Eco-writing: Kathleen Jones looks at a new genre
Eco-writing is the new buzz-word, an exciting genre for the times we live in when the word 'endangered' seems to turn up in every media article. But what is it exactly? Field Work - photo Harriet Fraser 'Poet in the Meadow' If you go on the internet and search for a definition it will probably tell you that it's what used to be called ‘nature writing’, ( as in Gilbert White), except that it has broadened out and now embraces a huge field of ecological, environmental and biological material. But it isn't just scientific observation, it's a vast body of literature, non-fiction, fiction and poetry, that deals with human engagement with the landscape, flora and fauna of the natural world. It is often very personal, narrating one human being’s relationship with it. Eco-literature is a very popular genre at the moment, (there's even an academic field of Eco-criticism!). An Eco-literature magazine open to submissions The first literature I came ...