nature writing

Script callout by Sarah Deller

Have you written a short play about the climate crisis? Do you have a thrutopian idea you’d like to test out as a short play? Do you want to try a new form of writing in a low pressure way?

I’m seeking short plays for a night of play readings on January 27th 2025.

I’m specifically looking for plays that are in development. I’ll be offering dramaturgical support to the plays selected and written feedback to anyone else who would like it.

Plays should be full plays between 10-15 minutes long. Excerpts are acceptable IF they can stand alone.

This opportunity is for women and nonbinary writers comfortable with appearing in a festival of women writers. (I’ll be specifying on all copy that writers featured are women and / or nonbinary!).

Email submissions and any questions to coarsetheplay@gmail.com

Submissions close January 13th 2025 at 11:59pm GMT.

Nature Writing Course by Sarah Deller

I recently participated in the Granta nature writing course, which has just finished. It was so amazing to dedicate time each week to improving my craft and to expand my ideas of what nature writing is and can be. I’ve got some exciting nature writing projects coming up, and I’m also trying to think about how I’d like to use this site to continue nature writing — and other writing — in the future. Will I post short pieces here? I’m not sure. For now, here’s some pictures from a hike in Somerset. I chose this walk, from Nether Stowey to Watchet, after I learnt Coleridge, Dorothy, and William Wordsworth made a similar journey that culminated in Coleridge’s decision to write The Ryme of the Ancient Mariner. I didn’t have much time in Watchet itself, but I loved the town and would love to return to the area. I really associate the Lake District with the Romantics, so it was a wonderful surprise to learn of the Somerset connection.

After so much time nature writing, it feels bland to write this as a boring blog post, but as I say, I haven’t decided yet what purpose I want this page of my website to serve, and since I’m in the habit of brief, soulless updates here, it feels hard to shake the pattern. Needless to say, it was not a soulless walk.