Announcing the Twenty-sixth Annual

Wildbranch Writing Workshop

Nature Writing and Beyond
July 14–20, 2013 
Co-sponsored by Sterling College and Orion magazine

APPLICATION DEADLINE May 10, 2013.

THIS YEAR’S WORKSHOP FACULTY

	Alison Hawthorne Deming is a poet and essayist, Professor and Director of Creative Writing at the University of Arizona. She is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Rope (Penguin, 2009), and three books of nonfiction, including Writing the Sacred into the Real, The Edges of the Civilized World, and Temporary Homelands. With Lauret E. Savoy, she co-edited the anthology The Colors of Nature. Her work has been widely published and anthologized, including in the Norton Book of Nature Writing and Best American Science and Nature Writing. Among her awards are two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets, and the Bayer Award in Science Writing.  A new nonfiction book, Zoologies: On Animals and the Human Spirit, is forthcoming from Milkweed. She is currently Chair of the Board of Directors for Orion.
	Robert Michael Pyle has lived and written in the Lower Columbia River estuary for thirty-five years, most of it freelance. He has taught place-based writing everywhere else, from Tasmania to Tajikistan, recently serving as Kittredge Distinguished Visiting Writer at the University of Montana.  Pyle’s seventeen books include the Willapa Hills classics Wintergreen and Sky Time in Gray’s River, the road-trip epics Chasing Monarchs and Mariposa Road, and several standard butterfly works. A Guggenheim Fellow and John Burroughs Medalist, Pyle founded the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. His most recent book, The Tangled Bank, collects ten years of the columns published under that title in Orion and Orion Afield magazines. Bob has recently completed a poetry manuscript, and he is currently working on the tenth draft of a perpetual novel. Botanist-weaver Thea Linnaea Pyle and two peculiar tuxedo felines share their old farmstead with him and a great many banana slugs. (Photo courtesy Eddie Rivers.)
	H. Emerson Blake started at Orion in 1992. Until 2003 he served as the magazine’s managing editor, and since 2005 he has been editor-in-chief. In between he served as editor-in-chief of Milkweed Editions, a book publisher. Articles and books he has edited have been nominated for or won the Pushcart Prize, the PEN Literary Award, the John Oakes Award in Environmental Journalism, the John Burroughs Medal, the Minnesota Book Award, the Oregon Book Award, the National Magazine Award, and have been selected for inclusion in Best American Essays, Best American Science & Nature Writing, and the New York Times Notable Books of the Year. He is a judge for a number of literary awards, and serves as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Society of Magazine Editors.
	Hannah Fries is associate editor and poetry editor of Orion. Pieces she has edited have won the Pushcart Prize and appeared in Best American Essays and other anthologies. She received an MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson College, was awarded a residency with the Colorado Art Ranch, and her work has been published in a variety of literary journals. She also serves on the Board of Trustees of The Frost Place in Franconia, New Hampshire, and on the organizing committee of the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers. She has been on the editorial staff of Orion for eight years.

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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.

Participants will also have the option of a one-on-one critique of a piece of their writing with an editor from Orion magazine. A limited number of manuscripts will be accepted for review on a first-come first-served basis, following acceptance.

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2013 FEES

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INFORMATION FOR APPLICANTS

Applications must arrive at Sterling College by May 10, 2013. Applicants will be notified by May 24, 2013.

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. 

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SCHOLARSHIPS

Orion is pleased to offer scholarships to the 2013 Wildbranch Writing Workshop.  The following scholarships will be awarded:

The intent of the three full scholarships is to broaden the community of nature writers to include non-traditional and multicultural voices, and to ensure that nature writing as a genre represents the relationship between people and nature regardless of race, ethnicity, geography, or socio-economic standing.

To apply for a full scholarship:  Complete the Wildbranch application form and submit it to Sterling College as instructed.  Complete the scholarship application and submit it directly to

Hannah Fries, Associate Editor
Orion Magazine
187 Main Street
Great Barrington, MA  01230

To apply for a partial scholarship:  Complete the regular application form and submit it to Sterling College. Include a letter of need when submitting your application.

Scholarship recipients will be notified upon acceptance.  The required deposit of $50 will be waived for full scholarship recipients, but recipients must confirm their attendance within two weeks after notification by mail to Hannah Fries, at the above address. 

