Abstract
During the past year, I have taken part in an experiment in which I have been the experimental animal. I was awarded a fellowship that gave me the opportunity to take a sabbatical from science and spend a year in the School of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. The School of Literature and Creative Writing is internationally renowned, and past students include household names such as Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro, Trezza Azzopardi and Tracy Chevalier. I have a keen interest in creative writing and had written a few short stories. This was a formidable but thrilling challenge. During my adventure, I realized that, in many ways, I was coming home.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to my mentor C. Scott (School of Literature and Creative Writing, University of East Anglia) for his continuing encouragement and support, E. Morgan and G. Szirtes for their thoughtful comments, the Science Photo Library and all those who took part in the SAW projects. I would also like to thank the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) and the Sainsbury Laboratory (my employer at the time) for giving me the opportunity to take this sabbatical, and the Branco Weiss 'Society in Science' Fellowship Foundation for supporting my continuing interests in interdisciplinary activities. Finally, I would like to thank my parents, with whom I have had many new and valuable conversations over the last year.
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Osbourn, A. The poetry of science. Nat Rev Microbiol 4, 77–80 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro1321
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro1321
