Richard Mabey & Alexandra Harris: Lives of Naturalists Part 2

In this follow up discussion to Episode 1, Richard Mabey, Alexandra Harris, and Katherine Collins discuss the connections between life-writing and place. They talk about the overlap between science and poetry as ways of exploring the world around us, how our senses shape our writing, Gilbert White's attempt to communicate with his pet tortoise, and Richard's ideas about the future of nature writing.

Find out more about:

The Oxford Centre for Life-Writing: www.oclw.ox.ac.uk @OxLifeWriting.

Richard Mabey: https://richardmabey.co.uk/
Alexandra Harris: https://www.alexandraharris.co.uk/

Works mentioned:

- Richard Mabey, Gilbert White: A biography of the author of The Natural History of Selbourne [1986] (Allen & Unwin, 2006).

- Alice Oswald, ‘Tithonus, 46 minutes in the life of the dawn’ in Falling Awake (Johnathan Cape, 2016).

- Annie Dillard, The Writing Life [1989] (Harper Collins, 2013).

- Richard Powers, The Overstory (W.W. Norton and Company, 2018).

- Verlyn Kinklenborg, Timothy, or Notes of an Abject Reptile (Alfred A. Knopf, 2006)

The Oxford Centre for Life-Writing is based at Wolfson College, University of Oxford.

Edited by Charles Pidgeon. Artwork by Una.