A transformative guide to reconnecting with nature through writing, presence, and ecological awareness
• 2026 NYC Big Book Award
• Teaches step-by-step writing practices that foster deep connection with place, seasonal rhythms, and the natural world
• Provides practical prompts and exercises designed to cultivate wild language, ecological literacy, and personal transformation
• Offers creative journaling techniques to process climate grief, restore belonging, and participate in the renewal of Earth
LISTEN DEEPLY to awaken your wild imagination and free your untamed voice as your visions comingle with the voice of the Earth. Let hawks, forests, childhood sanctuaries, and beloved animals shape the very rhythm of your words into authentic “wild language.”
Using writing as a tool for presence, healing, and ecological stewardship, Mary Reynolds Thompson shows how to move beyond observation and into relationship with the land. Drawing on decades of experience in teaching eco-writing and poetry therapy, she provides ten themed sessions for inspiration, each with stories and reflections, writing prompts, and exercises that address topics such as grounding, seasonal awareness, and animal embodiment. Character sketches of plants and animals, haiku and haibun writing, and reflective exercises for processing solastalgia and climate grief deepen the experience.
At its heart, The Wild Scribe invites us to open a dialogue with the more-than-human world. Blending the beauty of nature writing with the immediacy of guided practice, this book speaks to anyone who feels the ache of disconnection and the desire to participate in the renewal of Earth and self. It is a call to remember that when we rewild our words, we rewild the world within and around us.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Foreword by Christina Baldwin
Session 1: Grounding
1. A Word About Wild Language
2. Warming Up to the Blank Page
Session 2: The Place Where I Live
3. A Framed Landscape
4. If I Had to Leave This Place
5. Charting the Seasons
Session 3: Loss, Love, Longing
6. Solastalgia: The Loss of Home
7. The Magic of Names and Naming
8. Distilling Our Writing to Its Essence
The Haiku
The Haibun
9. Spring: The Saddest Noise, the Sweetest Noise
Session 4: Everything Is in Motion
10. Wandering and Wondering Barefoot
11. Walking Alone or with Others
12. Quests and Questions
Session 5: On the Trail of Enchantment
13. Walk in Beauty
14. Discovering Your Spirit Animal
15. Your Tale of Enchantment
Session 6: The Summer’s Day
16. Summers Past and Present
17. Seeking the Wild in Summer
18. Celebrating Summer Solstice in a World on Fire
Session 7: Listening to the Land
19. Embarking on a Metaphoray
20. Listen to the Music
Session 8: The Soul of Place
21. Genius Loci
22. The Places That Inhabit Us
23. Songs of Earth
Session 9: Peace, Play, Pleasure
24. Resting in the Arms of Nature
25. We Are Made for Play
26. A Joy That Leaps from Deep Wells
Session 10: Time and Imagination
27. Extinction Is Forever
28. Perspectives on Time
29. The Art of Hibernation
Epilogue: Closing the Circle
Appendix A: Wild Writing Seeds
Appendix B: 10 Touchstones of the Wild Scribe
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
About the Author
About the Illustrator
