Where is the Wild? Nature Writing Workshop with Amy-Jane Beer – by Joanna Dobson

Last year on our allotment we lost an entire crop of leeks to the allium leaf miner, Phytomyza gymnostoma. I went to the plot in driving rain on a grim December afternoon, and pulled up a few leeks for supper, their oniony tang hitting my nose in bursts as the wind whipped across my face.

Land Lines Blog Community Reviews: Favourite Nature Writing Texts of 2020

We are delighted to be able to share contributions from the Land Lines Blog community in this special post – which brings together our readers and contributors’ favourite nature writing texts that they encountered in 2020. A profoundly difficult year for many, 2020 has offered some of us a chance to reflect on what nature

Nick Hayes’ The Book of Trespass – Review by Rebecca Ferrier

This December on the Land Lines Blog, we are delighted to share with you a miniseries of reviews of key contemporary nature writing texts – including creative nonfiction and poetry – contributed by some wonderful writers and academics. Keep a look out for more instalments of the series over the next few weeks! “There are boundaries in

Seán Hewitt’s Tongues of Fire – Review by Pauline Rowe

This December on the Land Lines Blog, we are delighted to share with you a miniseries of reviews of key contemporary nature writing texts – including creative nonfiction and poetry – contributed by some wonderful writers and academics. Keep a look out for more instalments of the series over the next few weeks! ‘the living thing/pulled from

Surfacing with Kathleen Jamie – by Michael Malay

This December on the Land Lines Blog, we are delighted to share with you a miniseries of reviews of key contemporary nature writing texts – including creative nonfiction and poetry – contributed by some wonderful writers and academics. Keep a look out for more instalments of the series over the next few weeks! ‘Why go

My Great Outdoors – by Sue Cassell

What motivated me to build My Great Outdoors? During lockdown, my eight-year-old son, despite the brilliant weather, was reluctant to venture outdoors.  This was tough for me, as I thrive in the outdoors.   My time at home was at least a chance to catch up on reading. I started with a book by a

The Sand Lizard and a Sense of ‘Place’ – by Philip Parker

The Land Lines Blog is delighted to share Philip Parker’s experience as part of a brand new project – 26 Wild – a collaboration between the writer’s group ’26’ and the Wildlife Trusts, which commissions writers to engage creatively with vanishing species. Here, Philip shares his poem and writes about his research process and his

October – by Merryn Glover

October “October is the coloured month,” Nan Shepherd wrote in The Living Mountain, her now-celebrated account of her relationship with the Cairngorm range of Scotland. Here, where I live on the Spey side of those mountains, it is radiantly true. Somehow this transitional time gathers the full spectrum of colours, shades and tones and spills

Nature from the Inside – Susan Holliday

In this piece for the Land Lines blog, psychotherapist Susan Holliday revisits the role of wonder in revealing to us the hidden depths of human nature. In the hush of lockdown I have found myself walking around my little patch of south London more often.  My dusty senses have been swept clean by the intricate

A Midsummer Nightjar – by Kim Crowder

Two days before the summer solstice, for some a magical time of year, but it’s stickily humid, windless and cloudy – perfect weather for the insects that are hatching in their millions. Walking the horses towards the wood for an early ride today, we were swarmed by hordes of little buzzing black flies who were