Writing can help us bear witness to places transformed by extreme weather, disaster, or development. It can reconcile us to change while strengthening our bond with the land and its inhabitants.
Witness: Writing from a Changing Place will guide you through crafting vivid, compelling depictions of a beloved landscape. We’ll explore techniques for immersing readers in place-based experiences and capturing the deep personal and ecological shifts unfolding before us. By the end of this workshop, you’ll have a draft ready to develop further into a story, essay, poem, or longer work—one that speaks to the place that speaks to you.
Writers of all levels and genres are welcome. We’ll foster a spirit of curiosity and generosity—no formal critique, just shared inspiration.
About Tamara Dean
Tamara Dean is a widely published author whose latest book, Shelter and Storm: At Home in the Driftless (University of Minnesota Press, 2025), invites readers to consider how we tend the earth in times of uncertainty, what we owe our neighbors, and ways we thrive in community. Her award-winning essays and stories have appeared in The American Scholar, The Georgia Review, the Guardian, One Story, Orion, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. She is Terrain.org's podcast editor, and she teaches writing with organizations across the nation. More at www.tamaradean.media.
_
Registration will open soon!
Cost: $95/person
Morning coffee, lunch, and snacks are provided and included in the registration cost.
_
Learning Goals
By the end of this workshop, you will have:
Learned how writing about place has evolved from the Industrial Revolution to today.
Recognized how and why place-based writing can affect the author and reader deeply.
Discussed effective techniques for writing about the natural world as demonstrated by well-known writers such as Ada Limon, Barry Lopez, Roberta Hill, and others.
Examined the personal and profound impact of environmental change through writing.
Writing Goals
Experiment with several methods for generating material about a meaningful place.
Convey place-based experiences and emotions that resonate deeply.
Depict a cherished landscape in vivid, compelling ways.
Compose a draft for an essay, poem, story, or longer work.
Try techniques for expanding, developing, and refining your draft.
Outline a roadmap for developing your draft into a polished, publishable piece.
Workshop Schedule
Note: Much of the time at this one-day workshop is spent writing. Prompts are designed to lead writers through impression, description, investigation, elaboration, and refinement. Students will receive a document containing five brief place-based pieces to read, if they choose, before the workshop. A handout containing all the prompts, techniques, and discussion points will be shared at the end of the workshop.
9:30 – Welcome and Introductions
10:00 – Overview of place-based writing and discussion of the brief pieces offered as readings before the workshop.
10:30 – Respond to writing prompt 1
10:40 – Generative techniques
10:50 – Respond to writing prompts 2 and 3
11:15 – Reflect on your writing so far
11:30 – Respond to writing prompts 4 and 5
12:00 – 1:00 – Lunch Break
1:00 – Respond to writing prompts 6 and 7
1:30 – Reflect on process or share a line that stands out
1:45 – Techniques for adding dimensions to your draft
2:15 – Respond to writing prompts 8 and 9
2:45 – Refining your draft
3:00 – Respond to writing prompts 10 and 11
3:30 – Reflect on process or share a line that stands out
3:45 – Publishing and sharing your writing about place
4:15 – Q & A and problem-solving
4:30 – Conclusions
During discussions, writers will be encouraged to share individual challenges, revelations, and resolutions revealed during the workshop as a way of supporting themselves and each other.