Explore techniques of “writing the wild” as we delve into the natural world; nature that is there in the cracks between our human constructs, in the wilds just a few feet from our doors. Work with words, reframe your view of how you see the wild, and become mindful of the living landscapes that exist around us.

James Canton teaches the Wild Writing MA course at the University of Essex, exploring the fascinating ties between literature and the landscape of East Anglia. He has run workshops to encourage writing on nature and landscape and is the author of Ancient Wonderings and Out of Essex: Re-Imagining a Literary Landscape. 

This event is part of Essex Book Festival’s Secret Water weekend in various venues in Harwich.

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Ancient Wonderings is Intensely alive to the landscape; its pasts, people and creatures Robert Macfarlane

Canton … is a stalker of literary ghosts, following traces across the Essex countryside that might lead him to the writers who might have lived and worked among these landscapes. Times Literary Supplement (on Out of Essex)

Some landscapes are silent, others as eager to communicate as the shades in Homer’s underworld. But not everyone has the gift of hearing what they are saying. James Canton’s involvement with Essex is long and deep, and in this book of walking, remembering, and reflecting, he picks up echoes from many writers who are connected to its villages, towns and surrounding countryside. … His pilgrimage to the past is full of surprises and always enjoyable, as he reinvigorates the familiar scene and recovers unfamiliar associations. Marina Warner, chair of the Man Booker International prize 2015 (on Out of Essex)