“When we are able to integrate into our writing a concern for place, for the natural environment and our relationship to it, our work becomes more urgent. The Orion Writing Workshop teaches us to do this, and surrounds us with other writers invested in sharing and amplifying our passions.”  – Francisco Cantú, author of The Line Becomes a River

Interested in improving your writing craft while working alongside other creative people in a wild and peaceful setting? Introducing Orion’s 2018 Environmental Writers’ Workshop, a weeklong event taking place at the Omega Institute, located in New York’s Hudson Valley.

This intensive week of craft and conversation “gives writers the unique opportunity to connect with Orion writers and editors in order to understand more deeply Orion‘s approach to the relationship between literature and the natural world.”

This year’s faculty: Megan Mayhew Bergman, Major Jackson, Amy Irvine, Anne Haven McDonnell, Lisa Couturier, and Christopher Merrill.

Additional details:

WHO: The Orion Writers’ Workshop is designed for the following participants:

• Writers seeking to become better advocates for the environment through their writing,
• Poets drawn to writing about nature and culture,
• Teachers and scholars who wish to write for a more broad audience, and
• Environmental professionals who want to bring better writing skills to bear on their work.

WHEN: June 10 – June 15, 2018

WHERE: The Omega Institute, Rhinebeck, New York (Two hours north of New York City) 

WHAT:

• Format: Small writing workshops for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
• Readings: There will be daily faculty readings and lectures on publishing.
• One-on-One: Participants meet regularly with his or her workshop leader.
• Special Guests: Literary agents, publishers, writers, and editors.

 HOW:

• Apply here for the 2018 Orion Environmental Writer’s Workshop.
• Writing samples: prose submissions, 1500 words. Poetry submissions, up to 6 pages.
• Applications are accepted on a rolling basis, until workshops are filled. Apply early to ensure the best housing options.
• You will be notified within 2 weeks after you apply.

“As a young writer immersed in environmental and social justice movements, the Orion Writers’ Workshop was a rare opportunity for me to slow down, to reflect, to be with craft and to contemplate purpose, all alongside other writers envisioning a more just and sustainable world. The workshop clarified the intersection in which I now work, as a storyteller of movements, and it gave me the chance to connect directly with those who have walked this path before me.”
– Morgan Curtis, activist and storyteller