Additional information on the 15th Writers’ Day presentations and registration for the event can be found here. Details on my panel:

Flame to Wick: A Panel on Inspiration

Nature, family, a beloved pet, personal experience, and stories about others have been among the inspirations of the three accomplished writers on our inspiration panel. Learn how they’ve mined and used the power behind the ideas that have moved them, hear about the paths of their projects, how an original idea grew and changed, and ponder how you can find your own enduring flame to light your way over the course of a short or long writing project. A question-and-answer session will follow the authors’ presentations.

Hope to see you there!

The post Bay Path University’s 15th Writers’ Day appeared first on Mary Heather Noble.

This year’s theme is Writing & Sustainability, and will include workshops, craft sessions, and readings about writing and sustaining ourselves and our world. Poet, essayist, and 2015 Guggenheim fellowship recipient Alison Hawthorne Deming will be the featured Keynote Speaker, with additional craft presentations by local writers Kate Brandes, Ben Cohen, and others. I will be co-presenting “Cross-Pollinating, A Conversation: How Literary Art and Science Can Enrich One Another” with Diane Husic, Dean of the School of Natural and Health Sciences at Moravian College and author of “A New Prosperity” Blog. Hope you can join us! Our session description follows:

Writers often begin their careers as something other than writers, and in the sub-genre of environmental literature, the pedigree of writers often includes a scientific background. Yet the scope of sustainability issues we face is challenging beyond a technical level, demanding that we seek other outlets to comprehend and communicate not only what we know as scientists, but what we feel as parents, teachers, and citizens of the world.

Panelists will discuss their evolution from professional scientists and researchers into writer-scientists, and how traversing disciplinary boundaries has enriched both their personal and professional lives. Topic areas to be covered will include using creative writing to metabolize and understand the life questions that science has uncovered, employing scientific research skills to inform our creative work, and using creative strategies to advocate our scientific understanding of important sustainability issues.

The post 2017 Moravian College Writers’ Conference appeared first on Mary Heather Noble.

Please join me and the other amazing authors for a day of literary instruction and celebration. Additional information and registration materials can be found here. Hope to see you there!

A description of my presentation:

Session Two: 2:35 – 3:50 pm

Weaving Human Nature into Nature Writing: Environmental Writing with Emotion — Author Mary Heather Noble

Few writers squirm under the banner of their genre classification more than “Nature Writers” do. Why? Because these authors worry that the label may limit their audience, or that their work will be perceived as nature and environmental writing is all-too-often perceived: as quiet and contemplative, or too serious and depressing, or downright boring and scientific. And yet some of the most beautiful personal narratives in contemporary literature can be found in the “Nature” section of the bookstore, making them both successful works of literary art and powerful agents for environmental advocacy. This workshop will examine the work of a few contemporary environmental writers, and how incorporating the personal into the environmental has allowed them to connect to a broader readership while furthering their cause. We will study specific strategies to heighten the emotion in your environmental writing, play with some writing prompts to enrich your writing practice, and discuss opportunities to find homes for your environmental work.

The post Bay Path University 14th Writers’ Day appeared first on Mary Heather Noble.

2014 Siskiyou Prize Winner: Mary Heather Noble

Ashland Creek Press is pleased to announce that New York Times bestselling author Karen Joy Fowler has chosen Mary Heather Noble’s memoir, PLUMES: ON CONTAMINATION OF HOME AND HABITAT, as the winner of the 2014 Siskiyou Prize.

Of PLUMES, judge Karen Joy Fowler writes, “I was impressed from the first page with both the beautiful writing and careful intelligence of PLUMES.  This book takes on one of our most troubling issues, the increasing toxicity of our polluted world, to creative a narrative that is both personal and universal.  PLUMES neither minimizes the complexities of these issues nor overstates its conclusions, but leaves the reader with much to think about.  An exceptional book.”

Noble is joined by prize finalists Amy Hassinger for her novel, AFTER THE DAM, and Julie Christine Johnson for her novel, THE CROWS OF BEARA.

The Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature honors literary works that focus on the environment, animal protection, ecology, and wildlife. The prize is named for the Klamath-Siskiyou region of northern California and southern Oregon, one of the most diverse eco-regions in the world.  The Klamath-Siskiyou has the highest concentration of Wild and Scenic Rivers in the nation, the largest area of roadless wild lands in the Pacific Northwest, and the tallest old-growth trees on earth.  Due to this large network of still-intact lands, the region is a refuge for fish and other wildlife that struggle for survival in other parts of the world.  Considered a global center of biodiversity, the Klamath-Siskiyou region is an inspiring example of the importance of preservation.

The Siskiyou Prize is open to unpublished, full-length prose manuscripts, including novels, memoirs, short story collections, and essay collections.  Winners receive a cash award of $1,000, an offer of publication from Ashland Creek Press, and a four-week residency at PLAYA.  The 2015 Siskiyou Prize will open in Spring 2015.  Please visit siskiyouprize.com for the full announcement and complete submission guidelines for next year’s contest.

The post The 2014 Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature Awarded appeared first on Mary Heather Noble.

I am so pleased to announce that the editors of Creative Nonfiction Magazine have included my essay, “Acts of Courage,” among their nominees for this year’s Pushcart Prize!  Congrats to my fellow nominees — I am in very good company.

“Acts of Courage,” winner of Creative Nonfiction‘s The Human Face of Sustainability Contest, was originally published in Issue #51, Spring 2014.  Please check out my podcast reading of the piece below:

“Acts of Courage”

The post Pushcart Prize Nomination appeared first on Mary Heather Noble.

Mary Heather Noble is the winner of the $10,000 first-place prize for Creative Nonfiction’s The Human Face of Sustainability essay contest, sponsored by Arizona State University’s Sustainability Solutions Festival.

Mary Heather Noble’s prize-winning essay, “Acts of Courage,” uses a series of flashbacks from her youth and early scientific career to recall how cancer from contaminants intersected her life, unflinchingly using devastating statistics to show how carcinogens have so easily entered into daily life.

Noble will be honored at the Sustainability Solutions Festival in Tempe, AZ, February 17-22.  The festival is a program within the Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives at the Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University.

“The idea of sustainability can mean many things to different people, but it is clear through Mary Heather Noble’s brilliant essay, as well as by each of our other finalists, that there is a deep, human connection to sustainability, regardless of definition,” said Patricia Reiter, director of the Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives.

Read the full announcement at creativenonfiction.org and asunews.asu.edu.

The post $10,000 Sustainability Essay Prize Awarded appeared first on Mary Heather Noble.