Nature Writing Now

What does it mean to write about nature now? We are living at a time of great ecological peril and promise, when some are questioning whether “nature” still even exists. How to write about this complexity in authentic and evocative ways? How to convey both the beauty and the corruption of beauty? Together, we will consider a wide sampling of historical and contemporary nature writing. Noticing how the genre has changed over time will help us understand how our cultural conceptions of self and nature have both changed and remained the same. Contemporary nature writing often reflects complex social and political realities, while also reminding us of the abiding depth of feeling created by, for instance, placing one’s hand on a tree trunk and pausing to simply feel. In this course, your writing will be informed by both the timely and the timeless. You’ll be guided by wide-ranging prompts and supported by shared explorations in this rich, essential, and deeply meaningful way of exploring the world.

Access Program
We want our writing classes to be accessible to everyone, regardless of income and background. We understand that our tuition structure can present obstacles for some people. Our Access Program offers writing class registrations at a reduced rate. The access program for writing classes covers 60% of the class tuition. Most writing classses have at least one access spot available. Contact Susan Moore at susan@literary-arts.org if you would like to take a writing class at the Access Rate.

Daniela Naomi Molnar is an artist and poet working with the mediums of language, image, and place. She is also a wilderness guide / educator / activist / eternal student. Her work for the past several years has been focused on issues of climate justice and climate grief. She works across forms, melding painting, poetry, prose, site-specific intervention, editing, activism, and teaching. She founded the Art + Ecology program at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, and is an all-around integral part of Signal Fire, providing opportunities for artists to learn about environmental justice by engaging with public wildlands. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College and her visual art has been shown nationally and has been recognized by numerous grants, fellowships, and residencies. She is founding Co-Editor of Leaf Litter, Signal Fire’s art and literary journal and was Art Editor at The Bear Deluxe Magazine for many years. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Fugue, Moss, Tripwire, Bomb Cyclone, Capitalism Nature Socialism, and elsewhere. A member of the third generation of the Holocaust and the daughter of immigrants, she lives in Portland, Oregon, in the Cascadian bioregion, atop a buried headwaters confluence, on the unceded land of the Clackamas, Cowlitz, Chinook, Multnomah, and other Indigenous peoples.