Human writers exist in a richly populated, interdependent world of other-than-human beings. Some writers, especially nature writers, engage head-on with this interdependence by writing about landscapes, ecosystems, non-human animals, plants, and environmental crisis. Even in writing that appears fully committed to unraveling human dramas, the other-than-human may appear as a setting or a metaphor, a sunset or a housecat.

Using Barry Lopez’s essay on interior and exterior landscapes as a framing, in this workshop we will examine the work of multiple authors who bring the more-than-human world into their work in deliberate ways. Participants will also have the opportunity to engage with other-than-human beings, learn mindfulness practices to deepen their sensory and intuitive experiences of the natural world, and practice writing about the more-than-human in inventive ways. These practices will be designed for people who feel a desire to write directly about the land and its varied inhabitants in a variety of genres, as well as for people who want to develop richer, more realistic, and more meaningful settings for their creative work.