HOW TO APPLY

Download the Wildbranch Writing Workshop application, fill it out, and ensure that it arrives at Sterling College by May 10, 2013. Selected applicants will be notified by May 24, 2013.

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2013 WORKSHOP SCHEDULE (tentative)

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COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

WRITING AT THE CROSSROADS
Alison Hawthorne Deming
Art and science are two deeply rooted ways of knowing. C. P. Snow’s old saw that these disciplines represent “mutually incomprehensible” poles of human endeavor is giving way to new modes of seeing and responding to the imperiled planet. Participants in this workshop will share stories about enterprises that meet at the crossroads of these two forms of human wisdom. We will start with the Chinese tradition of  “rivers-and-mountains” poetry and make our way into the postmodern forest of interdisciplinary thinking and making. Participants will explore techniques for sharpening their perceptions of the natural world, refreshing their language with rich description and metaphor, and for finding stories that renew hope and gratitude in a dark time. Writers of prose, poetry, or hybrid forms are welcome in this workshop. Prose writers will learn poetic techniques for enlivening narrative voice and subject matter; poets will learn to incorporate the language of science in lyrical forms. Each day we will have a brief assignment to generate new work. For our initial conversation, participants are asked to bring an object from nature, the form of which they find interesting.

COMING TO OUR SENSES IN VERMONT
Robert Michael Pyle
I like to put writers in a particular place, add what I have to bring, stir, and see what good words we can make from the mix. These five mornings will begin with momentary writing, and move on to short talks on craft, form, means, and desires, spiked with exemplary fragments of readings. Then, evocative invitations in hand, we'll go out-of-doors to stalk the wild muse and wilder words. We will  sink our senses deeply into the texture, color, sound, and smell of the setting, and use our most acute and subtle perceptions to smear the false duality between humans and the rest of nature. We will work in any form (essay, fiction, poetry), to catch the sense of this place and its natural history, which equals everything about it.  Finally we will share some of our findings aloud, and I will respond to them with suggestions to consider. Each member will also begin one piece to be built and refined during the week through multiple drafts, and finally to share in the group reading. You will go home a keener observer, a better naturalist, a sharper listener, and a clearer, more compelling writer, if we both do what we're coming to Wildbranch to do.

WRITING NATURALLY
H. Emerson Blake
We’ll start right at the beginning—the creation of strong opening sentences. From there we’ll move on to talk about many aspects of craft, and we’ll use the beautiful environs of Craftsbury to enhance our observation skills. We’ll talk at length about the importance of surprise in good writing, as well as the importance of research. Each day we’ll discuss a classic essay to get insight into how writers enchant their readers and arrest the reader’s attention. In addition to in-class writing exercises, we’ll work together to edit a sample manuscript to gain perspective on how writing is strengthened through the revision process. Each participant will develop two projects during the course of the week: first, a short project to present at the Friday group reading; second, an outline of a larger project that will become a starting point for your post-Wildbranch writing career. In both projects we’ll rely heavily on the advice and judgment of fellow participants to sharpen and strengthen our work. We won’t dwell on the question of how a writer gets his or her work published, but we won’t ignore it either. This class will focus primarily on nonfiction.

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LECTURES, READINGS, AND DISCUSSIONS

MAGAZINE AND BOOK EDITING
- H. Emerson Blake and Hannah Fries
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.

ROUNDTABLE: TIME TO WRITE
Williams Carlos Williams, the poet physician, reflected in his autobiography that people would often ask him, “How do you do it? How can you carry on an active business . . . and at the same time find time to write? . . . But they do not grasp that one occupation complements the other, that they are two parts of a whole, that it is not two jobs at all, that one rests the man when the other fatigues him.” Many writers do not make their primary living as writers and must find time to write in between all the rest of life’s demands. How do we do it? What problems and obstacles do we come up against? What are some practices or habits that can help? How can the rest of life feed our writing, not stifle it?

WRITING AS A BUSINESS PANEL DISCUSSION
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
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 travel, housing, or Sterling College, contact Laurie Laggner at Sterling College, 802-586-7711, x102. For questions about admissions or curriculum, please contact Hannah Fries, Associate Editor of Orion, at 888-909-6568.