The natural world is a powerful source for the written word, and language that springs from nature can transport us from the immediate to the transcendent. We might begin with the immediacy of corn and soybeans and wind up in caves, on glaciers, exploring the rich world of fungi underfoot, or creating a pond ecosystem in our backyard. In this Read Outside writing workshop, we will study passages from contemporary writers like Robert Macfarlane, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Merlin Sheldrake, then write our own short exercises and share them with each other.

About the instructor:
Jessica Reed’s chapbooks are Still Recognizable Forms (Laurel Review Greentower Press) and World, Composed (Finishing Line Press). Her recent work has appeared in The Journal, Conjunctions, Quarterly West, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Bellingham Review, New American Writing, Waxwing, [PANK], Inverted Syntax, DIAGRAM, Annulet, Scientific American, Chicago Review online, The Fourth River, The Indianapolis Review, Crazyhorse, Exposition Review, Isotope: A Journal of Literary Nature and Science Writing, and elsewhere. She has written poetry reviews for Jacket2, Annulet, and Green Linden. She has degrees in poetry and physics and has taught science poetry in Saudi Arabia and China as well as in the US. She teaches a seminar at Butler University on Physics and the Arts. She grew up across the US, from the Mojave Desert to the Chesapeake Bay, and now lives next door to her parents in rural Indiana with her husband, solar panels, worm composting, and chickens. https://www.jessicareed.info/