creative nonfiction nature writing examples

Nature Writing Examples

by Lisa Hiton

From the essays of Henry David Thoreau, to the features in National Geographic , nature writing has bridged the gap between scientific articles about environmental issues and personal, poetic reflections on the natural world. This genre has grown since Walden to include nature poetry, ecopoetics, nature reporting, activism, fiction, and beyond. We now even have television shows and films that depict nature as the central figure. No matter the genre, nature writers have a shared awe and curiosity about the world around us—its trees, creatures, elements, storms, and responses to our human impact on it over time.

Whether you want to report on the weather, write poems from the point of view of flowers, or track your journey down a river in your hometown, your passion for nature can manifest in many different written forms. As the world turns and we transition between seasons, we can reflect on our home, planet Earth, with great dedication to description, awe, science, and image.

Journal Examples: Keeping Track of Your Tracks

One of the many lost arts of our modern time is that of journaling. While keeping a journal is a beneficial practice for all, it is especially crucial to nature writers. John A. Murray , author of Writing About Nature: A Creative Guide , begins his study of the nature writing practice with the importance of journaling:

Nature writers may rely on journals more consistently than novelists and poets because of the necessity of describing long-term processes of nature, such as seasonal or environmental changes, in great detail, and of carefully recording outdoor excursions for articles and essays[…] The important thing, it seems to me, is not whether you keep journals, but, rather, whether you have regular mechanisms—extended letters, telephone calls to friends, visits with confidants, daily meditation, free-writing exercises—that enable you to comprehensively process events as they occur. But let us focus in this section on journals, which provide one of the most common means of chronicling and interpreting personal history. The words journal and journey share an identical root and common history. Both came into the English language as a result of the Norman Victory at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. For the next three hundred years, French was the chief language of government, religion, and learning in England. The French word journie, which meant a day’s work or a day’s travel, was one of the many words that became incorporated into English at the time[…]The journal offers the writer a moment of rest in that journey, a sort of roadside inn along the highway. Here intellect and imagination are alone with the blank page and composition can proceed with an honesty and informality often precluded in more public forms of expression. As a result, several important benefits can accrue: First, by writing with unscrutinized candor and directness on a particular subject, a person can often find ways to write more effectively on the same theme elsewhere. Second, the journal, as a sort of unflinching mirror, can remind the author of the importance of eliminating self-deception and half-truths in thought and writing. Third, the journal can serve as a brainstorming mechanism to explore new topics, modes of thought, or types of writing that otherwise would remain undiscovered or unexamined. Fourth, the journal can provide a means for effecting a catharsis on subjects too personal for publication even among friends and family. (Murray, 1-2)

A dedicated practice of documenting your day, observing what is around you, and creating your own field guide of the world as you encounter it will help strengthen your ability to translate it all to others and help us as a culture learn how to interpret what is happening around us.

Writing About Nature: A Creative Guide by John A. Murray : Murray’s book on nature writing offers hopeful writers a look at how nature writers keeps journals, write essays, incorporate figurative language, use description, revise, research, and more.

Botanical Shakespeare: An Illustrated Compendium of All the Flowers, Fruits, Herbs, Trees, Seeds, and Grasses Cited by the World’s Greatest Playwright by Gerit Quealy and Sumie Hasegawa Collins: Helen Mirren’s foreword to the book describes it as “the marriage of Shakespeare’s words about plants and the plants themselves.” This project combines the language of Shakespeare with the details of the botanicals found throughout his works—Quealy and Hasegawa bring us a literary garden ripe with flora and fauna puns and intellectual snark.

• What new vision of Shakespeare is provided by approaching his works through the lens of nature writing and botanicals?
• Latin and Greek terms and roots continue to be very important in the world of botanicals. What do you learn from that etymology throughout the book? How does it impact symbolism in Shakespeare’s works?
• Annotate the book using different colored highlighters. Seek out description in one color, interpretation in another, and you might even look for literary echoes using a third. How do these threads braid together?

