Workshop: Nonfiction
WRITING ABOUT ANIMALS
Humans are not the only characters in the stories we tell, but the practice—and unique challenge—of writing about animals is not often considered in discussions of craft. We can’t directly ask animals what they think or feel. We worry about making them too much like us, or not enough.
In this workshop, Brandon Keim will help you refine the skills needed to create compelling narratives about members of other species. Workshop participants will consider how to document their lives and imagine their perspectives; discuss using knowledge from science, scholarship, culture, and everyday life; think critically about the depiction of animals; and explore how to portray animals as characters, and how to weave their stories with our own.
The workshop is open to all skill levels, practices, and genres (and to writers interested in animals of all kinds, wild and domestic). It will be helpful to both people writing primarily about animals and also to people whose subject is still primarily human, but with animals appearing in some meaningful way. As a workshop-based class, writers will have the opportunity to share their work and receive feedback in a collaborative, supportive environment.
SUBMIT
Participants are asked to submit a work—anything from scattered thoughts, an outline, a draft, an excerpt from a manuscript in progress, or a completed piece—of up to 3000 words for workshop discussion. Email the work no later than 9 AM on APRIL 17 to director@mainewriters.org with the subject line “Writing About Animals MSS.” *Word files are preferred, but you may also send a PDF.
Brandon Keim is a freelance journalist specializing in science, nature, and animals. His latest book, Meet the Neighbors: Animal Minds and Life in a More-Than-Human World, is about animal personhood — knowing them as thinking, feeling beings — and our relationships to wild animals and to nature. His first book, The Eye of the Sandpiper, was published in 2017. He’s written three issue-length treatments for National Geographic: Inside Animal Minds, Secrets of Animal Communication, and The Genius of Dogs. His work has appeared in publications including the New York Times, The Atlantic, WIRED, and Nautilus, where he’s presently a contributing editor. He lives in Bangor.