Witnessing Landscapes: Nature Writing Masterclass with Sally Piper

Take a deep dive into your connections with the natural world in this interactive masterclass, and shift your perceptions of nature from a sensorial experience to a felt experience, and ultimately be guided in ways to imagine nature beyond the human.

Humans are often the only actors in a story, with place and landscapes little more than a stage upon which human activity is performed. This generative three-hour masterclass aims to redress this. Through a series of targeted prompts, writing exercises, readings and discussions, participants will be encouraged to re-imagine their relationship with the natural world and be guided in new ways to think and write about place and landscapes so that they become drivers of a story and not a passive or barely seen background presence.

Learning outcomes

In this workshop, participants will:

• Be introduced to a variety of diverse readings to assist them in thinking and writing about the natural world in new and imaginative ways
• Learn practical strategies for making place and landscapes a driver of story and not just a barely seen background presence
• Be guided in ways to reimagine human relationships with the natural world beyond a sensorial experience to a felt experience
• Be empowered to develop their own unique and authentic voice when writing about the natural world.

Format

This is an in-person workshop with a focus on writing craft; it will be held at State Library of Queensland. This workshop is suitable for writers of all levels and writing backgrounds.

About Sally

Sally Piper’s debut novel Grace’s Table was shortlisted for a Queensland Premier’s Literary Award and she was awarded a Varuna Publishing Fellowship for her manuscript. Her second novel The Geography of Friendship was shortlisted for an Australian Book Industry Award. Her third novel Bone Memories was a finalist in the 2023 Queensland Literary Awards for a Work of State Significance and the Courier Mail People’s Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award, and was longlisted for the 2023 Dublin Literary Award and a Davitt Award. Her short fiction and non-fiction have appeared in various publications to include Griffith Review, The Saturday Paper, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Weekend Australian. She lives and writes in Meanjin/Brisbane.

For more information about Queensland Writers Centre’s Program of Events and answers to FAQs, please visit: www.queenslandwriters.org.au/program-info