writing nature

One outcome of our recent participation in a workshop about "nature writing" was a reminder that we had started to compile a list of sources of awards on that theme. Even with one or two more incarnations, we doubt if we'd have time to read all the books we already know we'd like to read, let alone those we haven't yet discovered, to say nothing of those yet to be written. Limiting the list to writing about nature and the outdoors probably wouldn't help much, but we need to start somewhere. Perhaps sometime soon we'll get "caught up" enough to add Dwellings, a Linda Hogan book, to our Christmas list, along with some others. We've been trying to get to reading some of her writing for a couple of years now. The writing class included a page-long excerpt from Dwellings.

our Blue Marble, "Nature" from a distance

Photo by J. Harrington

• Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award [SONWA] (Northland College)
  

  Established in 1991, SONWA honors the literary legacy of Sigurd F. Olson by recognizing and encouraging contemporary writers who seek to carry on his tradition of nature writing. In 2004, organizers expanded the award to include children’s literature and in 2015 added the young adult genre. For a full list of winners 1991-present.

• Henry David Thoreau Prize (PEN America)
  

  Established in 2010 by Dale Peterson, the Henry David Thoreau Prize is awarded annually to a writer demonstrating literary excellence in nature writing. Previous winners: Gretel Ehrlich, E. O. Wilson, Gary Snyder, Peter Matthiessen, T. C. Boyle, Diane Ackerman, and Linda Hogan.

• John Burroughs Medal, John Burroughs Nature Essay Award and Riverby Awards
  (John Burroughs Association)
  

  The John Burroughs Association seeks to enrich lives through nature by encouraging and promoting nature writing. Not only do these literary awards promote nature books and essays and exploration of the natural world, they serve to advance their authors and stand as inspiration to other nature writers.

• The National Outdoor Book Awards
  National Outdoor Book Awards Foundation, Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education, and Idaho State University
  

  The purpose of the awards is to recognize and encourage outstanding writing and publishing. Each fall in early November, the NOBA Foundation announces the winners of the ten categories making up the program, including History, Literature, Children, Nature, Natural History, Instructional, Adventure Guidebook, Nature Guidebook, Design, and Outdoor Classic.

Nature, at a more intimate scale

Photo by J. Harrington

Minnesota has its own annual book awards, but there isn't a separate category for nature writing, which is too bad we think since our adopted home state has provided many wonderful and great writers, a fair number of whom have done a superior job of writing about nature in Minnesota as we'll as writing about Minnesota's nature.

OH NATURE

Bruce Weigl

     Today some things worked as they were meant to.
A big spring wind came up and blew down
     from the verdant neighborhood trees,
millions of those little spinning things,
     with seeds inside, and my heart woke up alive again too,
as if the brain could be erased of its angry hurt;
     fat chance of that, yet
things sometimes work as they were meant,
     like the torturer who finally can’t sleep,
or the god damn moon
     who sees everything we do
and who still comes up behind clouds
     spread out like hands to keep the light away.

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