creative writing programme brighton

• Creative Writing Programme (In-person)
• Creative Writing Programme (Online)
• The Life Writing Programme (In-person)
• Advanced Writing Workshops (In-person)
• Advanced Poetry Workshops (In-person)
• Advanced Poetry Workshops (Online)
• Creative Writing Programme (Blended)

Advanced Writing Workshops 2024-2025

(monthly from october 2024 to july 2025), payment links are at the bottom of this page.

This higher-level course has been designed for writers who have completed either the Creative Writing Programme, an undergraduate or a masters programme in creative writing, or who have work in progress and can show they are capable of discussing the creative process and participating in workshops at an advanced level.

The aim of this course is:

• to provide a forum for writers who are committed to finishing novels or collections of short stories and who are looking for a critical and supportive audience for their work in progress.
• to act as a place where writers can meet regularly to discuss the creative process and inspire and energise each other.

All courses have their own interactive learning page on our website where writers can communicate, access course materials and submit work.

Every month your group will meet to:

• workshop work in progress and discuss aspects of writing technique.
• take part in a three-hour session which will consist of group workshops, with three members submitting 5,000 words for constructive feedback each month.
• critique and discuss work in progress, particularly the coherence and integrity of plot, structure and characterisation.

As well as the opportunity to workshop longer pieces of work, you will be able to submit three extracts of 2,000 directly to your tutor for feedback and guidance.

Your tutor may, from time to time, introduce practical exercises on aspects of technique that have been discussed during the workshopping process.

You will be encouraged to be supportive and critical readers of each other’s work.

You will be able to share work, information about events and books and raise questions about writing technique with other writers in the group through the interactive webpage for the course on the Creative Writing Programme website

In May of each year the Creative Writing Programme runs a Publishing Day, where you can discuss routes into publishing for fiction, life writing and short stories with publishing professionals. If you are working towards publication or seeking representation for a finished manuscript, Publishing Day is open to all students on our courses. The date, time and fee for Publishing Day will made available after the course starts.

Programme length

Once a month for ten months on Wednesday evenings 6pm-9pm . Maximum group size 12

9th October, 13th November, 11th December 2024, 8th January, 12th February, 12th March, 16th April, 15th May, 11th June and 9th July 2025

Kemptown Bookshop, 91 St George’s Road, Brighton BN2 1EE

Entry requirements

Writers will need to submit a 2,000 word extract (with a short synopsis where necessary) along with a covering letter identifying relevant experience of working in writing groups, listing any publications and offering a brief outline of their writing project.

This application should be emailed to the programme director, Cathy Hayward at [email protected]

Course tutor:

Laura Wilkinson

£600 + VAT (Total £720)

There is an additional fee for Publishing Day plus additional fees for any masterclasses or short courses you may choose to attend to complement the course. You will also be able to attend our free online and in-person student and alumni readings, which take place five times a year.

You will be sent a link to our enrolment page after your application has been processed

Please ensure you have read our terms and conditions . for further information on this course or our other programmes contact.

Cathy Hayward [email protected]

Welcome to Pebble Beach Writing.

We offer workshops and mentoring for creative writers of all levels and experience. Among our participants are new writers trying out their first ideas on the page and published authors who want support and feedback as they develop their work.

Pebble Beach tutor, Susanna Jones,  has over thirty years' teaching experience and was the main fiction tutor on the Creative Writing MA at Royal Holloway University of London for fourteen years. She has also taught at the University of Exeter and has tutored courses for the Arvon Foundation.

Courses are held in Brighton and Hove or online. Groups are small – usually 5–8 participants – allowing everyone time for individual feedback and space to develop.

Classes for summer term 2024:

Writing a Novel (new), Saturday mornings, Brighton 

Writing from Life (new), Saturday afternoons, Brighton

Writing a Novel (continuing), Monday evenings, Hove

Fiction Workshop (continuing), Tuesday evenings, Hove 

Online tuition is also possible for individuals or small groups of writers with similar aims. See below or get in touch to find out more.

Join our mailing list below for the latest news and announcements. 

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'Susanna is, without a doubt, the best creative writing teacher and workshop leader I’ve ever come across. Whether you are just starting out on your writing journey, or have a couple of novels under your belt and want to hone your skill, Susanna is the right person for you. She was the lead fiction tutor on my Creative Writing MA and, more recently, has guided me through editing my first novel. I’m not sure I could have done it without her - and I certainly wouldn’t have done it this well. I have complete trust in her judgement and believe she has made me not only a stronger writer but a much better editor. She is generous with her time and with her extensive experience and will give your work the kind of respect, care and attention that most writers can only dream of from a third party. In short, whatever stage you’re at as a writer, Susanna will help you progress, improve and reach your writing goal.'      Louisa S.

One-to-one Mentoring/Small Group Tuition

One-off or a series of sessions for writers of all levels.

Beginners' tuition package of 5 sessions, including prompts and ideas to get you started.

Editorial and developmental feedback on your novel.

Small group Zoom sessions may be possible for two or more writers with similar requirements. 

Pebble Beach Writing is run by Susanna Jones,  the author of several novels, including The Earthquake Bird, Water Lily, The Missing Person's Guide to Love and When Nights Were Cold.   She is currently writing for film. 

Susanna has been teaching for more than thirty years. From 2005 to 2018 she was the main fiction tutor on the MA in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway University of London. Many of her former students have gone on to publish novels and win awards. She has taught and mentored writers of all levels, from beginners to PhD students.

TESTIMONIALS

'Susanna is an amazing mentor.  I was lucky enough to be taught by her when I undertook an MA in Creative Writing before going on to teach the subject myself.  Her insightful advice and editing skills are second to none.  When I started a novel and hit some thorny difficulties, I was so pleased to discover that Susanna was running an Advanced Fiction Writing course.  She was invaluable in terms of helping me pick out the strands which were working and the ones which needed further thought.  She has an exceptional eye for detail and her feedback is positive and constructive.  She offered accessible solutions based on her many years of experience and opened up new avenues I hadn’t considered, which was so helpful.  There is no way I could have produced work at this level and this quickly, without her support.   

     Susanna created a great rapport within a workshop environment.  Even though the sessions I took were online, the respectful and encouraging tone she set, eased us into working comfortably together.  Her sessions were well- run and well-structured and I thoroughly looked forward to each one.  Susanna brought out the best in my writing and I couldn’t recommend her highly enough.'

'Susanna is, without a doubt, the best creative writing teacher and workshop leader I’ve ever come across. Whether you are just starting out on your writing journey, or have a couple of novels under your belt and want to hone your skill, Susanna is the right person for you. She was the lead fiction tutor on my Creative Writing MA and, more recently, has guided me through editing my first novel. I’m not sure I could have done it without her - and I certainly wouldn’t have done it this well. I have complete trust in her judgement and believe she has made me not only a stronger writer but a much better editor. She is generous with her time and with her extensive experience and will give your work the kind of respect, care and attention that most writers can only dream of from a third party. In short, whatever stage you’re at as a writer, Susanna will help you progress, improve and reach your writing goal.' 

