Lost in Curiosity

Our Roberta wrote a book! Roberta Kwok wrote for The Last Word on Nothing for several years — and once a Person of LWON, always a Person of LWON. Her first book, Lost in Curiosity, comes out on July 21. It’s filled with stories of the ups and downs of astronomers, physicists, frog biologists, and more (read on to find out which chapter got its start as an LWON post). Indie booksellers have already been celebrating Roberta’s writing, and we want to celebrate, too! Here’s an interview with Roberta about her fabulous new book. * Cameron: How did the idea for the book come about? Roberta: It’s hard to believe, but the seed for this book was planted 20 years ago. I was an MFA student in creative writing at Indiana University Bloomington, and I decided to write an essay about a scientist friend, Ben Blackman, who studied sunflowers. As part of the reporting, I followed him on a 20-hour lab experiment collecting leaf samples every few hours. And what struck me was how many things went wrong;…