Nature Writing & Memoir
Are you approaching nature writing through a personal lens?
Author Ben Masters (The Flitting) will delve into combining nature writing with memoir. He will share insight into the journey of his own book The Flitting, from conception, to the writing process to publication, and offer advice on how to write personally about the natural world.
Ben will also explore hybrid writing - his book is a blend of lots of different forms: nature writing, memoir, essay, novelistic writing, literary biography, cultural criticism. He'll give advice on how to go about mixing modes and forms, and how to organise such a diverse mixture of materials into a cohesive whole. The session will end with a brief Q&A, so come ready with your questions!
This masterclass will take place online via Teams. It will also be recorded so if you are unable to attend live, you'll be able to catch-up and access the recording for up to two weeks after the event has taken place.
You can download Teams free on your computer, or join via the web: https://www.microsoft.com/en-ww/microsoft-teams/download-app
PREP
- In just a few sentences, describe something from the natural world (a butterfly, bird, tree, or something else). Think about the following:
- how you will convey its appearance/physicality;
- how you will create a sense of its essence or character (by which I mean things that go beyond merely what it looks like);
- And how you will create a perspective on it (ideally without using the first-person ‘I’)
On the latter, see if you can imply a personal point of view without simply spelling it out. For example, can you use particular words or descriptions that suggest rather than state your feelings towards the thing you’re writing about? And/or can you use very specific analogies/similes or metaphors that personalise your engagement with that thing, that make your description idiosyncratic, that might tell us something about your unique connection with it?
- Please prioritise the above exercise – but if you have time, here is a bonus thing to think about
Think of a cultural artifact/text/thing that has a special meaning for you. It could be a book, a painting, a record, a movie, or something else entirely. How would you go about conveying why it matters to you at the same time as giving us a sense of the thing-in-itself? What aspects of it and your experience of it would you focus on? How might you start to narrativize / tell the story of the relationship between you and it?