'Susanna is incredibly insightful and has been a huge help in identifying areas where my manuscript needed development. She’s helped me work through options while bringing a fresh insight into the work as well as identifying potential pitfalls. She’s a great tutor and coach and all her workshops leave me feeling energised and confident for the next stage.'

'I taught the novel as literature and writing fiction in Universities for over thirty years but putting this experience into practice when writing is much harder. Susanna Jones really knows how to help. She is an accomplished writer who really understands storytelling but also how a novel is structured and built from the blank page. I found her advice and encouragement priceless. Her novel writing courses and workshops are excellent and I recommend them without reservation. I am still writing and learning and I will return.'

'Susanna's artful teaching method helps you get those words down on paper with no pain or shame. Inspiring!'

Madeleine C

'One of the things that made this course so enjoyable was Susanna's enthusiasm for us, her students, and our work. She clearly loves teaching - and is brilliant at pin-pointing what a piece of writing is trying to do, as well as suggesting how to do it. She is entirely undogmatic about how to approach writing. She really listens and gives intelligent but non-prescriptive responses. Every session was thought-provoking and stimulating and really specific about how and what works in fiction.'

'Susanna is a brilliant creative writing teacher and mentor who is now mentoring me through my second book. She has that rare capacity to pinpoint exactly what works and doesn’t work in a piece of writing, and why. Whether you need help with overall structure and direction, or a close critical reading with a scrupulous editor’s eye, she will give you the best possible support to transform your writing.'

'I find it difficult to start, to pick up that one simple thing that can propel me into the creative flow. The 60-minute sessions I did last December were enjoyable, useful, and left me with material to develop into a couple of short stories - and a poem that was published.' 

'I’d like to tell you how much your Creative Writing workshops meant to me. Your guidance encouraged me to think as well as to enjoy writing and we had fun too! Thank you so much, Susanna.'

'Susanna Jones was an outstanding lecturer on my MA course in creative writing – her books were one of the reasons that I chose the course. She provided clear and helpful teaching on how to produce the best writing, together with incisive critical feedback.  Being such a talented author herself gave her a unique insight into the most effective ways to encourage budding writers. I have no doubt that my work measurably improved as a result of her efforts.'

'Susanna was my tutor on the MA and I looked forward to her classes every week. Her feedback was always spot on and encouraged me to reflect on my writing in new ways and dig a little deeper. Susanna is one of those rare breeds of people who both excels at her craft but is also able to pass on her knowledge and years of experience in an engaging way. She is just a brilliant tutor and I can't recommend her highly enough.'

 'I felt a little ambivalent about joining an online writing course but it turned out to have been such a good move. Somehow I found it easier to focus, not harder, and the fact that I could simply continue with what I was writing the moment the class finished made for some very productive Sunday evenings. Susanna is just lovely. She has a knack for nudging you gently towards fresh perspectives, different angles. In just a few sessions I found myself thinking very differently about what I was writing, what I could be writing, and why. Not at all what I’d expected!'

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Creative Writing BA (Hons) University of Brighton

Course options

Qualification.

Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)

• TUITION FEES
• ENTRY REQUIREMENT
• UNIVERSITY INFO

Course summary

In your Creative Writing degree, you will experiment with a range of styles and forms. You will develop an understanding of the art and craft of writing and explore its purpose in the world. The degree draws on the diverse city of Brighton & Hove as a source of inspiration that will develop your passion for writing.

The course is for students keen to apply critical reading and creative skills to innovative writing practices. Covering a wide range of genres, cultures and identities, you will study techniques and develop expertise in writing that you will apply to work-based scenarios including publishing.

Guided by your tutors, you will consider a variety of key texts and be asked to connect your own work in relation to political, social and cultural theories. Innovative teaching will underpin your studies, taking you into creative spaces such as museums, galleries, theatres, archives, the South Downs National Park and Brighton itself.

There will be frequent opportunities to meet and work with publishers and inspirational writers to further develop your love and understanding of your craft. This is further enhanced by events such as the Scrivener Series of visiting writer workshops, spoken word events and an annual masterclass with a nominee for the Man Booker prize.

Graduate destinations

Our graduates are equipped with the knowledge and transferable skills needed to pursue a career in many related areas, including publishing, social media, marketing, teaching, journalism, public relations and human resources.

Application deadline

Modules (Year 1)

Modules (year 2), modules (year 3), tuition fees.

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£ 13,842 per year

Tuition fees shown are for indicative purposes and may vary. Please check with the institution for most up to date details.

Entry requirements

Choose a qualification.

QUALIFICATION TYPE

• UCAS Points
• Access to HE Diploma
• International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
• Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)

A level : BCC - BBB

A-levels must include English language or combined English language and literature.

University information

University of brighton, university league table, campus address.

University of Brighton, Mithras House, Lewes Road, Brighton, Brighton & Hove, BN2 4AT, England

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43rd out of 56 4

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Creative Writing BA (Hons)

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Creative Writing BA (Hons)

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Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)

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Course info

Entry requirements, tuition fees, latest reviews.

In your Creative Writing degree, you will experiment with a range of styles and forms. You will develop an understanding of the art and craft of writing and explore its purpose in the world. The degree draws on the diverse city of Brighton & Hove as a source of inspiration that will develop your passion for writing.

The course is for students keen to apply critical reading and creative skills to innovative writing practices. Covering a wide range of genres, cultures and identities, you will study techniques and develop expertise in writing that you will apply to work-based scenarios including publishing.

Guided by your tutors, you will consider a variety of key texts and be asked to connect your own work in relation to political, social and cultural theories. Innovative teaching will underpin your studies, taking you into creative spaces such as museums, galleries, theatres, archives, the South Downs National Park and Brighton itself.

There will be frequent opportunities to meet and work with publishers and inspirational writers to further develop your love and understanding of your craft. This is further enhanced by events such as the Scrivener Series of visiting writer workshops, spoken word events and an annual masterclass with a nominee for the Man Booker prize.

Graduate destinations

Our graduates are equipped with the knowledge and transferable skills needed to pursue a career in many related areas, including publishing, social media, marketing, teaching, journalism, public relations and human resources.

Creative Writing

Average salary, £18,000, £19,000, what students say.

I love it here! Great place for doing social activity and the uni staff are great.. Read more

The pros: The staff are the most understanding and supportive you'll ever meet. The course is wonderful and the content is engaging. Most facilities are fantastic. Brighton is a.. Read more

Modules (Year 1)

Modules (year 2), modules (year 3).

BCC - BBB Grades / Points required

UCAS Tariff:

104 - 120 Grades / Points required

Access to HE Diploma:

Not currently available, please contact university for up to date information.

