W. Scott Olsen and Bret Lott invited a dozen friends to consider one particular calendar month in the place they call home. The result is A Year in Place, a captivating collection of new writing by twelve eminent American writers.

More than a montage of voices and experiences, A Year in Place illustrates, as Olsen and Lott explain in their introduction, the trends in American thinking about who we are and what we care about. Rick Bass takes us to the Yaak Valley of Montana in June, where fawns are arriving, "newly-emerged, knocked-legged and groggy, legs still unfolding from that long sleeping passage." Peggy Shumaker explores the special social and cultural time that is March in Fairbanks, Alaska, where a long winter has whetted the psychic despair of inhabitants who find in the "sky’s unbearable brightness . . . a waking pain beyond endurance." Michael Martone transports us through memory to Indiana in the 1950s where each May a blimp "yawed and floated up," wallowing above a suburban neighborhood on its way to the Indianapolis 500.

These and nine other contributions yield an unforgettable book about "the places we find ourselves blessed enough to be."

What are people who read opinion-page articles looking for? How can you reach people who read general-interest magazines? Hint: It's not the same as your colleagues or science journals.

This compact book offers the reasons and information that can help scientific writers adopt new habits to be successful and happy writing for a non-science audience. Go ahead and write journal-style for science journals and colleagues, says longtime science editor Jane Nevins, but you'll need to try different styles to reach a different audience.

The book is divided into three parts: The Meet-up, Simple Fixes, and Science and Style. In The Meet-up, Nevins describes the different venues for lay writing, from opinion pages to popular magazines, and what readers of each expect and respond to best.  In Simple Fixes, she shows how jargon, "cross-over words," and hackneyed expressions can be remedied, clearing away confusion for your readers. In Science and Style, she discusses what to put first, how to quote and paraphrase in lay copy, and what to leave out.

Throughout You've Got Some Explaining to Do, Nevins gives concrete, specific examples tied to neuroscience.  The author, who served as the first editor in chief of the Dana Press, brings more than 20 years of experience in translating neuroscience to lay readers. 

"No one is better at helping one learn to write for the non-professional public, as I can personally testify, than Jane Nevins."-Nobel laureate Eric R. Kandel, M.D., Director, Kavli Institute for Brain Science, Columbia University College of Physicians and Scientists.