The Course

The More-Than-Human World from Proposal to Page

This nonfiction course will center on a wealth of contemporary work inspired by the more-than-human world, laying the groundwork for book-length projects. Through close readings of literary material as well as industry documents like book proposals, weekly exercises and workshopping, we’ll consider the practical aspects of developing nonfiction projects, as well as techniques for writing the environment in our current moment. We’ll examine tools for writing about plants, animals, and other vibrant cues that shape our narratives, ask how readers can be invited into environmental conversations, and consider how writing about nature is necessarily tied to struggles for justice and a better world. We’ll finish the course by workshopping either an industry-standard book proposal or chapter sample. Whether you’re outlining, querying, or already writing, this course is ideal for those wanting to sharpen their creative and pitching skills and develop community for the long-haul of writing a nonfiction book.

The Duration:  This class meets over six consecutive Saturdays from 1-4 pm (ET) from January 6 – February 10, 2024.

Application window: November 1-15, 2023

The Instructor

Jessica J. Lee is a British-Canadian-Taiwanese author, environmental historian, and winner of the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature, the Banff Mountain Book Award, and the RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Writer Award. She is the author of two books of nature writing: Turning and Two Trees Make a Forest, which was shortlisted for Canada Reads 2021. She has a PhD in Environmental History and Aesthetics and was Writer-in-Residence at the Leibniz Institute for Freshwater Ecology in Berlin from 2017–2018. Jessica is the founding editor of The Willowherb Review and teaches creative writing at the University of Cambridge.