Nature Writing

About this event

Throughout this six week course, students will look at the many ways in which humans are connected to our natural surroundings, both urban and remote. Weather, soil, plants, wildlife, changing systems, and more will all be explored. By delving into the inherent close relationship humans have with our natural world, each student’s path to writing their own stories using the natural world as scaffolding will emerge. Each lesson will be designed to unlock the storyteller within by encouraging observation, reading, and learning about natural systems. Participants will read various forms of nature prose and poetry including work by Mary Oliver, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Barbara Kingsolver, Merlin Sheldrake, Richard Powers, Robert Macfarlane, and more. These readings and the resulting discussions will then serve as a springboard to developing personal tone and style. Through guided in-class exercises students will work to develop their own narrative voice. Each step in the course will hone in on students’ unique narrative perspectives that reflects their own personal connections to the natural world. The in-class writing prompts will often draw on lived experiences and are intended to help students find their voice. Whether it’s remembering a favorite hike, gardening in their own backyard, watching a bird from their apartment window, cloud watching, traveling further afield into the wilderness, swimming, or walking a creek path, students will have opportunities to use memory to capture the feeling of decompressing in nature in words. Students will explore various forms and literary devices and styles in the process. Students will then have the opportunity to share these free-writes in class to get feedback from peers and the instructor. By reading the greats and engaging with the natural world from a personal standpoint, students will develop their understanding of ecology and our human connection to it as a species. By the end of the course, acknowledging human…

Description from literary-arts.org