Pen and Plough Writing Workshops Exhibition

Originally posted on The Pen and the Plough:
William Robb, Bathgate Ploughing Match, 1914. Photo from the collection of Kirsty Tait, used with permission. Introduction by Patrick Laurie and Emily Diamand Nature writing has discovered a new level of popularity. Fresh and varied voices have allowed readers to connect with the natural world, and the…

An Inescapable Wildness – Philip Strange

Sometimes it seems as though the seals are singing and in the wind that day their mournful song rose and fell adding to its mystery.  Some say it sounds like a human crying which is why it unsettles but to me it is a unique, other worldly noise, one that I have only heard from seals.

Jewish landscape writers and painters of the Russian fin de siècle

He wished ‘to locate in my country the most simple, the most intimate, the most commonplace and the most emotionally moving [landscapes], that which often causes a sense of melancholia. The spectators should be touched in the depths of their soul.’

Gifts of Gravity and Light: A Nature Almanac for the 21st Century – Pippa Marland

Pippa Marland, Land Lines team member and co-editor of the nature writing collection Gifts of Gravity and Light: A Nature Almanac for the 21st Century, reflects on how the collection came about. ‘I learned something new from each enjoyable essay and by the end realised that nature is integral to how we live on this planet, not a

The crowd-sourced nature diary and the Covid-19 spring

As we announced in our last blog post, March 20th saw the launch of the second crowd-sourced spring nature diary, led this year by the National Trust. It also saw the country beginning to feel the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, which were continuing to unfold through the week in which diary was open for

‘A Year in Kingcombe’ by Anita Roy

Today’s guest blog comes from one of the finest new voices on the British nature writing scene, Anita Roy, with extracts from her wonderful account of a calendar year at Kingcombe in Dorset. First published month by month in Little Toller’s online nature journal The Clearing , the diary quickly gained a devoted following. It is now

‘The Shock of the New Nature Writing’ by Richard Kerridge

Ahead of the New Networks for Nature symposium taking place in York from 31st October to 3rd November, we’re delighted to reprint from the New Networks for Nature blog (with kind permission from Richard and the NNN team) Richard Kerridge’s wonderfully succinct account of new nature writing. A few tickets are still available for the

Process: on writing, inexperience and Kathleen Jamie – by Lauren Maltas

Today we post the final essay in our summer series of emerging nature writers. As we welcome new students to the University of Leeds and the School of English this week, we are delighted to be publishing the work of one of our current English Literature undergraduates, Lauren Maltas.  In “Process: on writing, inexperience and

The rise and popularity of British Nature Writing: an interview with Pippa Marland by Gunhild Riske

The Danish journalist and anthropologist Gunhild Riske interviewed Pippa as part of her research for a forthcoming article on British nature writing for the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. We are delighted to post the full text of the interview on the Land Lines website today, illustrated with photos by Gunhild, Dan Reid, and artwork by Katie

Notes on Return, Recycling and Renewal

By Kim Crowder In the second installment of our summer series of new nature writing, Kim Crowder reflects beautifully on the dramas of the natural world that took place during the course of this year’s spring and early summer in the microcosm of a stable roof, noting the ‘returns’ that the season brought and the