International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme:

26 Grades / Points required

Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016):

DMM - MMM Grades / Points required

A-levels must include English language or combined English language and literature.

Pass with 60 credits overall. Humanities, history or politics courses preferred. At least 45 credits at level 3.

Must include three subjects at Higher Level.

Students living in

£9,250 per year

Students from England

This is the fee you pay if you live within England. Please note, this fee has been confirmed.

Students from Scotland

This is the fee you pay if you live within Scotland. Please note, this fee has been confirmed.

Students from Wales

This is the fee you pay if you live within Wales. Please note, this fee has been confirmed.

Students from Northern Ireland

This is the fee you pay if you live within Northern Ireland. Please note, this fee has been confirmed.

Students from Channel Islands

This is the fee you pay if you live within Channel Islands. Please note, this fee has been confirmed.

£13,842 per year

Students from EU

This is the fee you pay if you live within the European Union. Please note, this is subject to change. Please confirm the most up to date fee with the individual institution.

Students from International

This is the fee you pay if you are an International student. Please note, this is subject to change. Please confirm the most up to date fee with the individual institution.

Latest Creative Writing reviews

Review breakdown, how all students rated:, university of brighton , brighton.

The University of Brighton is a world-renowned higher education institution that offers students an outstanding undergraduate...

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Mithras House Lewes Road Brighton Brighton & Hove BN2 4AT

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Creative writing workshops events in Brighton, United Kingdom

The Writer's Notebook: Creative Writing Workshops - 5 Week Series

Thu, May 9, 10:00 AM + 2 more

Chequer Mead Theatre

Thu, Jun 13, 10:00 AM + 4 more

In-person Taster Session for the Creative Writing Programme

Wed, Jul 3, 6:30 PM

Friends Meeting House

Mon, Jul 1, 10:00 AM

Poetry Masterclass with Naomi Wood

Monday at 7:00 PM

Selden Arms

Wed, Sep 4, 6:30 PM

Mon, Sep 2, 10:00 AM

Creative writing course for teenagers - in Brighton

Mon, Jul 29, 10:30 AM

Lost and Found

Sat, Jun 8, 1:30 PM

Sat, Jul 13, 1:30 PM

Monthly Creative Writing Group for beginners | Tuesday eves | E. Grinstead

Tue, May 14, 7:00 PM + 2 more

In-person Taster Session for the Life Writing Programme

Mon, Jul 1, 6:30 PM

Kemptown Bookshop

Sat, Aug 31, 1:30 PM

Mon, Sep 2, 6:30 PM

Creative Writing Workshop

Thu, May 16, 10:00 AM + 5 more

Southwark Wellbeing Hub

Sat, Aug 3, 1:30 PM

Professor Elemental Creative Workshop

Sat, May 11, 1:30 PM

Crawley Museum

Creative Writing Workshops in Pimlico

Sun, May 19, 10:00 AM + 7 more

Maisha Stories Celebration | Our 12th Birthday

Sunday at 6:00 PM

Vantage Point

CWP Summer reading - in-person

Thu, May 9, 7:00 PM

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English Literature and Creative Writing BA(Hons)

This course is for students who are passionate about literature and want to apply critical reading and research skills to a diverse range of writing practice.

Throughout the English Literature and Creative Writing degree course, you will combine a knowledge of literary theory with your own writing, learning how writing can perform and interrogate theory.

You will also consider a variety of texts in relation to political, aesthetic and cultural ideas in order to enhance your own work. Trips and research projects offer a highly practical way of understanding the connections between theory and practice.

Our enthusiastic and award-winning tutors will help you to become a motivated thinker and writer with excellent critical and creative writing skills.

We also work with local publishers and authors to develop your professional understanding of writing. Specific modules allow you to work within community groups and companies in order to develop your writing and reflect critically on your practice.

Location Brighton: Moulsecoomb

UCAS code Q311

Full-time 3 years

Apply now with UCAS for 2024

Entry criteria

Entry requirements

A-level or BTEC Entry requirements are in the range of A-level BBB–BCC (120–104 UCAS Tariff points), or BTEC Extended Diploma DMM–MMM. Our conditional offers typically fall within this range.

A-levels must include at least one of English literature, English language, English language and literature, sociology or psychology.

International Baccalaureate 26 points, with three subjects at Higher level.

Access to HE Diploma Pass with 60 credits overall. Humanities, history or politics courses preferred. At least 45 credits at level 3.

Studied before or got relevant experience? A qualification, HE credits, or relevant experience may count towards your course at Brighton, and could mean that you do not have to take some elements of the course or can start in year 2 or 3. 

English language requirements IELTS 6.0 overall with a minimum of 5.5 in each element. Find out more about the other English qualifications that we accept .

International requirements and visas

We can help you meet our English language or academic entry requirements.

Visit our language centre

For English language preparation courses.

Visit our International College

For degree preparation courses.

Visas and immigration advice

Applying for a student visa

Check out our step-by-step guidance.

Flexible admissions

When you apply to Brighton we want to hear about who you are. Grades are never the whole picture; we're interested in things like creativity, resourcefulness, persistence and the capacity to think big and find new ways of doing things. And we recognise that not everyone has the same background. That's why we treat everyone who applies as an individual. We recognise many qualifications and we care about all of your achievements and the experiences you've had that set you apart.

Find out more

Course content

Course structure

Full-time students have 10–11 hours contact time a week in lectures, seminars and workshops, but you are also expected to carry out independent study. Part-time study is possible and can be tailored to suit individual needs.

Our courses are reviewed and enhanced on an ongoing basis in order to make sure that what you learn with us is relevant and that your course enables you to develop appropriate skills. When you apply to study with us, we will inform you of any new developments in your chosen programme through Student View .

Please enable targeting cookies in order to view this video content on our website, or you can watch the video on YouTube .

Your first year focuses on understanding the different approaches to literary texts from both a creative and critical standpoint. You will study a wide variety of texts, including film, novels, poetry, theatre, short stories and autobiography.

Brighton is a vibrant and unique place that has impacted on British and European culture, as well being at the forefront of social changes since the eighteenth-century. This module is a literary and cultural exploration of Brighton as a place. You will engage and connect with Brighton’s history, literary culture and your own creative writing practice. The module benefits from several city trips, which will bring learning materials to life.

Taking inspiration from Edward Said’s book The World, the Text, and the Critic (1983), this module enables you to explore some of the key debates in contemporary literary studies. Organised around decolonial, feminist, queer, ecocritical and other approaches to texts, you'll develop critical writing skills and knowledge of social, cultural and political contexts in the interpretation of literary works and the wider world. 

This module explores poetry from a diverse selection of writers, time periods and cultures. Learning how to analyse and interpret poetry and understand poetic forms and techniques, you'll discuss poetry as a political act, form of protest and agent of social change to discover the dynamic possibilities of poetry as a relevant means of communication and connection essential in our changing world. Students co-create this module and you'll develop your own practice through curating a poetry anthology.

