Annalee Newitz
Credit: Sarah Deragon
Annalee Newitz writes science fiction and nonfiction. They are the author of the book Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age, and the novels The Future of Another Timeline, and Autonomous, which won the Lambda Literary Award. As a science journalist, they are a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, and have a monthly column in New Scientist. They have published in The Washington Post, Slate, Popular Science, Ars Technica, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic, among others. They are also the co-host of the Hugo Award-winning podcast Our Opinions Are Correct. Previously, they were the founder of io9, and served as the editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.
We had great fun chatting with Annalee about how they managed to juggle their interests in both science and writing to form a unique and successful career. We hear about how the opportunity to found the successful website io9 came about, and how to select which stories to write as fiction and which as non-fiction. We also veer wildly off-topic on several occasions (in a good way!) and discuss how despite appearances, technological advancements over time aren't always the leaps forward we sometimes think they are.