The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland by Nan Shepherd : The Living Mountain is Shepherd’s account of exploring the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland. Part of Britain’s Arctic, Shepherd encounters ravenous storms, clear views of the aurora borealis, and deep snows during the summer. She spent hundreds of days exploring the mountains by foot.

• These pages were written during the last years of WWII and its aftermath. How does that backdrop inform Shepherd’s interpretation of the landscape?
• The book is separated into twelve chapters, each dedicated to a specific part of life in the Cairngorms. How do these divisions guide the writing? Is she able to keep these elements separate from each other? In writing? In experiencing the land?
• Many parts of the landscape Shepherd observes would be expected in nature writing—mountains, weather, elements, animals, etc. How does Shepherd use language and tone to write about these things without using stock phrasing or clichéd interpretations?

Birds Art Life: A Year of Observation by Kyo Maclear : Even memoir can be delivered through nature writing as we see in Kyo Maclear’s poetic book, Birds Art Life . The book is an account of a year in her life after her father has passed away. And just as Murray and Thoreau would advise, journaling those days and the symbols in them led to a whole book—one that delicately and profoundly weaves together the nature of life—of living after death—and how art can collide with that nature to get us through the hours.

• How does time pass throughout the book? What techniques does Maclear employ to move the reader in and out of time?
• How does grief lead Maclear into art? Philosophy? Nature? Objects?
• The book is divided into the months of the year. Why does Maclear divide the book this way?
• What do you make of the subtitles?

Is time natural? Describe the relationship between humans and time in nature.

So dear writers, take to these pages and take to the trails in nature around you. Journal your way through your days. Use all of your senses to take a journey in nature. Then, journal to make a memory of your time in the world. And give it all away to the rest of us, in words.

Lisa Hiton is an editorial associate at Write the World . She writes two series on our blog: The Write Place where she comments on life as a writer, and Reading like a Writer where she recommends books about writing in different genres. She’s also the interviews editor of Cosmonauts Avenue and the poetry editor of the Adroit Journal .

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Written in the wild: the best radical nature writing

From This Land Is Our Land to Why Rebel, the message is that if we take heed of the natural world, we can heal ourselves

E nglish nature writing can be a bit polite. Decorating nature with adjectives has become something of a fashion in the last decade, but there are some books whose verve is a wildflower seed bomb to the neat lawns of English prose.

Principal among these are any of the books written by the magus of human experience in the wild, Jay Griffiths. From Wild , to Kith , to Why Rebel , her latest collection of essays, there is an energy in her words that feels like being chased by wolves. Best of them all is Tristimania: A Diary of Manic Depression , which describes with hyperreal force the electrical storms of the mind, the eerie twilight of mania.

There are many books that shine a light on the otherwise unmentioned elephant in the room of writing about English nature: that we are allowed access to so little of it. Andro Linklater’s Owning the Earth deals with the issue on a global level, and Guy Shrubsole’s excellent Who Owns England? focuses on this country. Ask any land rights campaigner, and the book that inspired them was Marion Shoard’s This Land Is Our Land . Shoard worked for several years for CPRE, the countryside charity, and was fully integrated into the system of land ownership in England and yet, or thus, wrote three excoriating books about its iniquities: The Theft of the Countryside , Right to Roam , and This Land Is Our Land . The last is a comprehensive history of how we lost our rights to land, from William the Conqueror to the modern day.

At long last, the gates to the English garden of nature writing are being prised open by a new generation of talent from communities previously marginalised from both the countryside and the publishing industry. Jini Reddy’s Wanderland deals with the sense of feeling unwelcome in a predominantly white landscape. It primarily seeks a connection of magic between the human and non-human, something deeper than our obsession with leisure and recreation.

The book that most informs the dynamic of race in the English countryside for me is Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Williams. It is a detailed account of the horror at the heart of racism, how it was used to justify the profiteering of sugar barons. It hammers home the point that by objectifying and commodifying nature, we do the same to each other.