How might theatre engage audiences with the politics of class, race, gender, sexuality and the environment? You'll examine a range of plays in context, exploring how provocative stories develop through characterisation, stage directions, dialogue and dramatic action. Learn to think critically and creatively about theatrical texts and how to write scripts for stage in inclusive collaborations with your peers.

This module will introduce you to practices of storying the self in writing and digital media. Through creating a first person story combining audio script, music and still image, you will engage with the expressive complexities of autobiographical representation. The module will also give you the creative writing tools to experiment with storying the self in a variety of written genre.

Explore the concept of a professional writerly identity, and consider a ‘writing life’ in personal, local and global terms. Through studying and by contact with professional writers, you will investigate writing as self-expression, craft, process and profession; curating a writerly identity/ persona; developing your writing towards your future career; and the writing life and its implications on the global stage, for example as an act of resistance to inequalities.

In your second year you can tailor your degree to your interests. There are placement opportunities available in year 2 as well as field trips to theatres, museums, schools and other community projects.

You can also choose option modules from across our humanities and arts subjects.

At the end of your second year you will have the opportunity to study abroad.

• Stories that Transform
• The Nineteenth Century in Literature
• British Literature and Twentieth-century History
• Research and Practice
• Travel Narratives through Time and Space
• Twentieth-century Literary Experiments
• Queer Writing
• Literature and Art History
• Professional Practice and Placement
• American Literature 1850–1945
• Image and Text: The Language of Comics and Graphic Novels
• Writing for Stage, Radio and Screen
• Contemporary Narratives and Society
• Power and Persuasion
• Television Studio Production
• Photography: From Painting with Light to Zeroes and Ones

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability.

Placements 

In year 2 you can choose a placement module which will allow you to gain professional experience in industries such as publishing, broadcasting, social media marketing, PR and the charity sector. 

Recent placement hosts include:

• Action Medical Research
• Action Tutoring
• Airstream Photo Booth
• Brighton Dome
• British Forces Broadcasting Services
• Epoque Press
• Factory Films
• The Old Market Theatre
• Little Green Pig
• Men’s Health Magazine

In year 3 you can choose the Community Placement module aimed at further building your professional experience. This is 30 to 50 hours of voluntary work with a not-for-profit or community organisation. The placement is assessed and contributes to your degree.

Mia Kurian, graduate

“My placement was with Metropolitan City Church Brighton as their Social Media Manager. I learnt a lot about myself and my interests and the type of career I may want to pursue. I got to try my hand at website design, something I had never done before, and it was a great opportunity for me to expand my creativity. Professionally, I gained a lot of experience that has been extremely useful in my career today. I learnt about creating brand cohesion and creating a brand image from scratch, something I’ve never done before.

"I absolutely loved it. It was an incredible learning experience as well as insightful. It allowed me to learn a lot about myself and the future I want. My placement manager was lovely and supportive and allowed me the freedom to explore my creativity.”

In your final year you will work towards your dissertation and choose from a wide range of option areas. In the second semester, you will collaborate with your peers on a conference where you will showcase your research and writing at a public event.

• Dissertation
• Brighton Rocks: Final Year Show
• Community Placement: Theory in Practice
• Russian Literature and Culture: The Golden Age and Beyond
• (Re)viewing Shakespeare
• Apocalypse, Utopia and Dystopia
• Literature and Philosophy
• Post-war American Literature
• Literature and the World Wars
• Women's Writing and Feminist Theory
• Restoration Dramas
• Adaptations
• Citizen Journalism: Theory and Practice
• Creative Writing Project
• From Script to Screen
• Conflict, Migration, Borders
• Reading and Writing Landscape
• Autoethnography
• Gothic: Texts and Contexts
• Victorian Sexualities
• Brighton Rocks
• Writing the Contemporary
• Postcolonial Literatures
• European Literatures and Film
• World Englishes
• Language of Gender and Sexuality
• Approaches to Analysing Discourse
• English Language Teaching
• Popular Culture: Europe and Beyond
• Autobiography of the Screen

Lab facilities

Mithras House is home to all our School of Humanities and Social Science courses. It has a series of ‘labs’, which may be used for teaching on your course or in your independent research work. Life lab A comfortable space with lounge furniture intended for qualitative research with larger groups. Due to its relaxed layout and naturalistic environment, the space is suited to research using focus groups, research using observation-based methods and child research.

The space is also used for teaching on some social science courses, as well as for dissertation research for projects.   City lab A space designed for collaborative student learning. It is used by students and staff involved in the university’s Global Challenges programme, our collective mission to contribute towards solutions to tackling the pressing issues facing our world. Design lab A space housing our extensive collection of historic dress and textiles, which are used in some teaching on our History of Art and Design courses . It has the space and equipment to work on textile projects. Displays created by students on these programmes are on view in the social spaces of the building.

Stats lab A specialist workspace with computing equipment for statistical analysis and projects involving video and audio editing software. The lab is accessible as a study space to students on psychology courses. 

It is also available to students studying courses involving video and audio recording and editing, such as politics degrees and our creative writing programmes. The stats lab contains eight soundproof booths for recording or transcribing interviews undertaken as part of dissertation research.   VR and eye tracking lab This lab is used for psychological research, specifically eye-tracking research and virtual reality research. Equipment includes an electroencephalography (EEG) headset and Electrodermal Activity (EDA) equipment.

Take a virtual tour of the labs available

Meet the team

Dr Bea Hitchman, course leader

Beatrice's research interests are in critical and creative writing. Her work focuses on gender, queer writing and historical fiction, concepts of 'voice', endings and writing the remote past. Her 2013 novel Petite Mort was nominated for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Prize, the Polari Prize, the HWA Debut Novel Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize, and serialised as a ten-part Radio 4 drama. Her second novel is All of You Every Single One (2021). Read novelist and writing tutor Beatrice Hitchman's staff profile .

Dr Jess Moriarty

Jess Moriarty researches in the field of teaching writing practice, especially in auto-ethnographical academic writing and in creative writing with undergraduates.

She graduated from the University of Sussex with a Creative Writing MA in 2002 and joined the University of Brighton soon after. Jess's doctorate looked at how to make academic writing more personal and creative and included a play based on her autobiographical and researched experiences with academic life. She won a Teaching Excellence award for her workshops with undergraduates.

Jess is the co-founder of Work Write Live, which provides a range of writing short courses and volunteering opportunities for students across arts and humanities courses to develop the vocational and academic skills they are acquiring on their degree programme. You can read more about writer and creative-writing tutor Dr Jess Moriarty on her staff profile .

Dr Craig Jordan-Baker

Dr Craig Jordan-Baker is a writer, critic and academic. He is a Senior Lecturer and joint course leader for English Literature and Creative Writing BA(Hons). He studied creative writing at University of Bedfordshire, and University of Sussex before receiving his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Sussex in 2013.

