A few months ago I was contacted by someone from the EPSRC magazine, Pioneer. They were interested in my Bright Club sets and wanted me to write an article about the experience of expressing academic research through the medium of stand-up. I was honoured to be asked and was very glad to agree. I think Bright Club is a truly fantastic idea and I was happy to have the opportunity to talk about it!
The first thing to do was the photo shoot! This was quite amusing for me. I met Mark (the editor and photographer) and we went to the Union bar that I’d picked out for it’s stand-up club-looking-ness. I then went on to pose with a microphone for an hour or so. I kept forgetting how to smile, Mark had to tell me to stop, move my face around, then try again. Any way, after that, we go a shot that would be used in the magazine! I’m pretty pleased with it, it looks proper professional (see below).
Then, once that was done, I came to writing the article. Writing about Bright Club and my experiences can easily, perhaps too easily, I overshot the word count by a bit. But luckily Mark was able to edit it down and finally, this month, the article had its debut in Pioneer edition 10. The article can be seen in the online magazine (see page 36).
It was a really fun experience, both the photo shoot and writing in a new style (it was nice to get away from the academic paper format). I’m thankful to Pioneer magazine for giving me the chance to write the article!