I am a scientist who writes

**This is the second installment of a blog post series about professional scientists who think about popular science writing, at the request of a valued colleague.**

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To the 2 and a half people who read my blog,

Hi! I know it has been a while. I have been busy (the good kind of), that being the reason why I have not written anything here in a while.

Nonetheless, I thank you for your patience and understanding… Feedback is still very much appreciated!

In the meantime, I wanted to let you know that I am almost done with book #3, and I will give more details about it as soon as I am allowed to. What I can tell you is its title, since it’s been posted in the relevant book trade mags:

“Drunk Flies and Stoned Dolphins: A Trip Through the World of Animal Intoxication”

How do you like the title?

Also, the concept for book #4 is in the process of being refined and defined by my favorite body organ (if you must know, it is my brain…😊), which incidentally is the main topic of the book. I will certainly keep you posted.

PLUS, I have been approached by two dear colleagues proposing to co-write a book. I feem blessed, appreciated, and f*****g lucky!

“Researchwise”, things are going really well! I have two papers almost ready to “resend” for review, and about 5 more that are in the process of data analysis and interpretation, and will hopefully be submitted soon. If these 7 papers get published, the Pagán lab will have 30 papers under its proverbial belt. Just to give you some perspective on this, I work at a predominantly undergraduate institution. However, we take research seriously and love it enough to make the effort to make it happen. And I gotta say that The Force is strong in my research students…

This paper talk brings me to a certain line of thought that has been In my mind for some time… Perhaps similar thoughts have been in your mind as well.

Here goes…

I love writing; I also love science, and I love combining these two loves to communicate my fascination with the natural world with, well, the world.

Ever since I began my popular science writing adventure (two published books and counting) I keep thinking about what should I call myself.

Writer? Science Writer? Popsci Writer? Science Communicator?

You surely get the picture…

Based on a multiplicity of factors, some of which I’ll explore soon (hint: ageism from a significant fraction of the general #scicomm community is one of these factors), and on the pride I feel about what “I am about”, this is what I will call myself from now on, and likely forever:

I am a scientist who writes.

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**If you like what I write, kindly spread the word about this blog!

**For a list of all my scientific papers please click HERE.

**I wrote the first chapter on this technical book. And another chapter in this other technical book.

**I have authored two popular science books (so far). For my Amazon author page, click here.

**Here’s my Goodreads author page.

**Want to see more of the things I write? Go here for some other posts.

**Shoot me a message if you have any questions (orpagan@yahoo.com).

**You can subscribe to my blog. Just go to the “Home” page, right hand side.

**Here’s a link to my Facebook page.

**Finally, my Twitter handle: @Baldscientist

**For the customary (and very important) disclaimers please go to my “About” page…