New Nature Writing

All welcome

Writing workshop over six weeks with Deborah Wardle, exploring what climate change means to writers and how to write about or with non-human characters.

Keys ideas of the programme include:

• Understanding the historical context of Nature Writing
• Considering the implications of writing in the Anthropocene – what does global warming mean for writers?
• What are the issues of writing about or with non-human animals and more-than-human entities?

Participants will aim to:

1. Produce a piece of writing (such as creative non-fiction, fiction, memoir, travel writing) approximately 2,000 to 3,000 words, or multiple shorter pieces as suited.
2. Develop workshopping skills with other participants – reading and providing feedback to writing peers.
3. Strengthen their unique ‘natural’ writing voice.

Deborah Wardle

Deborah’s writing is fuelled by her fascination with subterranean aquifers and her belief that humans are seeking new relationships with the natural world in the context of climate change. Deborah relishes teaching the art of writing stories that reflect human and non-human responses to global warming.

Deborah Wardle has fiction and non-fiction stories published in peer-reviewed articles in Australian and international journals including Meniscus, Mosaic, Fusion, and Animal Studies Journal and Meanjin.

Her book, Subterranean Imaginaries and Groundwater Narratives (Routledge 2024) is a hybrid scholarly/creative work based on her PhD thesis. Deborah’s story “Groundwater” appears in On the Ground: Best Australian Nature Writing (2024).

Deborah taught Creative Writing and Literature at RMIT & University of Melbourne.

https://deborahwardle.com/