Writing the natural world
There is a climate emergency and humankind’s relationship with the natural world is in crisis.
The writers, artists and educators who have graduated from our MA Wild Writing share a passion for inspiring others to reconnect with nature.
By combining literature with new ways of exploring landscape and the environment, we are revealing how art can play a vital role in healing the rift between people and our planet.
Why do we need nature writing?
According to the National Centre for Writing, nature or wild writing “bridges the human spirit with the wonders of the natural world.”
It’s a genre with a history that can be charted back centuries, to the very earliest civilisations when people were inspired by and reflected on the natural world they saw around them.
According to Dr James Canton, who leads Essex’s MA Wild Writing, it’s a genre that is more important than ever in the 21st century:
“Nature writing makes us aware of and allows us to focus on nature and the natural world in a unique way. It reminds us that each tree, each wildflower, each tiny insect and bird in the sky is an individual living being.
“From this position we realise how much of the world is too closely under the control of humans and how we need to allow other living beings to share this world.
“Nature writing has always been a vital form but in recent years, we’ve seen the emergence of voice-driven narratives by female authors and less represented voices that have driven a resurgence in the form.”
In this age, when climate change and environmental damage caused by the actions of humans is causing unprecedented natural loss and catastrophic weather events, reconnecting with nature and understanding our place in the natural world could just help us save our planet and those species that live on it.
One course at Essex is making a unique contribution, by providing students with an opportunity to explore our landscape from critical and creative perspectives.
Our MA Wild Writing
Founded in 2009, Essex’s MA Wild Writing: Literature, Landscape and the Environment is the only course of its kind in the UK.
Born out of a partnership between creative writers and scientists, it offers a unique combination of science and humanities, with a focus on writing about the environment.
Students from around the world and from all disciplines come to study the East Anglian landscape and be inspired by it, taking field trips to local sites connected to local authors like Ronald Blythe and Richard Mabey.
Despite its regional focus, it is global in outlook and is of direct relevance to the global climate emergency.
“It provides a specific focus on writing about landscape, place and nature in the context of the climate emergency. As such it allows students to really peer into these key aspects of our time,” said Dr James Canton, from the Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre studies.
A course inspired by research
The course is rooted in the research and writings of Essex’s own eminent nature writer, Dr James Canton, whose latest book, Renaturing, will be published in spring 2025.
His earliest books, Out of Essex: Re-Imagining a Literary Landscape (2013) and Ancient Wonderings: Journeys into Prehistoric Britain (2017) have been inspired by our region’s landscape and tell tales of life in ancient Britain.
His third book, The Oak Papers (2020), was a celebration and exploration of the ecosystem of the 800-year-old Honywood Oak in Coggeshall and serialised as Book of the Week on Radio 4.
In Grounded: A Journey into the Landscapes of Ancestors he explored communities and their relationship with sacred spaces, stone monuments and places of worship across East Anglia.
Speaking about his latest book, Dr Canton said: “Many landscapes inspire me – my new book Renaturing is about nature restoration and the active democratising of rewilding with my focus on a small field beside my home where I’ve been creating wildflower meadows among the young jay-sown oaks, turning what was until recently a patch of grassland – green concrete – and now buzzes and blazes with life.”
"The MA Wild Writing is unlike any other postgraduate course.
"Its graduates have gone on to become poets, writers, environmental consultants, land management experts, wildlife educators and many other roles.
"They are helping us all to understand and heal the world."
Dr James Canton
Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies
Stephen Rutt - Class of 2016
Stephen Rutt graduated in 2016 and has used the innovative course as a springboard for his talents and passions, quickly becoming one of its most successful graduates.
The MA presented a journey of inspiration that still “lives vibrantly in [his] mind” today. For Stephen, the impact of the course is clear, “without the MA I don't know if I'd be a writer,” he admits.
Applying to the course to escape an unhappy career in London and reignite the things he most valued in life, he credits Essex for giving him the time, space, and resources to develop his craft, learning to blend critical analysis with creative exploration.
The result...contact with a publisher the week after handing in his dissertation and a flourishing writing career. A winner of the Satire Society’s first book award for his debut The Seafarers, as well as being named amongst The Times best nature books of 2019 for Wintering, Stephen’s writing celebrates his obsession with “the effervescence of life.”
“Nature is integral to life but if people don't stand up for it, then there will be no life.”
Stephen Rutt
Stephen is still in touch with all the other students from his year and remembers the importance of the group’s field trips. Exploring places such as Orford Ness, the trips deepened his appreciation for landscapes that had inspired literary works and brought places, people, and species to life in ways he had never before experienced.
For Stephen, nature writing is more vital than ever. In an era of climate crises, habitat loss, and environmental degradation, he sees nature writers as the “unacknowledged ambassadors of the planet’s voiceless life.”
By translating the beauty and power of places into language, he hopes that writers like him can be important advocates for conservation. “We make people listen,” says Stephen, and it is through the power of words he tries to inspire action to preserve the natural world he loves.
