The Writer's Studio: Writing Wild with the Senses

The Writer’s Studio is a free workshop series open to all students from all majors. Come study the art of writing in intensive, fun, hands-on workshops with dynamic faculty from the Creative Writing program, the Stanford Storytelling Project, and others. You will leave with an expanded understanding of what your writing can do.

In this workshop, we’ll use visceral engagement with the senses to open new paths in your writing that can help make story elements more accessible to readers. We’ll use evocative images, unexpected smells, and diverse sounds from the wild, along with several guided writing prompts, to conjure forgotten stories and inspire you to imagine new ones. Please bring your sense of adventure, ready to do some wild writing together.

Emily Polk, an Advanced Lecturer in PWR and the author of Communicating Global to Local Resiliency, has worked around the world as a media professional, supporting documentaries and human rights-based media in refugee camps from Burma to Ghana. Her work has appeared in National Geographic Traveler, Creative Nonfiction, The National Radio Project, and elsewhere.

Richard J. Nevle is the Deputy Director of the Earth Systems Program, a scientist, teacher, dad, and writer in love with the natural world. His work has appeared in Home Ground, The Oxford Climate Review, and The National Catholic Reporter. His first book, The Paradise Notebooks: 90 Miles across the Sierra Nevada, is forthcoming from Cornell University Press in 2022.