“To see the world in a grain of sand…” wrote William Blake. The poet might as well have been a nature writer. Nature writing is not so much about understanding the nuts and bolts of the natural environment as it is seeing the connections between what’s wild and what’s human. And then knowing how to write about those connections clearly.
In this workshop we will explore your own experiences with nature, in whatever form they take, and learn to find the salient details of the experience and write about them in ways that are both deeply personal and universal. We will study the writing of authors like Annie Dillard, Rick Bass, and Peter Matthiessen, focusing on techniques such as vivid description, symbolism, and metaphor. Writers of all abilities and backgrounds are welcome. Likewise, participants need no formal training as naturalists, only a desire to see the world around them with new eyes.