Latest news
Writing retreats in the Outer Hebrides
Update: please note that the September 2013 ‘Re-enchanting the Earth’ retreat referred to below has now become an additional ‘Singing Over the Bones’ retreat. See the weblinks for details. Further to our plans to offer writers’ retreats here in the wild and beautiful Western Isles, we now have some courses and some dates to offer. […]
Latest nature writing
Guest post: The Wisdom of Stones by Ian Hill
Approaching along the track, it is hard to see why this place was chosen: a subtle lip in the curve of the hillside; a slackening of the steep slope which falls from fell top to lake, is all there is to suggest any difference in the structure of the rock. Perhaps there were outcrops of […]
Latest ecopoetry
Impure Thoughts by Matt Howard
… in the hearts of some men there still is sanctuary where the lark nests safely. ‘The Triumph of the Machine’ by D.H. Lawrence As this is my maiden blog, I feel I should first declare my hand. I work for a conservation organisation but am in no way trained as an ecologist. I am […]
Latest visual arts & film
Energy and Light in Landscape: the Art of Anthony Garratt – guest post by James Murray-White
James Murray-White is a writer & filmmaker. After travelling for many years, and living with Mongolian nomads, Bedouin tribes, the Inuit of North West Canada, and in Ireland and Scotland, he is now based in Cambridge, where he grew up. As a writer and reviewer, recent pieces have been published in Resurgence, The Short Review, […]
Latest on community, land, activism
Community Growing Wild: Beuysterous and the Garlick Man Solstice Parade, a guest post by Bridget McKenzie
Bridget McKenzie is a cultural learning consultant, based in London. She is founding director of Flow UK, working for museums and heritage bodies. She is married to artist Brian McKenzie and together they home educate their daughter Megan, working on creative projects as a family. She likes (or rather, finds it necessary) to write poems […]
Latest book reviews
Book Review: Holloway, by Robert Macfarlane, Stanley Donwood, Dan Richards
Holloway, by Robert Macfarlane, Stanley Donwood, Dan Richards Faber & Faber 2013. £14.99 Hardback, 48 pp. ISBN: 9780571302710 Reviewed by Sean Hamill Sean Hamill has been Head of English at Dean Close School in Cheltenham for the last ten years. In the summer he will be emigrating, with his wife and five children, to a […]
Latest on navigating collapse
Fixers and Chuckers by David Knowles
It started long ago with fishing rods and bicycles. They were a real challenge for a boy brought up more on a diet of chemistry sets and slide-rules than spanners and saws. Most recently it has been wellie boots and sunglasses. Less technically demanding – but given the cost of a good hard-wearing pair of […]
Latest myth & story
In this place, we speak
There’s a Kiowa story about an arrowmaker, a ‘man made of words’. It’s about a man and a wife. They were alone at night in their teepee. By the light of a fire the man was making arrows. Suddenly he caught sight of something outside the teepee. He continued working but said to his wife […]
Latest environmental communication
Tweeting in the Forests
One of the outcomes of the successful battle to save England’s Public Forest Estate from a government sell-off back in 2011 was the recognition of the power of social media as a part of environmental communication. At the time the Guardian environment reporter Fiona Harvey called it a ‘victory for social media’, while 38 Degrees […]
