Nature Writing Workshop with Author Gary Ferguson

Over the past several years Gary Ferguson’s writing has explored the truth of a comment novelist Lawrence Durell once made, that “we are the children of our landscape.” His nature-writing classes are designed to help participants strengthen their voice by more fully understanding how landscape has influenced their own lives. Participants begin with a mix of storytelling, contemplative writing exercises, and lecture, exploring commonly recurring themes within the nature myths of various cultures. From this general perspective the class will move on to specifics, using powerful exercises to help participants identify the transcendent or archetypal themes of their own links to the natural world. Presented in part by North Cascades Institute, connecting people, nature, and community since 1986.

This workshop will be followed by a public event at Village Books at 7pm for his new book, The Carry Home. To register visit www.whatcomcommunityed.com or call 360-383-3200.

For the past twenty five years Gary Ferguson has traveled thousands of miles down the rivers, trails and back roads of North America: trekking 500 miles through Yellowstone to write Walking Down the Wild, wandering through the seasons with the first 14 wolves released into Yellowstone National Park for The Yellowstone Wolves: The First Year, and spending a season in the field at a wilderness therapy program for the best-selling Shouting at the Sky. His latest book, The Carry Home, is both a moving celebration of the outdoor life shared between Gary and his wife Jane, who died tragically in a canoeing accident in northern Ontario in 2005, and a chronicle of the mending, uplifting power of nature. Ferguson has written for a variety of publications, from Vanity Fair to The Los Angeles Times. He is also the author of 22 books on science and nature, including the award-winning Hawks Rest, published by National Geographic Adventure Press. He is currently on the faculty of the Rainier Writing Workshop Masters of Fine Arts program, at Pacific Lutheran University.