A couple of new Four Elements workshops are coming this spring, again in collaboration with Kellie Jackson of Words Away and hosted at the Phoenix Garden in the heart of London’s West End. You can find more information and booking details at the following links:

* Nature Matters: Writing in Nature, Nature in Writing – Saturday 11 March 2023

* Fragrance Matters: Scent, Perfume and Writing – Saturday 20 May 2023

I’m particularly interested in writing’s relationship with nature this year: how we perceive nonverbal sense experiences of the natural world and translate those observations into words, crafting such moments into poems or shaping them into stories.

In Nature Matters, we’ll look broadly at what might constitute nature writing or Eco Lit as a body of writing, but also acknowledge the presence of nature in its many forms as a feature of any piece of writing. And what, in fact, does it mean to be natural? If weather permits (bring layers and umbrellas!), we’ll write outdoors, gathering observations and making them into literary forms.

In Fragrance Matters, we’ll pay special attention to one particular sense: smell. Perfumer John Evans (aka my husband) will speak about natural fragrances as well as the creation of manufactured ones, and we’ll have chance to get our hands (and noses) on perfume ingredients as stimuli for writing. Again, how can we evoke the nonverbal in words, and how might fragrance bring writing to life and also lend it form and structure? We’ll take our findings into further creative exploration: for crafting a story, poems or an essay, or in building the spine of a longer work.

In advance, I’ll assign optional brief readings and writing exercises that will set the tone for what we do on each day, and each afternoon-long workshop itself will include discussion, short meditations, and plenty of writing. You’ll also get follow-up notes with further writing experiments, reading suggestions, and other resources.

The Phoenix Garden is a magical location for these workshops: in the middle of the city a perfect little oasis full of green life. Later this year I hope to continue our exploration of nature-related themes with workshops on gardens and gardening, food and taste, and death and dying: plenty of earthly and unearthly goods to mine for our writing.

I look forward to seeing some of you there!