Writing this Warming World

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**Join me and four brilliant writers this fall! Registration open now! **

From climate change to climate catastrophe to existential crisis, the vocabulary of our changing planet is quickly escalating in urgency. Writers are responding. Whether you are just finding your way into this space or have been writing about the natural world for years, this class is designed to help you find the right words to meet this moment of metamorphosis. How do we bring the personal and planetary together? How do we render beauty in a world aflame? In what ways is the state of the planet changing the shape of our lives? As chroniclers of the natural world under transformation, how does our ink find the fine line between hope and despair, or should it?

Led by author and journalist Meera Subramanian, this four-week course explores writing the twinned experience of climate grief and fierce love for the planet. Conversations with guest authors Emily Raboteau, Elizabeth Rush, J. Drew Lanham, and Helen Macdonald will shed light on the unique challenges that nature writers and climate journalists face. Learn how these five exemplary writers who cross genres in the climate space today are navigating common conundrums.

We’ll look closely at the work of our guest authors to deepen our understanding of best practices in portraying the physical world as it changes. We’ll analyze craft but also make space for thornier issues such as political realities and flagging morale. We’ll discuss the use of braided essays and other structural devices that are especially useful to storytellers and journalists in this niche, and get practical about how to deepen narratives with research and reporting.

Students will get weekly writing prompts and assignments to catalyze their climate writing, giving you the tools you need to work towards a solid draft essay by the end of the course. Although we will not be workshopping, there will be ample opportunities to ask questions and share struggles and insights. Participants will also receive a suggested reading list to serve as inspiration beyond the last class, as well as a list of outlets that publish climate-related writing or that are especially interested in stories with a strong element of place or nature.

REGISTER HERE

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This course will take place on Zoom on Sundays, November 3-24 from 12 to 2 p.m. EST. Participants will receive a Zoom link prior to the course as well as a recording of the course afterwards. We cannot offer refunds once the course has begun. Please email [email protected] with any questions.

A limited number of scholarships may be available for this course; please send a brief statement outlining how and why a scholarship would impact your ability to attend to [email protected] by October 14 and we’ll get back to you by October 21.

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Off Assignment’s Masters’ Series courses are unique four-session courses on in-depth writing topics that harness the perspectives and craft tactics of a lead instructor plus celebrated guest lecturers, such that participating writers gain a wealth of input while benefiting from the cohesive leadership of one renowned writer in a particular niche of nonfiction.

Related show

  • Author: Meera Subramanian
  • Tour: Teaching/Workshops
  • Date: November 3, 2024 - November 24, 2024
  • Time: 12:00pm
  • Venue: Online
  • City: Everywhere
  • Country: United States
  • Admission: $400 USD
  • More information
  • Notes: WRITING THIS WARMING WORLD. From climate change to climate catastrophe to existential crisis, the vocabulary of our changing planet is quickly escalating in urgency. Writers are responding. Join journalist Meera Subramanian for this four-week course that explores writing the twinned experience of climate grief and fierce love for the planet. Conversations with guest authors Emily Raboteau, Elizabeth Rush, J. Drew Lanham, and Helen Macdonald will shed light on the unique challenges that nature writers and climate journalists face. This course will take place on Zoom on Sundays, November 3-24 from 12 to 2 p.m. EST.

Getting Inside the Head of a Book Editor

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Want to write a book? I moderated a panel at the SEJ conference in Flint, Michigan in October with three wonderful book editors. Here’s a recap, as it was printed in SEJ Journal.

By Meera Subramanian

EDITOR’S NOTE: If you don’t often get to the Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual conferences, you may be missing out on the signature SEJ “book pitch slams,” where attendees offer their ideas for a book to a panel of book editors for feedback in an open session. For reasons of privacy, these sessions are not recorded and are not available online. So SEJournal’s Karen Schaefer asked SEJ board member and book author Meera Subramanian to share some of what she learned from pitch slam editors at the most recent conference.

Attendee at the 2018 annual SEJ conference, where prospective authors received advice from book editors. Photo: SEJ. Click to enlarge.

True to tradition, the final session on the final day of the Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual conference in Flint, Mich last Oct. 3-7 was the “Book Slam.”

Set up in an elegant room at the Flint Institute of Arts in Flint, Michigan, participants stepped up to the microphone to pitch their book ideas in a mere 120 seconds.

Then three editors — Paula Ayer of Greystone Press, Scott Gast of University of Chicago Press and Emily Turner of Island Press — provided thoughtful and encouraging feedback.

Given the cloak of secrecy around members’ works-in-progress, only those present could witness the idea development in process.

But the editors did kick off the session by sharing some universalities that they wished every aspiring author knew before they ever approached a publishing house.

[Read more…]

write the book you cannot not write

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I’ve been a long-time member of the Society of Environmental Journalists. I had a great conversation with them about book writing. Read here or click on through to the original.

For the latest installment of SEJournal’s author Q & A, “Between the Lines,” Meera Subramanian talks to book editor Tom Henry about the research and writing process behind her debut, “A River Runs Again: India’s Natural World in Crisis,” a 2016 Orion Book Award finalist that travels from the barren cliffs of Rajasthan to the farmlands of Karnataka.

SEJournal: What inspired you to write “A River Runs Again?”

Meera Subramanian: I have visited India all my life to see my father’s family and couldn’t help but observe how things were done there compared to my home in the United States. I’d be older with each trip, viewing with a new perspective, but India was changing, too, and when the country opened up its economy in the 1990s, that change ramped up to a frantic pace.

But who was getting left behind as the IT boom swept South Asia? Where was this country that is now poised to become the most populous nation on Earth heading in terms of development? What were they doing right and what were they doing wrong in a place where a growing population was colliding with limited natural resources, where everyone wants to satisfy their basic needs — and then some?  [Read more…]