Our Planet, Our Stories: Nature Writing

GrubStreet’s Our Planet, Our Stories series focuses on the climate crisis, and aims to help writers find creative ways to engage with this urgent global issue. At the end of the series, all participants will be invited to submit writing to an anthology that GrubStreet will put out in the spring of 2024. This is the second installation of GrubStreet's annual Our Times, Our Stories series, which offers a variety of free and reduced-cost classes focused on a pressing contemporary issue, with a free print and digital anthology of student writing collected nd distributed at the end of the series. To donate to the series, please visit our donation page. 

Our Planet, Our Stories: Nature Writing

In this four-hour seminar, we will do a deep dive into the art of writing about nature. To fully demonstrate the stakes of the climate crisis, our writing, in all genres, needs to be able to bring to life the beauty, fragility, power, and wisdom of our natural world.

It takes a fine hand to meticulously capture nature in words without bogging down our writing. In this seminar, we will explore how to describe the natural environment and deftly weave it into our stories. We will also critically interrogate nature writing’s tendencies toward escapism and alienation of humanity from the natural world. Instead, we will learn how to reintegrate human characters and society with natural settings. Finally, we will experiment with returning vigor and dignity to nature while revealing the reality of environmental harm via our writing.

We will read and discuss example texts from authors across genres like Emily Pauline Johnson, adrienne maree brown, and Alexis Pauline Gumbs. Then, through guided writing prompts, you will start 3-4 new pieces with natural themes. You will also have a chance to share your writing in small, peer-led groups.

All writers in this class will be invited to publish their work in an anthology put together by GrubStreet in the spring of 2024.

Other Classes in the Our Planet, Our Stories Series

Class Format

This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. About 15 minutes before your class is scheduled to begin, you'll receive an email from your instructor with a link to join the class meeting!