The Lizzie Wade Weekly

Dec 11, 2023 | lizzie.substack.com | Lizzie Wade

Hello! This is my last newsletter on Substack, to let you know that I’ve moved to Buttondown. As a current subscriber, you should have received a newsletter from me yesterday called “Hello from my new home,” which discusses my reasons for moving at length. If you didn’t get it, please look in your spam folder, promotions tab, or other places it could be hiding. To make sure you receive future issues, mark it as “not spam,” move it to your primary inbox, and/or whitelist the new address.

Dec 3, 2023 | lizzie.substack.com | Lizzie Wade

I live in Mexico so of course I’m obsessed with corn. It’s the foundation of the cuisine and in many ways the culture, and it has been for at least 4,000 years. But there are lots of things scientists don’t know about it, including how and why people bothered domesticating it in the first place.

Nov 5, 2023 | lizzie.substack.com | Lizzie Wade

If you asked 100 journalists what their least favorite work task is, I’m positive more than 90 would say transcribing. It’s so tedious, it takes so long, and it involves at least some listening to your own recorded voice, a skin-crawling experience for anyone who hasn’t put themselves through the intense exposure therapy of making a podcast.

Oct 29, 2023 | lizzie.substack.com | Lizzie Wade

Long ago, when I thought about what the month before my manuscript deadline would be like, I hoped for a peaceful stroll toward the finish line, full of editing and polishing and not very much writing. I feared—and somewhat expected—a mad scramble of vomiting up just enough last-minute words to fulfill my contract. Due to Circumstances, I ended up with more of a mad scramble than I would have liked. Many of the ~90,000 words I turned in didn’t exist even 30 days before the deadline.

Oct 22, 2023 | lizzie.substack.com | Lizzie Wade

A temple mound in Florida’s Crystal River Archaeological State Park. Credit: Ebyabe/Wikimedia CommonsThis week I wrote for Science about a debate bubbling up in U.S. archaeology: Is it unethical to publish photos of objects buried with Indigenous ancestors?