Thread by @marynmck

Hello, I have news!
For 18 mos, I’ve been a part-time “Covid correspondent” for @WIRED @WIREDScience.

Extremely thrilled to say I'm now joining the @WIRED staff as senior writer for health, expanding my beat to all aspects of public health, global health, medicine and disease.

I could not imagine a better landing than working for science editor @KaraPlatoni, with the outstanding team @jetjocko, @mrMattSimon, @GregoryJBarber, under the leadership of @glichfield, @Mstreshinsky, @sarahfallon, @brbarrett, at a time of great change and promise for @WIRED.

This is a chance to *slightly* loosen the pandemic’s grip on my life and fold in all my other obsessions: AMR, polio, STDs, fungi, emerging infections; health policy, technology, politics; and the long reach of unintended consequences. I start 9 Aug, and I can’t wait to begin.

In taking this job I exit 15 years’ freelancing — so from here, this will be an appreciation thread, to thank colleagues and editors who made it poss.

I'll start with @jetjocko and @betsymason, who winkled me into @WIREDsciblogs 10 years ago on a generous rec from @David_Dobbs.

To mention a few recent stories:

Happy to go out on the high note of writing the June cover story for @SciAm, on the unappreciated threat of deadly fungi — a piece that happened because @jfischman asked what was obsessing me and trusted my answer.
scientificamerican.com/article/deadly…

I owe a ton to the wonderful @nijhuism, who twice gave a home to my curiosity about the origin and impact of plant diseases at the Life Up Close vertical at @TheAtlantic, for the end of coffee: theatlantic.com/science/archiv…
and the threat from tulips:
theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

I’m still in awe of the prescient @ambelenky, then at the @newrepublic, who proposed we explore and predict how right-wing nationalism worldwide could ruin public health. (This story ran a year in advance of Covid, and later won a AAAS-Kavli award.) newrepublic.com/article/153264…

It’s the best luck, as a freelancer, to have an editor come to you, and @JennieGritz did that twice for me at @SmithsonianMag, for longreads about preventing a future flu pandemic and finding the origin of this one:
smithsonianmag.com/science-nature…
smithsonianmag.com/science-nature…

Other amazing editors to thank: @bmaher @Nature, for antibiotics economics; @kieraevebutler @motherjones, for the rediscovery of phages; @christinagiles @mosaicscience for weird meat allergies; @Billwasik and @clairezg for mosquitoes and climate, and turkeys and flu, at @NYTmag.

Finally, I wouldn’t have been a freelancer if not for @saradaustin, who read what I had done in newspapers, trusted I could handle investigative features for her at @SELFmagazine, and made me believe I could too. I’m never not grateful.

And now a new chapter! As we say: tktk.