Advanced Creative Writing: Learning from Nature Writers

Harvard Extension School

CREA E-157

Section 1

CRN 17390

View Course Details
This intensive workshop for serious writers of all stripes is designed as a running investigation into what good nature writing can teach us about good writing, full stop. For our purposes, nature writing is broadly defined as a cross-disciplinary field covering an eclectic range of literary texts and practices, with touchstone examples drawn from a core sample of distinctive voices past and present. We read work across various genres and periods (prose and poetry, essays and memoirs, natural history and ecology, science writing and environmental reportage, and journals and field guides) by a host of American and British authors (including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Mary Austin, Rachel Carson, Barry Lopez, Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder, Annie Dillard, Jamaica Kincaid, Leslie Marmon Silko, Joy Williams, Robert Macfarlane, Helen Macdonald, and Elizabeth Kolbert), all with the aim of picking up concrete precepts and advice for crafting language and engaging readers with greater clarity, savvy, and staying power, whatever the subject or occasion. Our focus throughout is on specific strategies and techniques that accomplished nature writers employ as renewable resources for instruction and delight. Students receive guidance in devising a concentrated study plan with selected nature writers through a series of linked course projects: curating individual metaphor ledgers and key-word glossaries, annotating literary texts drawn from the course sourcebook, and earmarking two particular writers from an ample list for closer reading.

Instructor Info

David Barber, MFA

Author


Meeting Info

T 6:00pm - 8:00pm (9/2 - 12/20)

Participation Option: Online Synchronous

Deadlines

Last day to register: August 28, 2025

Notes

This course meets via web conference. Students must attend and participate at the scheduled meeting time. See minimum technology requirements.

All Sections of this Course

CRN Section # Participation Option(s) Instructor Section Status Meets Term Dates
17390 1 Online Synchronous David Barber Open T 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Sep 2 to Dec 20