Rob Cowen’s recent collection of poems focuses on our recent year of lockdown, emphasising how desperately we need to connect with nature. Mixing the deeply personal with policy and propaganda, interweaving the callous coldness of the wild, from sparrowhawks to viruses, with the regenerative and ebullient effects of nature, The Heeding reminds us what, with a thousand years of exclusion, most of us had forgotten until lockdown: take heed of nature, and we can heal ourselves.

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The Best Nature Writing of 2017 So Far

In the face of some of the worst wildfires, droughts, and climate change-related devastation on record, the publishing world—including many indie and university presses—have responded with an incredible amount of nonfiction nature writing in the first half of 2017. Whether you’re looking for in-depth examinations of plants and animal species, or something more global; writing that tends toward the scientific, or essays that verge into the philosophical; you’ll find it on this list. Many of these works, in the great tradition of nature writing, are told in the first person. Others are a bit more detached. What they all share is terrific writing and fascinating insights into the natural world.

Kicking off this list is a collection of little-known essays by one of the greatest nature writers of all time. They reveal Emerson to be not only a master of the written word, but one of the world’s first environmentalists.

From University of Virginia Press: “As we watch him grapple with what he called the “book of nature,” a more environmentally connected thinker emerges–a “green” Emerson deeply concerned with the physical world and fascinated with the ability of science to reveal a correspondence between the order of nature and that of the mind. ”

If you loved  H is for Hawk , then you’ll love this book. As Maclear studies the birds of her city, she learns to connect her hobby to larger ideas about art, love, and life.

From Scribner: “If Birds Art Life was sprung from Maclear’s sense of disconnection, her passions faltering under the strain of daily existence, this book is ultimately about the value of reconnection—and how the act of seeking engagement and beauty in small ways can lead us to discover our most satisfying and meaningful lives.”

A book for the coffee table that you’ll want to look at every time you sit down. It’s filled with beautiful drawings by some of the world’s most renowned natural history illustrators (including John James Audubon himself.)

From University of Chicago Press: “Gathering together a breathtaking range of nature illustrations from manuscripts, prints, drawings, and rare printed books from across the world, Sleigh brings us face to face (or face to tentacle) with images of butterflies, beetles, and spiders, of shells, fish, and coral polyps.

In her accompanying text, Sleigh traces the story of the art of natural history from the Renaissance through the great age of exploration and into the nineteenth century, offering insight into the changing connections between the natural and human worlds.”

This book marks the first-ever history of the Gulf, and Davis, an environmental historian, more than does the narrative justice. Reaching as far back to the Pleistocene age, Davis tells a comprehensive story that ends with a discussion of humanity’s connection to one of our most over-looked seas.

From Liveright: “Significant beyond tragic oil spills and hurricanes, the Gulf has historically been one of the world’s most bounteous marine environments, supporting human life for millennia. Davis starts from the premise that nature lies at the center of human existence, and takes readers on a compelling and, at times, wrenching journey from the Florida Keys to the Texas Rio Grande, along marshy shorelines and majestic estuarine bays, profoundly beautiful and life-giving, though fated to exploitation by esurient oil men and real-estate developers.”

Like your nature writing a little steamy? Then this is your book. It’s funny, well-written, and filled with tidbits that’ll make you rethink everything you thought you knew about lovin’ in the natural world.

From Filbert: “The sexual antics of plants are far more varied than those of people, and plants have preferences and techniques for which we have no equivalent. Being rooted to the spot, many rely on pollinators for assistance—and forget birds and bees, we’re talking kangaroos, giraffes, and vampire bats. Botanical illustrations throw light on the gallery of pimps, hookers, and gigolos who may be lurking in your back garden and spice up this compendium of scurrilous botany which—be warned—may shock the worldliest of gardeners.”

Every naturalist worth her salt reads John Muir, and thanks to Everyman’s Library, this new collection offers some of his best work.

From Everyman’s Library: “These four full-length works—along with a selection of important essays—helped galvanize American naturalists, and led to the founding of the Sierra Club and several national parks. In these pages, written with meticulous thoroughness and an impassioned lyricism, we witness Muir’s awakening to the incredible beauty of our planet, and the honing of an eye turned as acutely toward the scientific as the spiritual.”

