Remember Anne of Green Gables? Petulant, earnest, downtrodden Anne. The concept of kindred spirits was such a revelation when her first dear friend, Diana, helped her feel a little less lonely. Each helped the other find her way.

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Perhaps this phrase stuck in my memory because I think we all seek our own kindred spirits, especially when we’re not sure where we’re headed or why, or even who we are at times. This month I’ve run into a few kindred spirits, people who are interested in the same ideas that I’ve had rattling around in my thoughts while I wonder, “Does anyone else think about this stuff?”

For example, Think Write Publish. Scholars are paired with writers to tell a true story about important scientific concerns, topics that might normally languish in an obscure academic journal. The enterprise was financed by the National Science Foundation, which is hard to beat for funding innovative, “transformative” projects. Transformative apparently now includes Creative Non-Fiction defined as a way of reaching people who don’t normally read research. You can read Issue 52 of the journal by the same name without a subscription, by clicking the Narratives tab here. If you teach writing or are just interested in how these essays got to be so readable, turn on the Yellow Test for a cool teaching tool, that shows how narrative works to tell an engaging story.

(Disclaimers etc: I’m not affiliated with Think Write Publish, or Creative Non-Fiction, though I do subscribe to the latter. I just think what they’re doing is cool. Also, my research lab is funded by NSF.)