Creative Writing in the Environment

Course description: This course will focus on the craft of creative writing using the natural environment as a theme and subject. Through field, primary, and secondary research we will identify and reflect upon key questions and issues in Clark Fork, Flathead, and Columbia Basins as well as students’ home waters. Readings will include work by writers such as Norman Maclean, Annick Smith, David James Duncan, Annie Dillard, Chris Dombrowski, and others. Guest writers from the Missoula area will share works with students and field questions on their craft and process. This will be a jumping-off point and catalyst, and but one opportunity for students to develop their own subjects and material.

We will read, examine, and explore three genres: poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction. We will address through reading, discussion, and writing the features of each form. Portfolios will incorporate exercises and examples from each of the three genres, but students will create a more substantial body of work employing their chosen genre. Students will give a public reading featuring a work or excerpt selected from their portfolio. Writing is an exercise in faith and doubt—we will work to develop and sustain faith and overcome and banish doubt.

Course instructor: Robert Stubblefield has published fiction and personal essays in many prestigious journal and anthologies. His most recent essay, "Wrecks and Shells," appears in the current issue of the Southern Humanities Review. Robert grew up in Eastern Oregon and now lives in Missoula and teaches at the University of Montana.