This course is open to emerging and experienced writers interested in exploring new ways of thinking about environmental writing. Whether you are a creative nonfiction writer, essayist, journalist, poet, fiction writer, or simply someone interested in reflecting on your everyday experiences, you will have the opportunity to think differently about place and the stories we tell about the world around us. No established environmental writing practice is required.

No.

This course challenges the idea that there is only one set way to be an environmental writer.

Many writers do not identify as environmental writers because they believe the field belongs to people writing about wilderness, conservation, or climate science. This course invites you to reconsider this assumption and explore how your own unique experiences and perspective are a valuable—and necessary—part of environmental storytelling.

Otherwise, who will write the stories about the places we call home?

No. Environmental writing is not confined to remote landscapes or traditional nature writing.

The environments we inhabit day to day—our homes, our neighborhoods, our cities, our communities, our food systems, our memories, and our relationships—all hold stories worthy of exploration and sharing.

Through guided discussion, reflection, and writing practice, participants will grapple with how environmental writing has been shaped by inherited assumptions while discovering fresh and personalized ways of approaching environmental storytelling.

Participants will:

• Identify environmental stories within their everyday surroundings.
• Rethink traditional ideas about what environmental writing can be.
• Develop a more personal approach to writing about place.
• Experiment with new ways of connecting identity, place, and environmental change.

In the first session, participants will learn to reconnect with their surroundings by using their senses to evaluate their environment—urban or rural—and determine whether their mental and physical needs are being met within that space. Through targeted exercises, they will use these sensory details to craft a rich setting for their writing and bring a protagonist, based on their own sensorial experiences, into the scene. They will leave the session with writing that brings a protagonist and a setting to life together, both as characters that impact one another, however large or small.

In the second session, writers will zoom in on a single element of that setting to examine how environmental change affects the protagonist’s body on a subconscious level. Through a more targeted exercise, they will explore human desires, internal and external conflicts, and the tensions that arise when no environment can perfectly fulfill a protagonist’s needs.

The exercises will lead to writing that answers: Where does tension land in the protagonist’s body, and who do their emotions reach out to—subconsciously and deeply—when they want to ask for change?

The answer may be surprising and revealing, offering insight into the hope or hopelessness our characters feel within their environments.

Yes. In both sessions, participants will have the opportunity to share their writing from the exercises during class and receive feedback.

The course is live.

The course will take place online through Google Meet.

Yes. A limited number of partial scholarships are available for writers who need financial assistance. To be considered, please email schools@oysterriverpages.com. Scholarships are awarded on a first-come, first-served basis. That is, those who register first will receive the scholarship.

Please email your question to schools@oysterriverpages.com and a member of our team will get back to you as soon as possible.