Writing Wild by landscape-designer Kathryn Aalto is a field guide to 25 influential British and North American women nature writers. Among them: scientists, poets, novelists, explorers, gardeners, and journalists. Aalto describes the context within which they wrote, and key works, influences, and legacies. Chapters are illustrated with writer portraits and include excerpts from their texts. Prepare to be heart-broken by Kathleen Jamie’s poem At the end of my winter.

For Kathryn Aalto, the “beating heart of the nature-writing genre” is the personal essay - and many chapters begin with an exploration of the writer’s natural habitat: combing the undergrowth for a Mary Oliver pencil; pottering in Vita Sackville-West’s garden, and ascending Scafell Pike in Wordsworth country - Dorothy, that is. There are pretty passages with wild honeysuckle and sassafras, and serious passages on racial and gender heritage.

For many, the journey up the literary mountain has been potholed. Susan Fenimore Cooper first wrote under the anonymous By a Lady; Rachel Carson was dismissed as hysterical, and Nan Shepherd hid her manuscript The Living Years for three decades fearing male criticism. Today, women’s nature writing not only “stirs the soul” but heightens public awareness and influences policy.

Writing Wild has put at least half-a-dozen new writers on my radar, in particular: Diane Ackerman, Kathleen Jamie, and Elizabeth Rush. Other writers examined include Gretel Ehrlich, Carolyn Finney, Helen Macdonald, Rebecca Solnit, and Annie Dillard.

Writing Wild is an informative introduction for readers looking to discover the best of women’s environmental narrative nonfiction, cli-fi, and nature-inspired prose and poetry. It’s also a reminder to be well-read regarding contemporary environmental and climate issues.

Writing Wild: Women Poets, Ramblers, and Mavericks Who Shape How We See the Natural World was published in 2020.

Many thanks to Kathryn Aalto, Timber Press Inc., and NetGalley for my advanced reading copy.