I'm Philip Holden and this is Ideas in Writing - the podcast where we talk to people who use words - written, spoken, performed and even sung. The guest brings along a word and so do I...it's all downhill from there on...

In this episode I talk to the science writer Liam Drew, author of I-Mammal, a great book about what it means to be a mammal.

Liam's word for this episode was Connection whilst mine was auto-correct (I can't link to my usual Visuwords as it's not there; the Oxford English Dictionary only listed it in 2011 here..so here's the word 'correct' instead).

We talked about Liam's book and his writing for Nature, New Scientist and the Guardian amongst others. We talked about what makes science-writing good and how Liam made the transition from being a neuroscientist - studying the senses and epilepsy - to a freelance writer. We discussed evolution, brain implants, the need for a human perspective on science stories, scientists, pandemics, Twitter antivaxxers and his forthcoming book for children...but we didn't talk about the Tapir.

You can order Liam's book from Mr Books Bookshop here (and find out about the tapir yourself). You can find Liam's other writing by going to Nature and searching for his name. Likewise at the New Scientist website and The Guardian.

Ideas in Writing is produced with the support of Mr Books Bookshop in Tonbridge - the home of inspiring, imaginative and intelligent books, gifts and conversation. They're on Twitter too @mrbooks_ton. But most importantly of all, you can visit them (in the lovely market town of Tonbridge in Kent) for a browse any Wednesday to Saturday 10am to 5pm.

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CREDITS & links

Liam also mentioned a few writers that he admires so here they are...

Gay Talese - http://www.gaytalese.com (takes you to his page at his publishers Random House)

Rebecca Solnit http://rebeccasolnit.net/ and at the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/profile/rebeccasolnit

Ed Yong https://www.theatlantic.com/author/ed-yong/

Ideas in Writing is recorded and produced by Philip Holden using Zencastr and Acast.com

The Ideas in Writing theme "Farting Around" is by Kevin MacLeod Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The "Light Easy March" sting is by ...dog http://www.besonic.com/dog

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