Masterclass In Nature Writing With Mark Cocker

Masterclass in Nature Writing with Mark Cocker. This is a four-hour masterclass, split over two consecutive Saturdays, exploring some of the techniques of nature writing. Paying careful attention to language, and to the power and importance of your initial observations.

Mark Cocker is an author and naturalist born and brought up in Buxton. He has contributed to the Guardian country diary for 33 years and his 12 books of creative non-fiction, including Our Place, Birds and People and Crow Country, have been shortlisted for many awards including the Samuel Johnson Prize.

Saturdays – 2nd & 9th October 2021, £65 (£60 concessions)

Masterclass in Nature Writing with Mark Cocker - Writing East Midlands  

ABOUT THE COURSE

This is a four-hour masterclass, split over two days in one week, to explore some of the techniques of nature writing. We will pay careful attention to language, and to the power and importance of your initial observations. It is this preliminary work that often determines whether the words you choose will be original, fresh, and suggestive.

The other key goal will be to explore how writers select their central theme, create mood, and map out the psychological setting and the physical context quickly and in the fewest words. Economy of language is essential since it is about distilling the essence of a place or season and using a part to evoke the whole scene.

This may be an exercise in nature writing, but it has deep relevance across the genres. All writers draw upon the landscape and the wider environment to create an atmosphere and to set the scene. The class may be online, but we will get as close to the living world as we possibly can.