We know and understand the natural world through our intellect, senses, emotions and stories. Through close readings of particularly powerful texts, writing exercises and discussions, this workshop explores how different ways of knowing – from scientific information to sensory metaphor – can be used to build evocative descriptions of landscape, place, plants, animals and more.
In this workshop, led by writer and ecologist Viki Cramer, you will also reflect on how nature writing uses story and nuanced emotion to interrogate and reflect upon our relationship, as humans, with the more-than-human world.
Viki is a writer whose work seeks to understand how both the human and more-than-human world can flourish in the landscapes we share. She is a PhD-trained ecologist who has lived and worked in the mulga lands, brigalow belt, eucalypt woodlands and subtropical forests of Queensland, the monsoon vine forests of the Northern Territory and, for the past two decades, the south-west of Western Australia. Her science writing has appeared in Ensia and Scientific American, and she contributed to the anthology Ourselves: 100 Micro Memoirs.
This workshop will be held in the living room of Varuna, the National Writers’ House, with opportunity to spend time writing outside in the gardens should weather permit. Please email anita@varuna.com.au if you have any accessibility requirements.
Workshop Ticket Information
Workshop tickets are not included in the gold, silver or bronze passes and can be purchased below: