Workshop: Writing the Planet We Inhabit

A few key insights can help us produce truly effective pages when we’re writing about ‘nature.’ First, we’re writing in our own time, from our own cultures, positions, and places; we can leave Wordsworth, Momaday, and Dillard to theirs. Second, nature is “setting” – not cosmetic but integral in prose and poetry. Third, regardless of our politics or apocalyptics, we are not required to make every reference to the natural(--ish) world a lament, polemic, mea culpa, or demonstration of personal virtue. We’re screwed up human beings who have inherited a beautiful, terrible, damaged, and uncertain planet. Writers witness and portray. So, let’s work on a few portrayals together, practicing distinct sensory language, close attention to place, and courage to coax out surprising implications.

Karin Anderson is a flummoxed descendant of Scandinavian Mormon settlers in the Great Basin, and a just-retired professor of literature and writing. Her work has been published in Saranac Review, American Literary Review, Quarter After Eight, Western Humanities Review, Sunstone, Dialogue, and other venues. She is the author (or editor) of three published books and one forthcoming: breach (Fiddleblack), Before Us Like a Land of Dreams (Torrey House Press), Blossom as the Cliffrose: Mormon Legacies and the Beckoning Wild (co-edited with poet Danielle Dubrasky; Torrey House Press), and (a forthcoming novel, under contract) What Falls Away.

https://www.facebook.com/greatbasinwriter/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/karin-anderson-93546198

https://www.torreyhouse.org/interview-with-karin-anderson