What “Nature Writing” Means Now: New Paradigm Shifts in America’s Oldest Writing Tradition

From seven to nine in the morning, I’m a nature-loving novelist. Our sweet planet shows up in setting, in plot, is the well-source of most metaphor. The rest of the day, I direct an MFA in Nature Writing, one of the few in America with such a focus. My home is packed full of contemporary place-based writing—it’s just what I dig, both in writing and in teaching.

(Why Write Climate Fiction?)

Nature. Writing. Those words get contested a lot, and not a day goes by that I’m not questioned about them, either by prospective students or by friends or readers. Some think it old-fashioned and dead, others have convoluted replacement phrases, some of which make me giggle. Me, I am sticking with “nature writing,” because “nature” is an encompassing word for the focus and black squiggly marks that constitute writing is what we are doing. On top of that, one could argue that Nature Writing is American’s one unique contribution to the literary canon. 

True, there’s been a long tradition of celebratory place-focused poetry and prose across the globe for a very long time, but it’s been reasonably argued that it became a bonafide recognizable genre with the famous foundational authors—Emerson, Thoreau, Muir. And as many have rightly pointed out, there were lesser-known women as well—Rachel Carson, Willa Cather, Mari Sandoz, Susan Fenimore Cooper—who were doing some heavy lifting in the scaffolding of this genre. Absolutely, much of this was white and privileged, somehow vain in its humility, problematic and incomplete, but it was also a fabulous foundation to the sassy and vibrant field we have today.

To my mind, nature writing has evolved tremendously. The first major shift was (and is) the inclusion and celebration of underrepresented voices and places. As in, the writers were new.

The second shift: More works are being collaboratively written and experimentally written. That is to say, the form has become new and fresh.

The third and most recent shift is that the voice is new, in that writings are both more urgent and more brave. I don’t know how to say it except to say that the vibe is stronger, more intense, more laser-focused, particularly in the ways authors speak to social and environmental justice. It’s like the gentrified tea parties of yesteryear got taken over by ragers.

And what a rager it is! Perhaps my biggest observation is simply that the field is exploding. The sheer number of titles makes my heart sing—after all, many of us consider planetary fate as a top priority, one needing our attention in novels, nonfiction, and poetry. And these books are making a difference in our politics and in our souls. 

To my mind, the best books not only include a centering of place—in setting and theme and plot, sure—they center the idea that caretaking of the planet is worthy of exploration, the highest of human endeavors, the best survival story of all survival stories. Whether fiction, non, or poetry, a book that makes the final cut to my syllabus is one which the storyline and characters could not be picked up and plunked elsewhere—they are too invested with the octopus or sea otters or drought or wildfire. The themes are driven by enormous existential questions not about love or religion or economies, but the fate of life itself. And more than that, the book poses some questions about what we’re doing right or wrong for this one blue spinning ball floating through space. Planet Earth—and the way we exist in relationally to her—are front-and-centered, and good and relevant and brave questions are being asked.

And it’s not just nonfiction, which is what comes to mind when people think “nature writing.” My syllabus includes cli-fi and realistic fiction, literary and upmarket, memoir and reportage, ecopoetry and just poetry. And the approach varies too: Celebration or advocacy. Delight or deep ecogrief. Investigative or informative.

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As a novelist, I’ve always kept a special place in my heart for the fiction, of course. When I set out to write my seventh novel—but my first upmarket one—I knew I was veering away from the literary and into the land of beach-reads. That’s simply what the book wanted to be. I wondered if I’d need to bury my environmental ethic a little in order to fulfill the expectations of the genre—poor Barbara Kingsolver is forever being criticized for being too much a hippie, for example—but I wanted Three Keys to have a character whose voice becomes increasingly more urgent, her eco-ethics clearer and brighter as the novel went on, reflecting exactly what I see going on in the field. I pushed on and wrote the book I wanted to, about a woman leaving her old pat life behind, breaking into people’s homes with some keys she has, as she attempts to break into a new and better life. This sassy and ultimately more important existence is shaped around giving back to her big home, Mama Earth, the one home she never needed a key to at all.

Luckily, the publisher loved it, and it comes out this July from Ballantine. Which is only to say, I’m hoping to participate in this evolving field as a writer—in addition to my teaching and reading. I hope my own works reflect what I see going on in others’ works. Why? Because I believe that from devastation comes renovation, from grief comes change. After all, necessity is the mother of invention—and we are finding it necessary, I think, to find new ways to live on Planet Earth. Some of these new paths forward will be found via stronger relationality with nature, inspired by the world’s kick-ass and spunky (yes, let’s call it what it is) Nature Writing.

Check out Laura Pritchett’s Three Keys here:

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Recommended reads

Nature Writing is diverse, experimental, edgy, sophisticated, clear-eyed, and oh-so-much-more than what some people think. Here are some books from my syllabus, starting with some “classics”–recently new but make it year after year: 

Braiding Sweetgrass, obviously. Any book by Barbara Kingsolver. Poetry anthologies including Black Nature and Native Voices. Work by Kathleen Dean More, Terry Tempest Williams, Linda Hogan, Louise Erdrich, Octavia Butler.

As someone who is interested in very contemporary lit, and I’m generally focused on what’s coming out now. The newest additions to my syllabus are: North Woods, Birding While Indian, The Waters, Remarkably Bright Creatures, Soil: A Black Mother’s Garden, and A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars.