Looking to exploit the current interest in popular science writing, HarperCollins' Ecco Press imprint is launching an annual series of science writing anthologies beginning in fall 2000.

Ecco Press publisher Dan Halpern said the first title in the series, The Best American Science Writing 2000, will be compiled by guest editor James Gleick, the former New York Times science writer and author of the recent Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything. Rachel Kleyman will edit the overall series. According to Halpern, the series is modeled after the type of science writing that appears in the New Yorker.

Halpern told PW that some of the essays in the anthology will be expanded into book projects. While the series will focus on the hard sciences, he said, the types of writing would be broad and will include fiction.