medical staff writer for The Washington Post, has covered medical research, the AIDS epidemic, clinical practice, medical ethics, epidemiology, and global health. He is also a physician who has co-taught the Medicine in Action course.
Shannon Brownlee: Essayist and writer whose work has appeared in major magazines and newspapers, including Atlantic Monthly, New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, Slate, Time, Washington Monthly, Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Her book, Overtreated; Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer, was named best economics book of 2007 by the New York Times.
Our instructors have helped lead the National Association of Science Writers (NASW) and D.C. Science Writers Association. Their awards include the NASW’s Science-in-Society Award, the Harvard Journalism Fellowship for Advanced Studies in Public Health, Association of Health Care Journalists Award for Excellence, the Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting, and the Gold Medal (and others) from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, plus honors from the Society for Government Communication and Society for Technical Communication. Read the full faculty bios of these and other program instructors.
Choose Your Topic
The science-medical writing curriculum offers a nurturing, challenging home for writing about technology, nature, personal or public health, computers, ecology, biotech, space, the outdoors, psychology, energy, genetics, climate, or any topic in the medical, scientific, or technological fields. Courses exploit the renowned expertise of Johns Hopkins in science, health, and medicine, as well as our location near critical biotechnology and high-tech corridors and at the heart of the federal government.
Our Signature Courses:
Medicine in Action puts you inside Johns Hopkins Hospital, where doctors discuss their most challenging problems. Our students don scrubs and shadow medical residents and other practitioners, gathering insight to inform their writing.
Science Policy & Politics exploits our proximity to the White House and Capitol Hill. Provocative speakers examine the role of lobbying, special interests, and politics on budgets, laws, and regulations for medicine, science, health, and research.
Science in Action (in development) allows students to interact with ground-breaking scientists in their Hopkins labs, including leaders in space exploration, climate study, nanotechnology, public health, biotechnology, and defense.
Other Courses
- Techniques of Science-Medical Writing - The Literature of Science - The Nature of Nature - Internships, Independent Study - Science-Medical Writing Workshops (with multiple instructors)
To earn a master’s degree, Science-Medical Writing students take nine courses: two or three core courses that develop and hone writing and reporting fundamentals, three workshops in which students create and revise a portfolio of work, and two or three electives that offer enriching additional skills and information. Students usually must complete the core courses before enrolling in workshops. After completing the eight earlier courses, students enroll in the final thesis course, in which they revise their portfolio into a thesis, publish in a class literary journal, and join in a festive public reading.
Be Enriched by a Broad Writing Experience
Under an advisor’s guidance, science-Medical Writing students may take electives in the Writing Program’s other concentrations of Fiction, Nonfiction, or Poetry. Nonfiction courses of interest to science-medical writers focus on profile, review, essay, and commentary, plus electives in revision, magazines, voice, essay, journalism, and international nonfiction.
View the full course descriptions for the Writing Program.
How to Apply / Financial Aid
Admission to the M.A. in Writing Program is based on a competitive review of writing samples, a Statement of Purpose, and other materials. You can apply year-round and, if accepted, study in the fall, spring, and summer. Applicants are of all ages and backgrounds; only some have expertise in science. The writing samples, published or unpublished, should equal 20 to 40 typed, double-spaced pages and can be several different samples totaling that length. For details about samples and other application materials, visit the admissions section of the Johns Hopkins Advanced Academic Programs website and walk through the admissions wizard to learn more about admissions requirements. You don’t have to complete an application to walk through the process. The admissions review differs for a single course compared to the full degree. Just let us know your interests, even if they change over time. Hopkins offers Financial Aid in student loans, plus limited, competitively awarded scholarships beginning in 2008.
Flexible Part-Time Study at Convenient Locations
The M.A. in Writing Program was founded in 1992 to provide professional and artistic courses for part-time students who didn’t want to interrupt their careers or personal life for full-time graduate study. Our creative writing courses are offered on weekday evenings, after work, or on Saturday mornings. The full degree and individual courses are available in Washington or at the main Johns Hopkins Homewood Campus in Baltimore. About twice as many students enroll at the Washington, D.C. Center at 1717 Massachusetts Ave., NW, near the Dupont Circle Metro Station on the Red Line. Students may take classes at either or both locations. Courses are offered in fall, spring, and summer terms, with students enrolling or taking a break as their schedule requires. Most degree candidates earn their masters in two to four years, although a fast-track program is available and students can extend their studies by taking leaves of absence for professional or personal reasons.
For More Information
Contact David Everett, Senior Associate Program Chair, to set up an appointment or phone call, email: deverett@jhu.edu.
Or please write:
M.A. in Writing Program
Science-Medical Writing
The Johns Hopkins University
1717 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Suite 104
Washington, D.C. 20036
To learn about other parts of the graduate creative writing program at Hopkins, click on the links below:
| Fiction | (novel, short story, experimental writing, screenplay, playwriting) |
| Nonfiction | (essay, feature, memoir, comment, journalism, creative nonfiction |
| Poetry | (formal or free verse, short verse, collections, special forms, poetics) |
The Two Science Writing Programs at Johns Hopkins
The M.A. in Writing Program is Hopkins’ part-time alternative to the full-time science writing master’s degree program at the university’s Writing Seminars, which offers full-time undergraduate and graduate degrees in creative writing. The Seminars’ Master of Fine Arts programs in fiction and poetry are exclusive, nationally ranked, and internationally known full-time graduate programs. The Seminars also offers a one-year, science writing program, awarding a Master of Arts degree for study at the Baltimore campus only. For more about the Seminars’ MFA fiction and poetry programs, link to www.jhu.edu/writsem. For information about the Seminar’s full-time science writing program, link to ww.jhu.edu/writingseminars/ma_science_writing The Seminars, including its MFA and science-writing programs, has a separate application process from the M.A. in Writing Program, which is designed for part-time study in Washington or Baltimore.
STUDY ABROAD AT OUR SUMMER CONFERENCE
Our program offers a special Hopkins Conference on Craft in which students can earn a graduate course credit in a concentrated period of about 12 days. The 2010 conference will be held again in Florence, Italy – site of our 2006 and 2007 events. The 2009 conference was held in Bar Harbor, Maine. The conference features writing workshops with nationally prominent writers from Johns Hopkins and elsewhere such as National Book Award novelist Alice McDermott, acclaimed poets Mary Jo Salter or Dave Smith, fiction writers Jean McGarry and Brad Leithauser, and prominent literary editor Robert Wilson. For more about the conference, see http://writing.jhu.edu/craftconference or email craftconference@jhu.edu.