If cost is a barrier to participation, please fill out the FINANCIAL ACCESSIBILITY FORM on our website and we will reserve a spot for you at no cost or whatever you feel comfortable paying.

Nature Writing and the Body

Saturday, October 24th

10:00AM - 12:30PM

Lazy Z Ranch (68540 E Highway 20, Sisters OR)

Whether you’re writing poetry, memoir, or fiction, writing about nature is rooted in the body. The smell of ponderosa, the feel of pine needles on the forest floor, the sound of a chickadee: we process these all through the body first. This workshop will explore the way wilderness mimics the human bodily experience: its rhythms, its tides, its moods, its seasons. We’ll spend time both indoors and outdoors, reading and discussing published examples and playing with writing prompts that use techniques like sensory grounding and mindfulness to improve our craft. We’ll learn to see nature writers not as authorities on the natural world, but rather as extensions of the places they are writing about. Bring your notebook and a good pair of outdoor shoes.

Facilitator Bio:

Elissa Minor is the author of the nature memoir Another Eve: Shame and Desire on the Oregon Coast (Oct ‘26) and the award-winning collection The Prisoner Pear: Stories from the Lake, which was a New York Times Editors Choice pick. Their work has appeared in New Letters, Glimmer Train, Juxtaprose, Baltimore Review, The Ledge, and Crab Creek Review, among others. They teach creative writing and literature in the Pacific Northwest.

SFOB '26 - Under Western Skies