Welcome to this newsletter in which I’ll share free (or very cheap) opportunities I’ve found for nature writers, recommend nature writing blogs and books, suggest nature-writing tips/prompts, and more…

This month’s updates:

  • new Book now for a free online reading event with nature & place writers Zakiya McKenzie and Jo Clement this Thurs 18 Nov.
  • updated Competition (entry fee £7). Entries for the Gingko Eco-poetry Prize are open until 21 December 2021 and their twitter feed has trailed that free eco-poetry workshops will begin 23 Nov.
  • new Free online writing workshop with nature writer and flash-fiction whizz El Rhodes on Sat 27 Nov. Tickets here.
  • new Free online writing workshop. I’m partnering with talented writer and photographer, Rebecca Gibson, for my next on-line nature-writing workshop on Saturday 18th December. Free tickets are available here. These workshops are made possible by National Lottery Funding through lovely & generous Arts Council England.
  • still relevant Competition (entry fee £15). Still plenty of time to plan and research an essay for the prestigious Nature Chronicles Prize which is looking for “engaging, unique, essay-length non-fiction that responds to the time we are in and the world as it is, challenging established notions of nature writing where necessary”. Entries close 15th Jan 2022.
  • still relevant Competition (free entry): Entries for the Green short stories competition close 21 February 2022 and they’re looking for 2000-5000 word stories which meet carefully defined criteria. There’s also a free green short stories workshop on 20 November 2021 at University of Southampton to give you some ideas.

This month’s Who to Read or Follow recommendations:

  • This month I’m reading Tessa Boase’s book about Etta Lemon, who was one of the amazing women who successfully campaigned from the 1880s to the 1920s against the importing of feathers and bird skins for hats .
  • Hey Twitter users, looking back over previous newsletters, I can’t believe I haven’t already recommended following inspiring and thoroughly nice nature writer Amy-Jane Beer. I’m very much looking forward to reading her book The Flow when it’s published in 2022.

This month’s Nature-writing tips and prompts:

Stuck for nature-writing inspiration?  Nature is often not what it first appears. From insect galls which look like plant seeds and feathers falling like snowflakes to birds lining branches like from a distance like foliage, why not write about double-takes in nature.

Add to your knowledge of the nature around you… November is the perfect month to look at pavement plants in flower. Nothing quite beats those grey days than finding a patch of colour.

And… please send me anything you’d like to be included in next month’s newsletter.

[This month’s pic is some Gallant-soldier I found growing on Southwark Bridge Road. You can read about my walk here Tales of the Suburban Wild – from urbs to burbs]