I’m excited to announce my essay on the wildfire in Cannich will be published by Fire Season in their next book. The essay is set during my first research trip to Scotland to research the wildfires that took place there last year. More details to come!
writing
Nature writing group /
I’ve founded a nature writing group that meets in London UK, currently in a pub in Bloomsbury. If you’re interested in attending send me a DM or email! We will be meeting again this Thursday April 25th.
Nature Writing Course /
I recently participated in the Granta nature writing course, which has just finished. It was so amazing to dedicate time each week to improving my craft and to expand my ideas of what nature writing is and can be. I’ve got some exciting nature writing projects coming up, and I’m also trying to think about how I’d like to use this site to continue nature writing — and other writing — in the future. Will I post short pieces here? I’m not sure. For now, here’s some pictures from a hike in Somerset. I chose this walk, from Nether Stowey to Watchet, after I learnt Coleridge, Dorothy, and William Wordsworth made a similar journey that culminated in Coleridge’s decision to write The Ryme of the Ancient Mariner. I didn’t have much time in Watchet itself, but I loved the town and would love to return to the area. I really associate the Lake District with the Romantics, so it was a wonderful surprise to learn of the Somerset connection.
After so much time nature writing, it feels bland to write this as a boring blog post, but as I say, I haven’t decided yet what purpose I want this page of my website to serve, and since I’m in the habit of brief, soulless updates here, it feels hard to shake the pattern. Needless to say, it was not a soulless walk.
New theatre project /
Time for an official update: I have started doing research and interviews for a new play about wildfires. So far I’ve interviewed firefighters, reptile rescue volunteers, and people who have been evacuated from their homes due to wildfires.
I’m also working on quite a few non-theatre writing projects at the moment.
If you or someone you know has been impacted by wildfires, please get in touch with me through social media or at forestfireplay@gmail.com
More to come!
where did January go???? /
I remember thinking I'd be spending a lot of my time at the beginning of this term doing school work. Hahahahahaha. I don't know where the time has gone but somehow I am behind in school and I still have a lot of obligations to fulfill.
Last week I did a sweet workshop with Ann-Marie Kerr. It was phenomenal. Some parts of it reminded me a lot of neutral mask: I felt open and responsive; it was so simple and so true. And then a lot of it was very challenging. I love entering a sort of raw, primal space in myself. Some of the workshop allowed me to access that space in myself easily, but there were still parts of the day that were terrifying - falling forwards, for instance. As determined as I was to do it, something in my head kept getting in the way. And equally as important as trying things myself was watching my peers explore. It was moving to watch such dear friends of mine tackle challenges and face fears and so on. The collective support in the room was incredible. I'll never forget climbing on my friend Nick to touch the ceiling. After a few attempts, I looked down and suddenly I was being physically supported by every person in the workshop. And then I touched the ceiling. Haha.
And we're still doing puppetry! And I still love it so much! I wish I could explain it! I think it touches on that same sort of "primal" thing I mentioned earlier; I enter this sort of driven, focussed space. But with this added layer of intellect... I just really, really like working on one thing in such a focussed and dedicated way.
My main priority lately has been writing, though. I've been working on fiction every day. It's so wonderful. I love it in part because I can do it on my own, and really accomplish something in a short amount of time. Even if it's two shitty poems, I can complete them in one night without relying on anyone else. Really nice feeling.
It's been hard for me to concentrate on school because at the moment I'm so much more interested in personal projects. As Laura and I were saying yesterday, in an ideal world school would cater to those projects, but sadly it doesn't a lot of the time. It's so hard to force myself to do readings and research for school when there are readings and research I'd rather be doing on my own...