We love it when our writers are successful
When you’re an editor, there’s little that’s more satisfying than seeing your team do well. We’ve just heard the news that one of our writers— Megan Scudellari,author of MATTER #8, Never Say Die — has been given the Clark/Payne award, a major annual prize for young science journalists.
The award is presented by the Evert Clark Fund and the National Association of Science Writers, in conjunction with the National Press Foundation, and is intended to highlight the work of outstanding journalists under the age of 30.
Here’s what the announcement said:
Scudellari received the award and its $1,000 prize for “Never Say Die,” a story about aging and life extension in MATTER, a Kickstarter-funded online magazine; for an article in The Scientist about prosthetic limbs, “Missing Touch;” and for two shorter pieces, “Under the Hood of the Ultimate Brain Hacking Machine” in Discover and “Women suffer from brain injuries, too” inDoubleXScience.
The panel of judges cited Scudellari for her compelling storytelling, broad range of topics, accurate science and ability to tailor her style to different audiences.
Yes, it is amusing that Megan scooped a prize for young journalists by writing about “super-agers” — people who live way beyond the norm — but it was no surprise to us that her talent was recognized.
We were impressed all along by Megan’s dedication to telling a complex and wide-ranging story, and her ability to evolve the piece as it went through the process of making it to publication. And although she voiced concern at one point that our house style (British English) made her sound a bit odd, it fortunately didn’t seem to damage her writing too much.
It’s terrific news for Megan, and great for MATTER too: it’s the second gong for our team since we launched late last year, following Anil Anathaswamy’s prize for Best Investigative Journalism at the Association of British Science Writers awards.
If you want to read Megan’s 6,000 word exploration of the science of growing old, you can see a preview on Medium or visit MATTER to read the whole of Never Say Die for just 99c.
