Class Description
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
Our Planet, Our Stories: Writing Climate Fiction (multi-week, starting 10/24)
Our Planet, Our Stories: Writing Climate Essays and Op-Eds (multi-week, starting 10/26)
Our Planet, Our Stories: Apocalyptic and Dystopian Fiction (Sunday, October 29th, 12pm-4pm, FREE)
Our Planet, Our Stories: Ecopoetics (Sunday, December 3rd, 12pm-4pm, FREE)
Our Planet, Our Stories: Writing Climate Justice (Sunday, December 10th, 12pm-4pm, FREE)
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!
Thanks to the excellent literary citizenship of our donors, scholarships are available for all GrubStreet classes. To apply, click the gray "APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIP" button. In order to be considered for a scholarship, you must complete your application at least one week before the start date of a class. Please await our scholarship committee's decision before registering for the class. We cannot hold spots in classes, so the sooner you apply, the better. Scholarships cannot be applied retroactively.
For more detailed information about GrubStreet scholarships, including how to contribute to scholarship funds for other students, click here.
This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. After registering, a yellow Resources tab will appear in this section containing a link to join class. Please note that you will need to be logged into view the Resources tab.
Zoom Participation:
In our experience, the intimate nature of a writing workshop benefits from on-camera participation. Students are of course welcome to turn their camera off whenever they need to, but it is a community norm for cameras to be on most of the time. You can learn more about using Zoom here.
Zoom Accessibility:
You can enable closed captioning at any time during the meeting by clicking the CC button at the bottom of the screen. If you'd like to access the transcript after class, please make sure to let your instructor ahead of time that you'd like a copy.