Environmental and Nature Writing: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology by Sean Prentiss and Joe Wilkens aims to be a complete primer on the art of writing about the earth.
“This textbook is primarily designed to teach readers how to use the techniques of creative writing to turn our interactions with nature and environment into powerful stories,” write Prentiss and Wilkens in the introduction.
Prentiss and Wilkins are nature writers themselves; both professors of English, Prentiss is the author of Finding Abbey: The Search for Edward Abbey and His Hidden Desert Grave, which won the National Outdoor Book Award for Biography/History, while Wilkins’ memoir, The Mountain and the Fathers: Growing Up on the Big Dry won the GLCA New Writers Award for nonfiction.
Inside, you’ll browse chapters on the history of nature writing, tips on researching and revising, and examples of different styles of environmental writing. The book includes prompts to help budding nature writers find inspiration.
There’s also an anthology section, which showcases environmental writing by Nikky Finney, Major Jackson, Natasha Trethewey, and David Gessner.