This online workshop is one of the first of our the new, exciting range of digital masterclasses that we are offering. In this live online workshop, you will have the opportunity to engage in real time with our brilliant course tutors, as well as other participants - with additional pre and post-course support from our learning team. To celebrate, we are offering an exclusive early bird discount of up to 40% on our first workshops – we hope you enjoy them!
With limited travel options available in the current climate, being curious about our surroundings can bring us joy, and help us to engage with the natural world around us. Nature is also used as a creative tool in much writing - as a character in its own right, or as a metaphor for the human condition. This is as true for nonfiction writing as it is for fiction.
Whether you want to be a nature writer, or you want to use your natural surroundings to inspire other artistic endeavours, this online workshop with nature writer Lucy Jones will show you how to better appreciate the world in which you live, while also understanding the greater societal context which surrounds it. Useful for writers of all styles and genres, this class will equip you with the skills for translating the little things - birdsong at dawn, a teardrop of dew on a blade of grass - into insightful, atmospheric writing.
Lucy will guide you through the techniques for observing nature and putting your observations into writing, where and how to find stories in the natural world, how to incorporate different layers of narrative into your work, as well as how to better understand the societal and environmental contexts of writing about the natural world in 2020.
Become acquainted with your local green spaces more intimately, as new destinations to be explored and revisited. As chaos reigns elsewhere, slow down, take stock of what’s around you, and write it down immortalise it in ink.
Course content
Radical noticing: techniques for observation and translating
Practical tips for looking and seeing
Methods for rewilding your nature writing, including invoking personal experiences and how to apply them to the page
Metaphor, rhythm and style
What is “nature”? A discussion of eco-philosophy
The role and balance of research and source material in nature writing
Practical tips on pitching your work and understanding the publishing landscape for nature writing
You will be sent a link to the webinar 1hr before the start time of 3pm (BST).
Tutor profile
Lucy Jones is a writer and freelance journalist based in Hampshire, England. She is the author of Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild, which was published in February 2020 by Allen Lane and longlisted for the Wainwright Prize. Her writing on culture, science and nature has been published in BBC Earth, BBC Wildlife, The Sunday Times, the Guardian and the New Statesman. She previously worked at NME and The Daily Telegraph. Her first book, Foxes Unearthed, was celebrated for its ‘brave, bold and honest’ (Chris Packham) account of our relationship with the fox, winning the Society of Authors’ Roger Deakin Award 2015.
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Details
Date: Sunday 19 July 2020
Times: 3pm-5.30pm (BST)
Price: Early bird discount price of £35 (plus £2.20 booking fee); standard ticket price of £45 (plus £2.65)
Event capacity: 60
This masterclass is available globally. If you are joining us from outside the United Kingdom, please use this time zone converter to check your local live streaming time.
Information on Guardian Masterclasses
To contact us, click here. Terms and conditions can be found here.
All Guardian Masterclasses are fully accessible - but please contact us if you have any queries or concerns.
Returns policy
Once a purchase is complete we will not be able to refund you where you do not attend or if you cancel your event booking. Please see our terms and conditions for more information on our refund policy.
