BMWF24 / NATURE WRITING AT VARUNA with Viki Cramer

NATURE WRITING AT VARUNA with Viki Cramer// Saturday 2 November // 10:00am - 1:00pm // Venue: Varuna, The National Writers' House; 141 Cascade St, Katoomba // Part of the 2024 Blue Mountains Writers' Festival

We know and understand the natural world through our intellect, senses, emotions and stories. Through close readings of particularly powerful texts, writing exercises and discussions, this workshop explores how different ways of knowing – from scientific information to sensory metaphor – can be used to build evocative descriptions of landscape, place, plants, animals and more.

In this workshop, led by writer and ecologist , you will also reflect on how nature writing uses story and nuanced emotion to interrogate and reflect upon our relationship, as humans, with the more-than-human world.

Viki is a writer whose work seeks to understand how both the human and more-than-human world can flourish in the landscapes we share. She is a PhD-trained ecologist who has lived and worked in the mulga lands, brigalow belt, eucalypt woodlands and subtropical forests of Queensland, the monsoon vine forests of the Northern Territory and, for the past two decades, the south-west of Western Australia. Her science writing has appeared in Ensia and Scientific American, and she contributed to the anthology Ourselves: 100 Micro Memoirs.

This workshop will be held in the living room of Varuna, the National Writers’ House, with opportunity to spend time writing outside in the gardens should weather permit.

Please email if you have any accessibility requirements.

/ A Blue Mountains Writers' Festival Event /

Join us on beautiful Dharug and Gundungurra country for a weekend of joyful, thought-provoking and thrilling opportunities to connect with the written word. Set against the stunning backdrop of the Blue Mountains, this unique literary festival brings together the country’s greatest minds and most exciting new talent. 1-3 November, 2024.

/ Ticketing /

Admission $95 // Concession $90 // Under 30s $75 // Disability Support Pension $50 // Mob Tix $50

Tickets for this workshop are not included in gold, silver or bronze passes, and need to be purchased separately.

/ Accessibility /

The entrance to Varuna is wheelchair accessible via a low ramp, but the bathroom inside the house is not wheelchair-accessible. Please contact us if you would like to attend this workshop and you are a wheelchair user, so we can arrange use of the accessible studio for you that morning.

If you have limited mobility, you are welcome to enter by the driveway on Cascade Street and park outside the house (leaving room for others to get by), or in Varuna’s car park.

Head to bluemountainswritersfestival.com.au for more information about the festival, individual events and accessibility.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Varuna, the National Writers House, 141 Cascade Street, Katoomba, Australia