Events
26 May 2021 – publication day: The Book of Australian Trees
30 June – Nature Writing online WritingNSW
17-18 July – Nature Writing Masterclass, Bungendore, NSW
26 October 2021 – publication day The Last Woman in the World
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Tag Archives: landscape
Castlemaine State Festival
Later this month I’ll be participating the Castlemaine State Festival (22-31 March), a stunning bi-annual arts festival, which this year is focussing on sustainability, nature and rural living. I’ll be teaching a nature writing workshop on Friday 29 March. You … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Nature Writing, News
Tagged Castlemaine, hayley butcher, inga simpson, Jessie Cole, landscape, nature writing, State Festival, tree change, writing workshop
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Newcastle Writers Festival sessions
I’ll be talking about Understory at several sessions at the Newcastle Writers Festival next month, as well as leading a masterclass at the University of Newcastle for creative writing students. I’m particularly excited about the session on Writing the Landscape … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Nature Writing, News, Understory
Tagged geordie williamson, holly ringland, inga simpson, landscape, Understory
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Shallow Crossing
The flash and gleam of light, the plop and bubble of others, below – the constant play of a world within a world that knows its own secret. Continue reading
Foxfire
The Finns call the northern lights revontulet, or ‘foxfire,’ after a fabulous mythical fox who swept snow into the air with its tail and ignited it. According to legend, if you talk to the lights, they will come down and … Continue reading
Woo-hoo: Powerful Owl
When we first set up Olvar Wood, we kept hearing a deep mournful call carrying from far off in the early evenings, like a child speaking into a piece of poly pipe down near the large dams on the citrus grove below … Continue reading
Gilbert White’s A Natural History of Selbourne
Gilbert White believed that those who study “only one district are much more likely to advance natural knowledge than those that grasp at more than they can possibly be acquainted with: every kingdom, every province, should have its own monographer.”
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Lone Tree
Trees, like us, live not only in the present but remember the past and anticipate the future. The Larch, for example, remembers a caterpillar attack. The next year, it grows shorter, stouter leaves, which don’t photosynthesise as efficiently as its … Continue reading
Posted in Nature Writing
Tagged inga simpson, landscape, nature writing, olvar wood, small country town, tree, wolf tree, writers retreat, writing
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Falling Wood
The trees sometimes leave gifts for us at Olvar Wood: driftwood from the sky. Branches and fragments bleached pale grey and rubbed smooth not by the tumble of the ocean but by wind and sun and rain. They fall to … Continue reading
Posted in Nature Writing
Tagged driftwood, eucalytus, firewood, inga simpson, landscape, nature writing, nike bourke, olvar wood, tree, trees, wood, writers retreat
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ash and cupcakes
15 August 2011 The woodpile is shrinking. I had planned to chainsaw more wood today, but I’m tired and it is raining. Yesterday we cleaned out the ash from beneath the fireplace, which had piled right up to within an … Continue reading
Posted in Nature Writing
Tagged ash, birds, cupcakes, fire, inga simpson, landscape, nature writing, nike bourke, Nike Sulway, olvar wood, queensland, red belly black snake, snakes, trees, winter, wood, writers retreat, writing
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