When most folks think “nature writing,” Shakespeare doesn’t necessarily come to mind. This beautiful volume shows us why we’ve been wrong to exclude him.

From Harper Design: “Botanical Shakespeare opens with a brief look at the Bard’s relationship to the plants mentioned in his works—a diversity that illuminates his knowledge of the science of botany, as well as the colloquy, revealing his unmatched skill for creating metaphorical connections and interweaving substantive philosophy. At the heart of the book are “portraits” of the over 170 flowers, fruits, grains, grasses, trees, herbs, seeds and vegetables that Shakespeare mentions in his plays and poems.”

Starlings are the outcasts of the birding world. But Haupt shows us why they deserve our love in this first-hand account of raising a baby starling of her own.

From Little, Brown, and Co.: “On May 27th, 1784, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart met a flirtatious little starling in a Viennese shop who sang an improvised version of the theme from his Piano Concerto no. 17 in G major. Sensing a kindred spirit in the plucky young bird, Mozart bought him and took him home to be a family pet.

A seasoned birder and naturalist, Lyanda Lynn Haupt is well versed in the difficult and often strained relationships these birds have with other species and the environment. But after rescuing a baby starling of her own, Haupt found herself enchanted by the same intelligence and playful spirit that had so charmed her favorite composer.”

Publishing Your Novel Won’t Save You

Another book for H is for Hawk fans. Lockhart’s lyrical writing enchants as much as it educates.

From University of Chicago Press: “On its surface, Raptor is a journey across the British Isles in search of fifteen species of birds of prey, but as Lockhart seeks out these elusive predators, his quest becomes so much more: an incomparably elegant elegy on the beauty of the British landscape and, through the birds, a journey toward understanding an awesome power at the heart of the natural world—a power that is majestic and frightening in its strength, but also fragile.”

A riveting, heartwarming, and occasionally heartbreaking history of wolves in America. Be prepared to learn as much about us as our wild canine friends.

From Da Capo: “Brenda Peterson tells the 300-year history of wild wolves in America. It is also our own history, seen through our relationship with wolves. The earliest Americans revered them. Settlers zealously exterminated them. Now, scientists, writers, and ordinary citizens are fighting to bring them back to the wild. Peterson, an eloquent voice in the battle for twenty years, makes the powerful case that without wolves, not only will our whole ecology unravel, but we’ll lose much of our national soul.”

This vibrant, moving, and philosophical two-sided essay collection reminds us of all the ways that human beings and the natural world are interconnected. Deborah Bird Rose’s piece on the “shimmer of life” alone makes the book worth reading.

From University of Minnesota Press: “As human-induced environmental change threatens multispecies livability,  Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet  puts forward a bold proposal: entangled histories, situated narratives, and thick descriptions offer urgent ‘arts of living.’ Included are essays by scholars in anthropology, ecology, science studies, art, literature, and bioinformatics who posit critical and creative tools for collaborative survival in a more-than-human Anthropocene.”

This galvanizing essay collection is as much a call to activism as a celebration of the beauty of the American West.

From Counterpoint: “In this collection, Reid distinguishes himself from many science-based nature writers, using the natural world as a springboard for speculations and musings on the numinous and the sacred, injustice, homelessness, the treatment of Native Peoples in the United States, and what pushes mountaineers to climb.”

(Also interested in fiction that deals with the natural world? Check out Amy Brady’s monthly column, “ Burning Worlds ,” which is dedicated to examining trends in climate fiction, or “cli-fi.”)

Help the  Chicago Review of Books  and  Arcturus  make the literary world more inclusive by becoming a member, patron, or sponsor. Each option comes with its own perks and exclusive content.  Click here  to learn more.

Amy Brady is the Editor-in-Chief of the Chicago Review of Books and Deputy Publisher of Guernica Magazine. Her writing has appeared in Oprah, The Village Voice, Pacific Standard, The New Republic, McSweeney's, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @ingredient_x.

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The best nature books of 2019, part 2.

The Best Nature Writing of 2018, Part 2

The Best Nature Writing of 2018 So Far

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