UNDERSTORIES WRITERS’ WORKSHOP

With generous funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the University of Oregon’s Center for Environmental Futures is pleased to announce its third Understories Writers’ Workshop (2021) in the Environmental Humanities. The purpose of the workshop is to encourage those in the Environmental Humanities to present their scholarly work using the techniques of literary nonfiction to engage broader public audiences.

Critically-acclaimed author Kerri Arsenault will lead the workshop as the Writer in Residence. Arsenault is a book critic, book editor at Orion magazine, a contributing editor at The Literary Hub, and the author of Mill Town: Reckoning with What Remains, an investigative memoir and work of cultural criticism that ponders the past and future of a working-class paper-mill town and its toxic legacy. Mill Town has been named one of Publisher’s Weekly and the Kirkus Review’s Best Books of 2020, a Chicago Tribune Top 10 Books of 2020, and a New York Times Editors’ Choice. It is currently a finalist for the John Leonard Prize from the National Book Critics Circle.

For more information, see: https://www.kerri-arsenault.com/

The workshop is limited to 12 participants, with up to 8 from the University of Oregon and at least 4 from beyond the UO community. Faculty and graduate students in the Environmental Humanities and allied fields (for example ecological approaches to literature, gender, religion, politics, philosophy, and/or race; animal studies; indigenous studies; environmental justice; ethics and sustainability; environmental history; art/architectural history and criticism; historical/cultural geography; anthropology; sociology) are eligible. Both aspiring and accomplished non-fiction writers who want to learn a more literary narrative style to engage a wider public audience are encouraged to apply. All costs of the workshop are underwritten by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Due to ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, this year’s workshop will be conducted virtually via Zoom. It will be held over the course of four weeks, June 21-July 16, with meetings on Mondays and Thursdays, 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. (PDT). Individual meetings to discuss each participants’ work will be scheduled during the week of July 12. Thus, we will meet as a group on:

• June 21 and June 24
• June 28 and July 1
• July 5 and July 8
• July 12

Applicants should send a CV, a letter explaining your goals as a writer and why you would benefit from this workshop, and a 10-20-page writing sample to Alison Mildrexler, amildrex@uoregon.edu, by April 30, 2021. Successful applicants will be notified by May 21.