Stephen reads from 'The Seafarers'
Stephen reads from 'The Seafarers'
Stephen's published titles
The Seafarers
In 2015 Stephen Rutt escaped his hectic, anxiety-inducing life in London to spend seven months at the bird observatory on North Ronaldsay, the most northerly island in the Orkney archipelago. His time there among the seabirds changed him. In this moving and lyrical account, he travels to the farthest corners of the UK spending time among storm petrels on Mousa, gannets in Orkney, Manx shearwaters on Skomer and the terns on the Farnes.
Wintering
In the autumn of 2018 Stephen and his partner moved to a house near the Solway Firth in Dumfries. As they settled into their new home thousands of pink-footed geese were arriving on the Firth from the Arctic Circle to make it their winter home. The arrival of huge flocks of geese in the UK is one of the most evocative and powerful harbingers of winter; a vast natural phenomenon to capture the imagination.
The Eternal Season
The Eternal Season is a tracing out of the gap between what should be and what is happening. By looking at summer through wildlife, landscape and historical nature writing, it shows us how we can see, know and really feel what’s happening to nature now. It is a work of joy, despair, confusion, and ultimately, unexpectedly, hope. It is a biodiverse work, focusing on the trees, plants, dragonflies, butterflies, moths and arachnids that share the summer with our familiar birds.
Aparna Kapur - Class of 2022
Aparna Kapur graduated in 2022, “taking the leap” after working in publishing for over ten years.
The allure of immersing herself in the wilderness - both in reality and through literature - was irresistible, especially following two years of isolation during the pandemic. For her, the word ‘wild’ alone was enough to draw her to the course.
The Masters provided Aparna with the tools to critique literature, explore spaces, and recognise the deep interconnections between history, people, and the environment. More than anything, it introduced her to “kindred spirits” not just in the form of classmates and literary figures, but also in trees, birds, hedges, seeds, feathers, desire lines, and spinneys. These elements of the natural world became her companions, enriching her perspective on both writing and life.
“Nature writing has always held a special place in my heart - more so with my growing concern towards a changing planet.”
Aparna Kapur
Aparna believes that in times of crisis, “art has important work to do”, with nature writing in particular having the “power to remind people what they are fighting for.”
For her, we stand on the brink of environmental catastrophe and “nature writing offers a framework for understanding and confronting the challenges ahead.”
As one of the few minority students in her cohort, she recognised the absence of disenfranchised voices in the genre. This realisation has shaped her work - not only as a writer of children’s books and editor at HarperCollins but also as a reader and advocate for diverse narratives.
She now actively seeks out and amplifies overlooked perspectives, spotting the gaps and listening for those underrepresented voices.
Nature, in its generosity and unpredictability, continues to inspire Aparna’s work. For her it is “angry and patient; interconnected and balanced, unpredictable and genuine; it is changing and growing and constantly evolving.” She strives to reflect these qualities in her writing and in her life, embodying the balance and evolution that nature so effortlessly demonstrates.
Juliet Lockhart - Class of 2011
Artist Juliet Lockhart is a graduate from 2011. She was drawn to the course as she was already reading a wide variety of wild writers.
One of the most memorable aspects for Juliet was the immersive field trips. These experiences allowed her to engage with nature firsthand, to “experience the landscape through walking and seeing” and to be accompanied by writers who deeply understood the places they visited.
From visiting Orford Ness, listening to the sea while Rob MacFarlane read about stones, standing under the flight path of thousands of crows with Mark Cocker, and exploring a foreshore littered with artefacts from an old landfill site with Jules Pretty, these experiences added an “invaluable dimension” to her studies.
For Juliet, nature writing plays a crucial role in reconnecting people to the landscape, a connection she believes is essential in addressing environmental issues like climate change. By inspiring readers to step into nature and experience it directly, she believes wild writing fosters awareness, engagement and a sense of responsibility for protecting the planet.
“Nature writing plays a part in connecting people to places, without these connections we see ourselves as separate from the landscape. If reading about nature makes us want to step into it, experience it for ourselves then we will connect, take notice and, hopefully, take ownership of the problems we now face.”
Juliet Lockhart
The impact of the MA on Juliet’s artistic practice has been profound. As part of Essex’s Memory Maps project, a collaboration between the Centre for Creative Writing and the Victoria and Albert Museum, she explored the fusion of fiction, history, memoir, and philosophy in storytelling.
Through extensive research along the Suffolk coastline and its woodland she has created Foundlings and Shaplings, both bodies of work that serve as “repositories for the stories, myths, and folklore” associated with the landscape over centuries.
Currently undertaking a practice-led PhD with the Fine Art Department at the University of Suffolk, Juliet’s ongoing work continues to explore the deep connections between landscape, history, and creative expression, proving that wild writing is more than words, it is a way of seeing, experiencing, and reinterpreting the world.
Watch Juliet's artistic process:
Find out more
Study Wild Writing at Essex
Essex is one of the oldest inhabited areas of the British Isles, a landscape shaped by human history. Our MA Wild Writing allows you to explore this landscape and the wilder landscapes of Britain, as well as those across the world, through a combination of modules.
Discover a world of creative opportunities
Our Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies is the perfect home if you aspire to becoming a writer, reporter, entrepreneur, or performer, or dream of pursuing a career in a creative industry.
Sixty Stories
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