Craig has been teaching creative writing since 2006 and joined the University of Brighton in 2016. He has been nominated for teaching awards several times and most recently, he was a winner of the 2018 Excellence in Facilitating and Empowering Learning Award.

Craig’s drama has been widely performed, and his writing widely published. His work has been nominated for awards and he has received funding from the Arts Council. He has worked with several museums and received commissions from The National Archives and The Booth Museum of Natural History. You can read more about novelist and creative writing tutor Dr Craig Jordan-Baker on his staff profile .

More about this subject at Brighton

Reading to get you thinking for our Creative Writing MA

Whether you’re an applicant, or thinking of applying, why not whet your appetite with some of the course reading?

Literature prizes awarded to top performing English students

English Literature and Creative Writing BA(Hons) students Angelica Blake-Lawson and Olivia Woods-Jones have been awarded the Peter James English & Creative Writing Breakthrough Awards scooping £500.

Join us for an applicant event!

If you’ve applied for an undergraduate course starting this September learn more about the course and get to know us better at our events for applicants and offer holders.

Take a look at Mithras House, home to our Humanities and Social Science courses

Whether you are an art historian or a psychologist, a creative writer or a criminologist, as a student in our school you will be studying in our newly renovated Mithras House building.

Read more from our blog

Prepare for your career  

Your BA English Literature and Creative Writing degree provides subject knowledge and expertise and opportunities to put what you learn into practice with work-related experience.

• You will develop valuable transferable skills such as a critical thinking and writing, independent research and analysis.
• The course will equip you with excellent presentation, written and oral communication skills.
• Option modules in your second and third years span subjects including Russian Literature, journalism, philosophy and adaptations enabling you to tailor your degree to your specific career ambitions.
• A programme of visiting writers and publishing professionals give you a window into the publishing industry.
• You can opt to take a voluntary placement as part of the course and complete a practical project with a local community or voluntary organisation.
• Workshops and spoken word events will help you find your writing voice and you will also be encouraged to enter competitions to build your confidence as a writer.

Extra-curricular activities which can add to your skillset and experience include:

• The Performance and Community Research and Enterprise Group which celebrates, challenges and researches the various modes of performance (voice, body, space, movement, language, sound, texture, shape, words).
• The student-led Creative Writing Society

Showcasing your talent 

The Scrivener series of talks runs twice a semester giving you the chance to talk with a professional writer about their work. This feeds into open mic nights where you can showcase your work

As a Creative Writing student you will have the opportunity to organise your own academic conference in your final year, centred around celebrating you and your fellow students’ work. Students organise all aspects of the event and present at the conference.

All Creative Writing students receive a weekly email digest of writing competitions and opportunities. Our aim is to encourage you to get your work out there, and think about the future.

Royal Literary Fund Fellow

If you want professional feedback on any aspect of your writing, from an essay to a manuscript, you can book a one-to-one tutorial with our resident Royal Literary Fund Fellow .

The sessions are free, confidential and independent of the university.

You can get advice on

• academic writing style and how to answer essay questions.
• all aspects of your writing, such as developing and structuring an argument to improving style.

What can I do with a literature and creative writing degree?

Creative writing and literature degree graduates gain a broad range of skills applicable in a variety of roles, such as:

• Editorial assistant
• Higher education lecturer
• Lexicographer
• Publishing copy-editor/proofreader

High-profile graduates from our English programmes include Paris Lees, Tanaka Mhishi and Munroe Bergdorf.

Graduates from our English programmes have gone on to careers in:

• Social media marketing
• English tutorship
• SEO Executive
• Broadcasting
• Public relations 

This degree opens up a range of postgraduate study options. At Brighton, for example, you could progress to:

• Creative Writing MA
• Journalism MA
• Secondary English PGCE .

You could also choose to complete your PhD at Brighton alongside our team of world-leading researchers.

Supporting your employability 

Outside of your course, our Careers Service is here to support you as you discover (and re-discover) your strengths and what matters to you. We are here for you throughout your university journey as you work towards a fulfilling and rewarding career.

Connect with our careers team

• Find part-time work that you can combine with your studies.
• Find, or be, a mentor or get involved with our peer-to-peer support scheme.
• Develop your business ideas through our entrepreneurial support network.
• Get professional advice and support with career planning, CV writing and interview top tips.
• Meet potential employers at our careers fairs.
• Find rewarding volunteering opportunities to help you discover more about what makes you tick, and build your CV.

Whatever your career needs, we are here to help. And that's not just while you are a student, our support carries on after you've graduated.

Find out more...

Fees and costs

Course fees

UK (full-time) 9,250 GBP

International (full-time) 15,900 GBP

The fees listed here are for the first year of full-time study if you start your course in the academic year 2024–25 .

You will pay fees for each year of your course. Some fees may increase each year.

UK undergraduate and some postgraduate fees are regulated by the UK government and increases will not be more than the maximum amount allowed. Course fees that are not regulated may increase each year by up to 5% or RPI (whichever is higher).

If you are studying part-time your fee will usually be calculated based on the number of modules that you take.

• Fees, bursaries, scholarships and government funding info for UK and international undergraduate and postgraduate students
• Student finance and budgeting while studying
• About the university’s fees by checking our student contract and tuition fee policy (pdf).

What's included

You may have to pay additional costs during your studies. The cost of optional activities is not included in your tuition fee and you will need to meet this cost in addition to your fees. A summary of the costs that are included and any extras that you may be expected to pay while studying a course  in the School of Humanities and Social Science in the 2022–23 academic year are listed here.

• For some assessments you may be required to print large format posters for presentations at a cost of £5–£10 per poster.
• Most coursework submissions are electronic but you may wish to print notes and should budget up to £100 for printing.
• Course books are available from the university but you may wish to budget up to £200 to buy your own copies.
• Some courses include an optional placement module for which students will need to cover the costs of travel to and from the placement and DBS checks as required.
• Supervision fees: £1,170 for each full year. Estimated based on £45 per hour with fortnightly meetings. In some agencies, supervision will be provided at no cost. Where students have to pay, the cost will only begin when supervision begins.
• Personal counselling/therapy: £2,000–£2,800 over the course. Estimated based on £40 per hour.
• For a number of courses you will have the opportunity to attend field trips and off-site visits. These are optional and are not required to pass your course but under normal circumstances we would expect a budget of approximately £150 per year will cover the costs of particular trips. The amount spent would be based on location and number of trips taken.
• You will have access to computers and necessary software, however many students choose to buy their own hardware, software and accessories. The amount spent will depend on your individual choices but this expenditure is not essential to pass any of our courses.

You can chat with our enquiries team if you have a question or need more information. Or check our finance pages for advice about funding and scholarships as well as more information about fees and advice on international and island fee-paying status.

