Orange County Nature Writing

A literary celebration of the natural beauty of this place

All photos by Thea Gavin unless otherwise credited. Web site  created by  Thea Gavin (who should perhaps stick to making compost).  ©2008 ocnaturewriting.com. Last update 8/24/08.

Rocks and poppies above Fremont Canyon. March 2008.

ABOUT

This web site, and the publications that it hopes to promote, are the result of conversations beginner-hiking-docent Thea Gavin (me) had with naturalists Mike Kahle and Joel Robinson when those two gentlemen worked for The Nature Conservancy in Orange County.  Their jobs involved helping people learn about and appreciate the wild lands of Orange County; what Orange County lacked, they both said in different conversations, was a body of creative writing that was also working to introduce the public to the stories and beauties and fragilities of this place.

Think about it: who is the Henry David Thoreau or Gary Snyder or Wendell Berry or Annie Dillard of Orange County? Here’s some anthologies of California poetry and/or nature writing I found that have been published in the last ten years: The Geography of Home (ed. Christopher Buckley and Gary Young, 1999);  Natural State, A Literary Anthology of California Nature Writing (ed. Steven Gilbar, 1998); Stories from Where We Live: The California Coast (ed. Sara St. Antoine, 2001).—Orange County simply does not show up in any significant way in any of these books.

I am hopeful that readers of this web site will consider . . .

·  setting me straight via email if they have knowledge of  works/authors I have missed.

· expanding their range of writing topics to include the fog, trees, birds, dust, insects, sand, light, mammals, heat, rocks, water and hills of Orange County.  What do you remember? What is vanishing before our eyes?

· sending some of their work in for publication consideration in the Santiago Creek Watershed anthology, other anthologies to come, and this website.

Poison oak, Fremont Canyon. March 2008.