Writing Place (Creative Writing)

Attending to the popularity of ‘re-enchanted’ place in contemporary literary culture, this workshop-based class is designed to explore the relation between writing and place through critical reading and creative writing practice. Students are encouraged to experiment with different modes and forms of writing about, in, and with place. Through encounters with prose and poetry from writers whose work is explicitly informed by the contemplation of place, we will reflect on the meaning of place as a ‘lived experience’ embedded in cultural, material, historical, social, and political contexts. Themes explored may include on-site writing, place and movement, landscape and nature writing, notions of home, travel writing, displacement and migration, and place and identity. Our practice-based considerations will be accompanied by critical investigations into different concepts and cultural imaginaries of place with attention to the imbrications, interdependencies, and interrelations between place, human, and the environment in a globalised world.