Announcing the Twenty-third Annual

Wildbranch Writing Workshop

Nature Writing and Beyond
June 6-12, 2010
Co-sponsored by Sterling College and Orion magazine

APPLICATION DEADLINE MARCH 12, 2010! 
 

THIS YEAR’S WORKSHOP FACULTY

	DAVID GESSNER is the author of six books, including Return of the Osprey, Sick of Nature, and Soaring with Fidel. His essay “Learning to Surf” won the John Burroughs Essay Award in 2006. His essays have appeared on NPR’s “This I Believe” series and in many magazines and journals including The New York Times, Georgia Review, American Scholar, Orion, The Harvard Review, and the 2006 Pushcart Prize Anthology. He has taught Environmental Writing as a Briggs-Copeland Lecturer at Harvard, and is currently a professor of creative nonfiction at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, where he also edits the literary journal of place, Ecotone.
	Writer, naturalist, and activist JANISSE RAY is author of three books of literary nonfiction: Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, Wild Card Quilt, and Pinhook. She is on the faculty of Chatham University’s low-residency MFA program, and is a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow. She holds an MFA from the University of Montana, and in 2007 was awarded an honorary doctorate from Unity College in Maine. Ray attempts to live a simple, sustainable life on a family farm in southern Georgia.
	SCOTT RUSSELL SANDERS is the author of twenty books, including Staying Put, Hunting for Hope, A Private History of Awe, and A Conservationist Manifesto. Winner of the Lannan Literary Award, the Mark Twain Award, and the John Burroughs Essay Award, he has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He taught at Indiana University from 1971 until his retirement in 2009. He lives with his wife in the watershed of the White River in the hardwood hills of southern Indiana.
	H. EMERSON BLAKE was trained as an ecologist, and his first editorial job was with a biology journal. After a decade as an editor at Orion, he assumed the role of editor-in-chief at Milkweed Editions, a book publisher. In 2005 he returned to Orion to serve as the magazine’s editor-in-chief. He is the editor of hundreds of magazine articles, as well as many books of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and children’s fiction. - Orion editor-in-residence
	JENNIFER SAHN is editor of Orion magazine. Articles she has edited have won John Burroughs Essay Awards, Pushcart Prizes, and have been reprinted in the Best American Science and Nature Writing and Best Creative Nonfiction. She has been on the editorial staff of Orion for the past sixteen years. Her writing has been published in a variety of print venues and she has served as the editor for several book projects. - Orion editor-in-residence

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ABOUT WILDBRANCH

Offered at a college committed to natural resources education, Wildbranch is a week-long workshop of classes, lectures, readings, and discussions on the craft and techniques of fine writing about the natural world. The Wildbranch Workshop is for writers who want to improve and market their outdoor, natural history, and environmental writing, as well as environmental educators and activists who want to bring better writing skills to bear on their work.

The morning workshop and optional afternoon and evening sessions can benefit both professional writers as well as those with a personal interest in producing essays, journalism, or fiction that relates to the themes of nature and environment. Participants will select one of the faculty members with whom they will work each morning on writing, reading, and shared critiques. Class size is limited to twelve. The rest of the day offers a range of readings and discussions, with ample time to write and socialize. The teaching faculty is composed of professional writers and editors distinguished in their fields, noted for their teaching abilities, and dedicated to helping participants improve their skills.

Two editors-in-residence from Orion magazine offer participants the option of a one-on-one critique of a piece of their writing. A limited number of manuscripts will be accepted for review on a first-come first-served basis and a 4,000-word limit applies. Those wishing to take advantage of this opportunity are asked to submit their work to the workshop director by May 1.

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2010 FEES

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INFORMATION FOR APPLICANTS

Enrollment in the workshop is limited to 32. Applications must arrive at Sterling College by March 12, 2010. Applicants will be notified by April 9, 2010. A nonrefundable deposit of $50 is expected within two weeks of acceptance. Full payment must be made by June 1.

Applicants must indicate their first, second, and third faculty choices when submitting their application materials. A good-faith effort is made to match participants with either their first or second choice. Assignments will be made upon acceptance.

Participants may stay in Sterling College dormitories (which, like most dormitories, are shy on amenities) or make arrangements for other accommodations in the area. A limited number of $200 scholarships are available to help defray tuition expenses. Those interested in a scholarship should include a letter of need when submitting an application.

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HOW TO APPLY

Download the Wildbranch Writing Workshop application, fill it out, and ensure that it arrives at Sterling College by March 12, 2010. Selected applicants will be notified by April 9, 2010.

