Overview

Nature Writing is designed for non-fiction writers interested in writing about nature and the environment, fiction writers wanting to improve their capacity to effectively capture landscape, and professional writers in science or environmental fields seeking to further develop their writing skills, including for advocacy.

This course explores the history of nature writing, including Australian and international perspectives, and current directions in the genre. You will be introduced to some of the complexities of representing landscape – including gender, myth and post-colonialism – and examine concepts of ‘wild’ and ‘wilderness’.

The course covers a range of writing techniques for developing plot and character (including non-human characters), describing nature, and evoking a strong sense of place in fiction. You’ll also explore ways of writing persuasively, to draw attention to environmental issues.

Nature Writing is comprised of twelve ‘lessons’, an essay-style lecture, including theoretical concepts illustrated by a range of examples, and ideas for further reading. You’ll learn from the techniques of great nature writers like Thoreau, Dillard, Deakin, Lopez, and Tredinnick, fiction writers adept at capturing landscape, such as Tim Winton and Barbara KIngsolver, and writers using the power of their words to drive change, like Richard Flanagan and Jay Griffiths.

You will have three opportunities to submit your written work for formal feedback from the course tutors. The course also includes opportunities for you to experiment with various writing techniques and ideas, through writing exercises, interactive play, and peer discussion.

Course Structure

This course is comprised of 12 lessons, each of which is designed to take you one week to complete. Each lesson includes an essay-style 'lecture', a series of writing exercises for you to try, and discussion topics. Some weeks there are additional exercises or interactive elements to explore.

The lesson topics are:

1. The History of Nature Writing
2. Researching and Developing Ideas
3. Plot, Structure, and Story
4. Describing Nature
   • Writing Task One
5. Voice and Viewpoint
6. Character
7. Interpreting Landscape
8. Notions of Wild and Wilderness
   • Writing Task Two
9. Nature and Landscape in Fiction
10. Dystopian Landscapes
11. Writing for Advocacy
12. Angle, Audience and Markets
    • Writing Task Three

Feedback

There are several opportunities in each lesson for you to submit your writing for informal feedback from both other writers in the course, and the course tutors. Feedback from the course tutors on your posts to forums and so on will not be in-depth, but will be personal and timely. You will not receive feedback on all of your posts or comments in the course, though you can expect to receive frequent, personal comments most of the time.

There are three opportunities for you to more formally submit your own writing for feedback from the course mentor. This feedback will be in the form of written notes and will be focused on helping you identify the strengths and weaknesses in your writing, and on ways to move your writing forward. Feedback may include, where appropriate and relevant, advice about further reading, strategies for improving the work, potential markets for publication, etc. If you wish, you can also submit

Writing Task 1: Due Lesson Four

• Your first submission for feedback (and, if you wish, discussion with your peers) can be an essay, article(s), or extract from a longer non-fiction work, focusing on nature in some way, up to a total of 5000 words.

Writing Task 2: Due Lesson Eight

• Your second submission for feedback (and optional discussion with your peers) can be a short story or extract from a longer fiction work with a strong nature, landscape or dystopian focus.

Writing Task 3: Due Lesson Twelve

• Your final submission for feedback (and discussion with your peers) can be a revised resubmission of previously submitted work or a new short story, extract, article, or essay up to 5000 words.
  

There is no marks-based assessment in this course. This is partly because we believe that a focus on grades – on getting a good-enough grade, on writing something to please your teacher or peers – can block you from exploring your writing in an open, exploratory and experimental way. It can get you all tied up in knots worrying about grades, when what you could be focused on is the experience of learning something new, taking risks, and having fun, as well as developing your writing for submission to agents, or publishers.

Prerequisites

You don't need to have any prior experience or knowledge to enrol in this course, although you may find it helpful to have a play around in our Sampler course, or our introductory courses Playing with Prose or Playing with Poetry in order to familiarise yourself with Olvar Wood onLine (OWL).

All of the courses in OWL are based on our philosophy that writers thrive through a mixed diet of reading, writing and thinking. If you’ve never thought about your writing practice that way before, or you’d like to learn more about how to integrate your writing, reading and thinking, you might find our Chapter One course Reading for Writers useful for opening up your practice, exploring ideas around inspiration, writers block, how to ‘read like a writer’ and so on.

Resources

In order to gain the most out of this course you will be asked to engage with a range of material, including some poetry, fiction and non-fiction. All of the readings for this course are available through the online interface as downloadable PDFs, word documents or webpages.

The course tutors will also encourage you to read material outside the set readings, and will recommend works or authors in response to your interactions in the course.

How To Enrol

You can enrol in any course on OWL by going to the website, and clicking on the course title. You'll be guided through the process of creating a user profile and paying for your course (via Paypal).

If you'd prefer to have your user profile created for you (you can edit it later), and pay by either direct deposit or cheque, please contact us by email at admin@olvarwood.com.au