Location and student life

Campus where this course is taught

Moulsecoomb campus

Two miles north of Brighton seafront, Moulsecoomb is our largest campus and student village. Moulsecoomb has been transformed by a recent development of our estate. On campus you'll find new Students' Union, events venue, and sports and fitness facilities, alongside the library and student centre.

Over 900 students live here in our halls, Moulsecoomb Place and the new Mithras halls – Brunswick, Goldstone, Hanover, Preston and Regency.

Moulsecoomb has easy access to buses and trains and to all the exciting things happening in our home city.

Accommodation

We guarantee an offer of a place in halls of residence to all eligible students . So if you applied for halls by the deadline you are guaranteed a room in our halls of residence.

Brighton: Moulsecoomb

Halls of residence We have self-catered halls on all our campuses, within minutes of your classes, and other options that are very nearby.

You can apply for any of our halls, but the options closest to your study location are:

• Mithras Halls are stylish new high-rises in the heart of the student village at our revitalised Moulsecoomb campus with ensuite rooms for more than 800 students.
• Varley Park  is a popular dedicated halls site, offering a mix of rooms and bathroom options at different prices. It is around two miles from Moulsecoomb campus and four miles from the city centre, and is easy to get to by bus.

Want to live independently? We can help – find out more about private renting .

Modern accommodation at Moulsecoomb

Relaxing in halls near the campus

Student Union social space at Moulsecoomb

About Brighton

The city of Brighton & Hove is a forward-thinking place which leads the way in the arts, technology, sustainability and creativity. You'll find living here plays a key role in your learning experience.

Brighton is a leading centre for creative media technology, recently named the startup capital of the UK.

The city is home to a national 5G testbed and over 1,000 tech businesses. The digital sector is worth over £1bn a year to the local economy - as much as tourism.

All of our full-time undergraduate courses involve work-based learning - this could be through placements, live briefs and guest lectures. Many of these opportunities are provided by local businesses and organisations.

It's only 50 minutes by train from Brighton to central London and less than 40 minutes to Eastbourne. There are also daily direct trains to Bristol, Bedford, Cambridge, Gatwick Airport, Portsmouth and Southampton.

Moulsecoomb campus map

Support and wellbeing

Your course team

Your personal academic tutor, course leader and other tutors are all there to help you with your personal and academic progress. You'll also have a student support and guidance tutor (SSGT) who can help with everything from homesickness, managing stress or accommodation issues.

Your academic skills

Our Brighton Student Skills Hub gives you extra support and resources to develop the skills you'll need for university study, whatever your level of experience so far.

Your mental health and wellbeing

As well as being supported to succeed, we want you to feel good too. You'll be part of a community that builds you up, with lots of ways to connect with one another, as well having access to dedicated experts if you need them. Find out more .

Sport at Brighton

Sport Brighton

Sport Brighton brings together our sport and recreation services. As a Brighton student you'll have use of sport and fitness facilities across all our campuses and there are opportunities to play for fun, fitness or take part in serious competition. 

Find out more about Sport Brighton .

Sports scholarships

Our sports scholarship scheme is designed to help students develop their full sporting potential to train and compete at the highest level. We offer scholarships for elite athletes, elite disabled athletes and talented sports performers.

Find out more about sport scholarships .

Stay in touch

Ask a question about this course

If you have a question about this course, our enquiries team will be happy to help. 01273 644644

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 to find out about student and staff news, and events.

Find out more about how the academic year and degree courses are organised , and about learning and assessment activities you might get to grips with at Brighton. More specific information about this course is detailed in the programme specification (linked below). You can find out also about the support we offer to help you adjust to university life.

Course and module descriptions on this page were accurate when first published and are the basis of the course. Detailed information on any changes we make to modules and learning and assessment activities will be sent to all students by email before enrolment, so that you have all the information before you come to Brighton.

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Programme specification

The programme specification is the approved description of each course. They give a detailed breakdown of the content and structure of the course, and are updated following course changes.

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French Journal of English Studies

Home Numéros 59 1 - Tisser les liens : voyager, e... 36 Views of Moscow Mountain: Teac...

36 Views of Moscow Mountain: Teaching Travel Writing and Mindfulness in the Tradition of Hokusai and Thoreau

L'auteur américain Henry David Thoreau est un écrivain du voyage qui a rarement quitté sa ville natale de Concorde, Massachusetts, où il a vécu de 1817 à 1862. Son approche du "voyage" consiste à accorder une profonde attention à son environnement ordinaire et à voir le monde à partir de perspectives multiples, comme il l'explique avec subtilité dans Walden (1854). Inspiré par Thoreau et par la célèbre série de gravures du peintre d'estampes japonais Katsushika Hokusai, intitulée 36 vues du Mt. Fuji (1830-32), j'ai fait un cours sur "L'écriture thoreauvienne du voyage" à l'Université de l'Idaho, que j'appelle 36 vues des montagnes de Moscow: ou, Faire un grand voyage — l'esprit et le carnet ouvert — dans un petit lieu . Cet article explore la philosophie et les stratégies pédagogiques de ce cours, qui tente de partager avec les étudiants les vertus d'un regard neuf sur le monde, avec les yeux vraiment ouverts, avec le regard d'un voyageur, en "faisant un grand voyage" à Moscow, Idaho. Les étudiants affinent aussi leurs compétences d'écriture et apprennent les traditions littéraires et artistiques associées au voyage et au sens du lieu.

Index terms

Keywords: , designing a writing class to foster engagement.

1 The signs at the edge of town say, "Entering Moscow, Idaho. Population 25,060." This is a small hamlet in the midst of a sea of rolling hills, where farmers grow varieties of wheat, lentils, peas, and garbanzo beans, irrigated by natural rainfall. Although the town of Moscow has a somewhat cosmopolitan feel because of the presence of the University of Idaho (with its 13,000 students and a few thousand faculty and staff members), elegant restaurants, several bookstores and music stores, and a patchwork of artsy coffee shops on Main Street, the entire mini-metropolis has only about a dozen traffic lights and a single high school. As a professor of creative writing and the environmental humanities at the university, I have long been interested in finding ways to give special focuses to my writing and literature classes that will help my students think about the circumstances of their own lives and find not only academic meaning but personal significance in our subjects. I have recently taught graduate writing workshops on such themes as "The Body" and "Crisis," but when I was given the opportunity recently to teach an undergraduate writing class on Personal and Exploratory Writing, I decided to choose a focus that would bring me—and my students—back to one of the writers who has long been of central interest to me: Henry David Thoreau.

