“Words, your words, can make all the difference in
the world,” renowned nature writer David Petersen asserts in his
highly readable Writing Naturally: A Down to Earth Guide
to Nature Writing. He wants to help you make that
difference.
Over the course of 16 short chapters,
covering grammar, research, style, editing, and publishing,
Petersen guides you, the would-be nature writer, through the
wilderness of freelance writing. Petersen assumes that you are
already yearning to write compellingly about nature if only you
knew how. Thus, he spends his 200 pages focusing on the basics of
writing, offering humor, sober advice, helpful tips, clever writing
exercises, and a good bibliography.
Oddly, there
is very little discussion about nature writing per se in Writing
Naturally, and this is the work’s only shortcoming. This dearth of
discussion is partly intentional, because Petersen, in an effort to
encourage his readers to develop an honest, natural, and true
voice, refuses to lay down rigid rules about how to write. Honesty
and reflection, he conveys, bridge the divide between humanity and
nature. Still, an essay on the nature of nature writing would have
helped ground the book.
Writing
Naturally: A Down to Earth Guide to Nature Writing, by
David Petersen, with a foreword by H. Emerson Blake. Johnson Books,
Boulder, Colo., 2001. Bibliography, index. 200 pages.
Copyright © 2002 HCN and Jason Pierce
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Writing Naturally.
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