IN SHORT:
Nicky lives in the DC metro area, after working for newspapers in Hartford, San Francisco, and Baltimore. She loves honorable (if a little complicated) heroes and adventurous (if a little dreamy) heroines who may not solve all the world’s problems but not for lack of trying. She is a omnivorous reader, any book is fair game, but she always returns to her first loves, historical fiction and science fiction/fantasy. She’s chattiest on Twitter, @sunshinyday, and can also be found at nickypenttila.com, on Facebook, and at meetings of the Washington Romance Writers.
AT LENGTH:
I like to figure stuff out. I enjoy writing, editing, and Web wrangling for The Dana Foundation, which is not to blame for anything I say on this site. In addition to reporting on brain science, I write fiction stories that include history and ideas and romance. I’m currently working on a regency-set historical and a linked series of contemporary short stories. See some links to my nonfiction writing below; my first novel, A NOTE OF SCANDAL, will be released on May 17.
I’m volunteer membership chairwoman for Washington Romance Writers, a chapter of Romance Writers of America. I also belong to the Historical Novel Society, the DC Science Writers Association, and the National Association of Science Writers. I hang out mostly in the Baltimore–Washington, DC, corridor.
In the past, I copy-edited, designed pages, assigned news stories and edited them, reported and wrote editorials at the Hartford Courant, the San Francisco Examiner, and the Baltimore Sun. I have a BA in communications from Michigan State University and an MS in teaching English to speakers of other languages from Central Connecticut State University. Freelance, I’ve done substantive editing, copy-editing, and proofreading for books, medical booklets, and newsletters, as well as writing and ghostwriting.
Write me at nicky@ nickypenttila.com, especially if you want to use one of my photos. I’m using lower resolutions on the site, but can send you much higher-res versions if you ask.
Some links to my writing:
For the Dana Foundation:
Brain Science and the Law: While neuroscience can tell us a lot about how the brain works, it has not yet produced much data that can be used to decide criminal or civil disputes. But that hasn’t stopped lawyers from trying to enter it as evidence, said presenters during a two-day Law & the Brain conference called held in New York.
Glenn Close on mental illness: Say it loud (blog post)
The Neuroscience of Aesthetics: Artists and perceptual researchers start a conversation on what they can learn from one another This was also reprinted in the zine Folly, Dec 2010 (pdf)
Busting Some of the Myths of Attention
Gazing with new eyes (blog post)
Feast, but visions of famine, at NIH (blog post)
Illness as social change (blog post)
Ready or Not: Q&A with “Mind Wars” Author Jonathan Moreno
For magazines:
All Work and No Play: When did Americans stop having fun?
Can the sustainability movement survive its own success?
Future Shaping (book review)
For the Baltimore Sun editorial page:
Getting what you pay for