2 One of the courses I have routinely taught during the past six years is Environmental Writing, an undergraduate class that I offer as part of the university's Semester in the Wild Program, a unique undergraduate opportunity that sends a small group of students to study five courses (Ecology, Environmental History, Environmental Writing, Outdoor Leadership and Wilderness Survival, and Wilderness Management and Policy) at a remote research station located in the middle of the largest wilderness area (the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness) in the United States south of Alaska. In "Teaching with Wolves," a recent article about the Semester in the Wild Program, I explained that my goal in the Environmental Writing class is to help the students "synthesize their experience in the wilderness with the content of the various classes" and "to think ahead to their professional lives and their lives as engaged citizens, for which critical thinking and communication skills are so important" (325). A foundational text for the Environmental Writing class is a selection from Thoreau's personal journal, specifically the entries he made October 1-20, 1853, which I collected in the 1993 writing textbook Being in the World: An Environmental Reader for Writers . I ask the students in the Semester in the Wild Program to deeply immerse themselves in Thoreau's precise and colorful descriptions of the physical world that is immediately present to him and, in turn, to engage with their immediate encounters with the world in their wilderness location. Thoreau's entries read like this:

Oct. 4. The maples are reddening, and birches yellowing. The mouse-ear in the shade in the middle of the day, so hoary, looks as if the frost still lay on it. Well it wears the frost. Bumblebees are on the Aster undulates , and gnats are dancing in the air. Oct. 5. The howling of the wind about the house just before a storm to-night sounds extremely like a loon on the pond. How fit! Oct. 6 and 7. Windy. Elms bare. (372)

3 In thinking ahead to my class on Personal and Exploratory Writing, which would be offered on the main campus of the University of Idaho in the fall semester of 2018, I wanted to find a topic that would instill in my students the Thoreauvian spirit of visceral engagement with the world, engagement on the physical, emotional, and philosophical levels, while still allowing my students to remain in the city and live their regular lives as students. It occurred to me that part of what makes Thoreau's journal, which he maintained almost daily from 1837 (when he was twenty years old) to 1861 (just a year before his death), such a rich and elegant work is his sense of being a traveler, even when not traveling geographically.

Traveling a Good Deal in Moscow

I have traveled a good deal in Concord…. --Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854; 4)

4 For Thoreau, one did not need to travel a substantial physical distance in order to be a traveler, in order to bring a traveler's frame of mind to daily experience. His most famous book, Walden , is well known as an account of the author's ideas and daily experiments in simple living during the two years, two months, and two days (July 4, 1845, to September 6, 1847) he spent inhabiting a simple wooden house that he built on the shore of Walden Pond, a small lake to the west of Boston, Massachusetts. Walden Pond is not a remote location—it is not out in the wilderness. It is on the edge of a small village, much like Moscow, Idaho. The concept of "traveling a good deal in Concord" is a kind of philosophical and psychological riddle. What does it mean to travel extensively in such a small place? The answer to this question is meaningful not only to teachers hoping to design writing classes in the spirit of Thoreau but to all who are interested in travel as an experience and in the literary genre of travel writing.

5 Much of Walden is an exercise in deftly establishing a playful and intellectually challenging system of synonyms, an array of words—"economy," "deliberateness," "simplicity," "dawn," "awakening," "higher laws," etc.—that all add up to powerful probing of what it means to live a mindful and attentive life in the world. "Travel" serves as a key, if subtle, metaphor for the mindful life—it is a metaphor and also, in a sense, a clue: if we can achieve the traveler's perspective without going far afield, then we might accomplish a kind of enlightenment. Thoreau's interest in mindfulness becomes clear in chapter two of Walden , "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For," in which he writes, "Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?" The latter question implies the author's feeling that he is himself merely evolving as an awakened individual, not yet fully awake, or mindful, in his efforts to live "a poetic or divine life" (90). Thoreau proceeds to assert that "We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn…. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor" (90). Just what this endeavor might be is not immediately spelled out in the text, but the author does quickly point out the value of focusing on only a few activities or ideas at a time, so as not to let our lives be "frittered away by detail." He writes: "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; … and keep your accounts on your thumb nail" (91). The strong emphasis in the crucial second chapter of Walden is on the importance of waking up and living deliberately through a conscious effort to engage in particular activities that support such awakening. It occurs to me that "travel," or simply making one's way through town with the mindset of a traveler, could be one of these activities.

6 It is in the final chapter of the book, titled "Conclusion," that Thoreau makes clear the relationship between travel and living an attentive life. He begins the chapter by cataloguing the various physical locales throughout North America or around the world to which one might travel—Canada, Ohio, Colorado, and even Tierra del Fuego. But Thoreau states: "Our voyaging is only great-circle sailing, and the doctors prescribe for diseases of the skin merely. One hastens to Southern Africa to chase the giraffe; but surely that is not the game he would be after." What comes next is brief quotation from the seventeenth-century English poet William Habbington (but presented anonymously in Thoreau's text), which might be one of the most significant passages in the entire book:

Direct your eye sight inward, and you'll find A thousand regions in your mind Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be Expert in home-cosmography. (320)

7 This admonition to travel the mysterious territory of one's own mind and master the strange cosmos of the self is actually a challenge to the reader—and probably to the author himself—to focus on self-reflection and small-scale, local movement as if such activities were akin to exploration on a grand, planetary scale. What is really at issue here is not the physical distance of one's journey, but the mental flexibility of one's approach to the world, one's ability to look at the world with a fresh, estranged point of view. Soon after his discussion of the virtues of interior travel, Thoreau explains why he left his simple home at Walden Pond after a few years of experimental living there, writing, "It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves" (323). In other words, no matter what we're doing in life, we can fall into a "beaten track" if we're not careful, thus failing to stay "awake."

8 As I thought about my writing class at the University of Idaho, I wondered how I might design a series of readings and writing exercises for university students that would somehow emulate the Thoreauvian objective of achieving ultra-mindfulness in a local environment. One of the greatest challenges in designing such a class is the fact that it took Thoreau himself many years to develop an attentiveness to his environment and his own emotional rhythms and an efficiency of expression that would enable him to describe such travel-without-travel, and I would have only sixteen weeks to achieve this with my own students. The first task, I decided, was to invite my students into the essential philosophical stance of the class, and I did this by asking my students to read the opening chapter of Walden ("Economy") in which he talks about traveling "a good deal" in his small New England village as well as the second chapter and the conclusion, which reveal the author's enthusiasm (some might even say obsession ) for trying to achieve an awakened condition and which, in the end, suggest that waking up to the meaning of one's life in the world might be best accomplished by attempting the paradoxical feat of becoming "expert in home-cosmography." As I stated it among the objectives for my course titled 36 Views of Moscow Mountain: Or, Traveling a Good Deal—with Open Minds and Notebooks—in a Small Place , one of our goals together (along with practicing nonfiction writing skills and learning about the genre of travel writing) would be to "Cultivate a ‘Thoreauvian' way of appreciating the subtleties of the ordinary world."

Windy. Elms Bare.