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2010 WORKSHOP SCHEDULE (Tentative)

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COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

WRITING FROM PLACE
David Gessner
This is a workshop in creative nonfiction with a special emphasis on writing about place. We will explore the role that writing about places—sometimes natural places, sometimes not—can play in writing personal essays and memoir. For nonfiction writers who are stuck for a subject, place often unlocks other topics and deeper concerns. For some writers turning their minds to a specific place they care for—a home, a patch of woods, a beach—can prove a reliable muse. At the same time, writing about deeply knowing a place can make us feel a little mystical, even silly. As the great Alaskan writer John Haines said: “To express a place in art we need to take certain risks . . . we need intimacy of a sort that demands a certain daring and risk: a surrender, an abandonment.” Or as Barry Lopez puts it, we need to “become vulnerable to a place.” We’ll attempt this in our work and our reading.

WILD TRUTH AND A NATURAL COURAGE
Janisse Ray
Put together well, words are muscles, with the power to change the course of history. Without Douglas’s River of Grass, America would not have the Everglades; without Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma we’d be less healthy; without Berry we wouldn’t be organizing Buy Local campaigns. Only by telling visionary stories, as artfully as possible, will we create a world that is sustainable and lives that are meaningful. This workshop is about writing for change and how to be successful at it. The power of literature to transform lives and the world lies in magic. How does a writer become a magician? We will cover the basics of creative nonfiction, including personal narrative, memoir, and the essay, and will also address the following: how to write a book, the writing life, literature as activism, and getting published. We will explore our relationships to place, to ourselves, to our country, and to others. We will focus on habit, or the practice of writing; technique; escaping the curse of narrative (including how to write in scenes, how to show not tell, how to use literary devices); creativity, including exercises to increase it; and courage.

PERSON, PLANET, COSMOS: IMAGINING OURSELVES IN NATURE
Scott Russell Sanders
Rachel Carson wrote, “If we have ever regarded our interest in natural history as an escape from the realities of our modern world, let us now reverse this attitude. For the mysteries of living things, and the birth and death of continents and seas, are among the great realities.” In this workshop we will explore ways of writing about personal experience within the context of those great realities—seasons, tides, landscapes, other species, migration, global climate, evolution, geological and cosmic history, and the like. You will be invited to write a series of exercises designed to explore these connections—or, if you prefer, you may pursue a nonfiction project you have already started—and in class we will discuss the work you produce. We will also discuss brief selections from John Elder and Robert Finch, eds., Nature Writing (Norton, 2002). Our emphasis will not be on critiquing manuscripts but on understanding the ethical, conceptual, and aesthetic issues involved in telling personal stories within the context of nature. By the end of the week, you should have five short pieces that could be developed into personal essays, natural history articles, or passages of memoir.

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LECTURES, READINGS, AND DISCUSSIONS

MAGAZINE AND BOOK EDITING
- H. Emerson Blake and Jennifer Sahn
What do editors want? How do they make selections for their respective publications and publishing houses? What do they expect from writers? What can the writer do to increase the chances of being published? From initial contact to final changes, this lecture will address how writers and editors work together, the different responsibilities they face, and the ways in which the most fruitful relationship between them can be developed. Topics will also include the many different kinds of writing that are needed to describe our relationship with nature--literary, scientific, journalistic, educational, experiential, descriptive--and how writers can learn to match their style and interests with appropriate publications and publishers.

INTERNET PUBLISHING ROUNDTABLE
This roundtable session will explore the vast terrain of online publishing. Workshop participants and faculty are welcome to join in a discussion of various online media outlets, who publishes what, and how to begin writing for the Internet—whether it be a blog, assignment, or writing for an online magazine on spec.

WRITING AS A BUSINESS PANEL DISCUSSION
- David Gessner, Janisse Ray, and Scott Russell Sanders
How does one earn a living as a writer? In this panel discussion, our workshop faculty will try to answer that question. Topics covered may include generating ideas, query letters, contracts, fees, manuscript preparation, revisions, time management, record keeping, taxes, health insurance, pensions, travel, home offices, agents, working with editors and publishers, and the differences among book, magazine, and newspaper publishing.

AN EVENING OF READINGS
- David Gessner, Janisse Ray, and Scott Russell Sanders
Each of the three workshop faculty will read from their work at this event, which will be open to the public.

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OUTSIDE ACTIVITIES

There is fine fishing on nearby lakes and streams, including the Wild Branch, from which the workshop derives its name. Canoeing, hiking, bicycling, birding, and swimming in the beautiful Vermont countryside are other popular activities. Each morning, an informal bird walk is organized for Wildbranch participants.

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GETTING HERE

By car it is a 1.5 hour drive from Burlington, 3 hours from Montreal, and 4.5 hours from Boston. North-South interstate highways I-89 and I-91 both lie within 50 miles of campus. Commercial airline service is available to Burlington (VT), Manchester (NH), and Montreal. Pick-up service from the Burlington airport will be available for a modest fee.

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CORRESPONDENCE

For answers to questions about fees, travel, admissions, or curriculum, contact David Brown, Director, Wildbranch Writing Workshop, Sterling College, Craftsbury Common, VT 05827, 800-648-3591, extension 102.