Some say you cannot force creativity; that it comes to you when you least expect it. That light-bulb ‘ping!’ of a creative idea can come to you on the tram to work, while brushing your teeth, at 3am when you can’t sleep…

However, you can foster creativity. And this is what we do in our regular creative meetings.

It’s a seemingly tall order to task a group of scientists, whose daily life is ruled by evidence and fact to create stories as a means of sharing those facts. But put this group of critically thinking, logical minds together on a Friday evening (and add a pinch of caffeine) and the creative energy soon starts flowing.

The Once Upon A Time Creative Meetings are organised with this in mind. We all sit down together and discuss ideas that people have had for stories. The concepts or processes we would like to convey? How could we convey them? How we can engage the public in what we study in such painstaking detail, not only to educate, but also to entertain.

Stories and new story ideas are coming in thick and fast now from members of the Once Upon A Time/ Es war Einmal team and we are making real progress towards our E-book. Everyone has their own style of writing, ideas for illustration and suggestions for further things we can do to a) help make us better storytellers and b) how to spread the word about the project. You can now follow us on twitter @OUAT_sci_story and follow updates n our researchgate project page.

And just to finish, a nice quote that the science and the arts are not as separate as we sometimes are made to believe.

‘The difference between science and the arts is not that they are different sides of the same coin even, or even different parts of the same continuum, but rather, they are manifestations of the same thing. The arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity’.

Mae Jemison, Physicist and Astronout