From 1994 to 2008, I was a freelance journalist and editor for REVelation, 21C, Marketing, internet.au, Artbyte, and the Disinformation subculture search engine.
I’m collecting together some of this journalism with new commentaries and reflections in an ebook series called Novice New Journalism. The first ebook called Ad Astra: Space Migration Journalism has an Amazon.com preorder page and is due out on 30th June 2023. I’d appreciate it if you could let your networks know.
Here’s the Amazon.com preorder description:
Why space colonization initiatives underwent a trajectory change in the late 1990s
In 1997 the Australian political scientist Dr Alex Burns was a Contributing Editor to the influential science and culture magazine 21C. Ad Astra: Space Migration Journalism collects together two articles on the all too human barriers that we face to colonizing the galaxy.
The Tight Stuff is a postmortem on the NASA space shuttle Challenger‘s disaster on 28th January 1986 and how it thwarted early plans to commercialize space. Forward The Foundation – originally written for 21C and later published for the first time on the legendary Disinformation website – explores scientist Marshall Savage’s ambitious plans for Humanity to journey to the stars. Written before Savage’s First Millennial Foundation later morphed into the non-profit Living Universe Foundation this reportage captures the founder’s original vision. A new Introduction contextualizes both pieces and discusses the challenges of New Journalism reportage.
For fans of Elon Musk (SpaceX), Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin), Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic), Peter Thiel (Palantir), and New York Times columnist Ross Douthat (The Decadent Society), Ad Astra: Space Migration Journalism tells the almost forgotten story of late 1990s pioneers – and how we can culturally recover and enact their utopian impulse today.