The price for using a free template for your blog is that sometimes automatically generated links appear at the bottom of posts. Mostly these have nothing to do with what you are writing about, but occasionally they lead to unexpected places that enhance or broaden your subject. As quickly as they appear, they disappear again.

Two links popped up recently on fortyspot. Earth’s Eye is a blog from Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. It’s a course outline on explorations of American environmental writing, curated by Professor Sean Ross Meehan. The students contribute their own linked blogs reflecting on and responding to the set readings and their final projects are also published here.

There is such a lot to explore at this site. I’ve only touched the surface but am looking forward to dipping in deeper. Though fortyspot is mainly interested in what is happening in place writing in Australia, there’s so much to learn from the established literature in this area.

Another site I found myself visiting was book slave. It has tips on nature writing and a list of reading resources, but unfortunately I didn’t keep the address and I can’t find it again. If you stumble across it, let me know.

Another connection. Nicola from the Greenskills Centre for Sustainable Living, where the Writing in the Wild workshop/retreat will take place, sent me a link to her mother’s blog. Christina Houen, who writes memoir and life writing, has recently begun documenting her walks with a landscape/wildlife photographer in the stunning hinterland environments of northern NSW –  lovely reflections on a place and the photographs are superb.