Melissa Barton

I am currently fairly booked with projects and have limited availability for web design work until September. However, I welcome inquiries, especially for smaller projects.

The prominent scientific journal Nature recently profiled one of the first scientists I interviewed as a student journalist at Colorado College, Jerry Glover of the Kansas-based Land Institute. Glover and other Land Institute scientists are working to create a new form of perennial agriculture, based on the natural prairie ecosystem of Kansas.
Perennial agriculture has [...]

I have a fairly large collection of books on writing, most of which have never been very helpful. These are the ones that I refer to frequently, or that have an impact on my writing:
Ideas into Words: Mastering the Craft of Science Writing, by Elise Hancock
ISBN 0801873304
This slim little book doesn’t talk about marketing [...]

Yesterday I came across MileHive.com, a collaborative effort of Denver-area journalists and citizens. I’ve seen some projects like this before and I’ve always been skeptical, but this looks different. For one thing, it’s organized by folks with serious journalistic resumes, like Michael deYoanna. All articles are edited, so there’s quality control–I particularly [...]

Or on the business of writing, as the case may be.
1. Don’t be afraid to turn down assignments.
It can be hard to turn down assignments, especially when you’re breaking in, but taking an assignment that you’re too busy for or feel unenthusiastic about (or that’s poorly paid) can lead to more stress than it’s worth. [...]

I wrote this month’s University of Colorado Museum of Natural History Object of the Month, Fossil Ginkgo from Siberia. Every month the Museum website highlights a specimen or artifact from its collection of over 4 million items.
I really enjoyed writing this up–the Kudia River fossils are beautiful and strikingly different from the cold-tolerant plants [...]

As it turns out, I should have read the editorial in the January/February issue of Transitions Abroad before wondering whether the print magazine is going out of print. Transitions Abroad holds a special place in my heart as my first sale in 2005, a short Participant Report about studying in Russia. It’s also [...]

I’m back to using WordPress for this site, in the interest of ease of updating. The template is basically Press Row with some minor tweaks and my own header photos.
Several new articles since last update, mostly for Student Health 101. My article for Transitions Abroad, “Hiking in South Iceland,” appeared in the January/February [...]