9 For me, the elegance and heightened sensitivity of Thoreau's engagement with place is most movingly exemplified in his journal, especially in the 1850s after he's mastered the art of observation and nuanced, efficient description of specific natural phenomena and environmental conditions. His early entries in the journal are abstract mini-essays on such topics as truth, beauty, and "The Poet," but over time the journal notations become so immersed in the direct experience of the more-than-human world, in daily sensory experiences, that the pronoun "I" even drops out of many of these records. Lawrence Buell aptly describes this Thoreauvian mode of expression as "self-relinquishment" (156) in his 1995 book The Environmental Imagination , suggesting such writing "question[s] the authority of the superintending consciousness. As such, it opens up the prospect of a thoroughgoing perceptual breakthrough, suggesting the possibility of a more ecocentric state of being than most of us have dreamed of" (144-45). By the time Thoreau wrote "Windy. Elms bare" (372) as his single entry for October 6 and 7, 1853, he had entered what we might call an "ecocentric zone of consciousness" in his work, attaining the ability to channel his complex perceptions of season change (including meteorology and botany and even his own emotional state) into brief, evocative prose.

10 I certainly do not expect my students to be able to do such writing after only a brief introduction to the course and to Thoreau's own methods of journal writing, but after laying the foundation of the Thoreauvian philosophy of nearby travel and explaining to my students what I call the "building blocks of the personal essay" (description, narration, and exposition), I ask them to engage in a preliminary journal-writing exercise that involves preparing five journal entries, each "a paragraph or two in length," that offer detailed physical descriptions of ordinary phenomena from their lives (plants, birds, buildings, street signs, people, food, etc.), emphasizing shape, color, movement or change, shadow, and sometimes sound, smell, taste, and/or touch. The goal of the journal entries, I tell the students, is to begin to get them thinking about close observation, vivid descriptive language, and the potential to give their later essays in the class an effective texture by balancing more abstract information and ideas with evocative descriptive passages and storytelling.

11 I am currently teaching this class, and I am writing this article in early September, as we are entering the fourth week of the semester. The students have just completed the journal-writing exercise and are now preparing to write the first of five brief essays on different aspects of Moscow that will eventually be braided together, as discrete sections of the longer piece, into a full-scale literary essay about Moscow, Idaho, from the perspective of a traveler. For the journal exercise, my students wrote some rather remarkable descriptive statements, which I think bodes well for their upcoming work. One student, Elizabeth Isakson, wrote stunning journal descriptions of a cup of coffee, her own feet, a lemon, a basil leaf, and a patch of grass. For instance, she wrote:

Steaming hot liquid poured into a mug. No cream, just black. Yet it appears the same brown as excretion. The texture tells another story with meniscus that fades from clear to gold and again brown. The smell is intoxicating for those who are addicted. Sweetness fills the nostrils; bitterness rushes over the tongue. The contrast somehow complements itself. Earthy undertones flower up, yet this beverage is much more satisfying than dirt. When the mug runs dry, specks of dark grounds remain swimming in the sunken meniscus. Steam no longer rises because energy has found a new home.

12 For the grassy lawn, she wrote:

Calico with shades of green, the grass is yellowing. Once vibrant, it's now speckled with straw. Sticking out are tall, seeding dandelions. Still some dips in the ground have maintained thick, soft patches of green. The light dances along falling down from the trees above, creating a stained-glass appearance made from various green shades. The individual blades are stiff enough to stand erect, but they will yield to even slight forces of wind or pressure. Made from several long strands seemingly fused together, some blades fray at the end, appearing brittle. But they do not simply break off; they hold fast to the blade to which they belong.

13 The point of this journal writing is for the students to look closely enough at ordinary reality to feel estranged from it, as if they have never before encountered (or attempted to describe) a cup of coffee or a field of grass—or a lemon or a basil leaf or their own body. Thus, the Thoreauvian objective of practicing home-cosmography begins to take shape. The familiar becomes exotic, note-worthy, and strangely beautiful, just as it often does for the geographical travel writer, whose adventures occur far away from where she or he normally lives. Travel, in a sense, is an antidote to complacency, to over-familiarity. But the premise of my class in Thoreauvian travel writing is that a slight shift of perspective can overcome the complacency we might naturally feel in our home surroundings. To accomplish this we need a certain degree of disorientation. This is the next challenge for our class.

The Blessing of Being Lost

14 Most of us take great pains to "get oriented" and "know where we're going," whether this is while running our daily errands or when thinking about the essential trajectories of our lives. We're often instructed by anxious parents to develop a sense of purpose and a sense of direction, if only for the sake of basic safety. But the traveler operates according to a somewhat different set of priorities, perhaps, elevating adventure and insight above basic comfort and security, at least to some degree. This certainly seems to be the case for the Thoreauvian traveler, or for Thoreau himself. In Walden , he writes:

…not until we are completely lost, or turned round,--for a man needs only be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost,--do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of Nature. Every man has to learn the points of compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction. Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations. (171)

15 I could explicate this passage at length, but that's not really my purpose here. I read this as a celebration of salutary disorientation, of the potential to be lost in such a way as to deepen one's ability to pay attention to oneself and one's surroundings, natural and otherwise. If travel is to a great degree an experience uniquely capable of triggering attentiveness to our own physical and psychological condition, to other cultures and the minds and needs of other people, and to a million small details of our environment that we might take for granted at home but that accrue special significance when we're away, I would argue that much of this attentiveness is owed to the sense of being lost, even the fear of being lost, that often happens when we leave our normal habitat.

16 So in my class I try to help my students "get lost" in a positive way. Here in Moscow, the major local landmark is a place called Moscow Mountain, a forested ridge of land just north of town, running approximately twenty kilometers to the east of the city. Moscow "Mountain" does not really have a single, distinctive peak like a typical mountain—it is, as I say, more of a ridge than a pinnacle. When I began contemplating this class on Thoreauvian travel writing, the central concepts I had in mind were Thoreau's notion of traveling a good deal in Concord and also the idea of looking at a specific place from many different angles. The latter idea is not only Thoreauvian, but perhaps well captured in the eighteen-century Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai's series of woodblock prints known as 36 Views of Mt. Fuji , which offers an array of different angles on the mountain itself and on other landscape features (lakes, the sea, forests, clouds, trees, wind) and human behavior which is represented in many of the prints, often with Mt. Fuji in the distant background or off to the side. In fact, I imagine Hokusai's approach to representing Mt. Fuji as so important to the concept of this travel writing class that I call the class "36 Views of Moscow Mountain," symbolizing the multiple approaches I'll be asking my students to take in contemplating and describing not only Moscow Mountain itself, but the culture and landscape and the essential experience of Moscow the town. The idea of using Hokusai's series of prints as a focal point of this class came to me, in part, from reading American studies scholar Cathy Davidson's 36 Views of Mount Fuji: On Finding Myself in Japan , a memoir that offers sixteen short essays about different facets of her life as a visiting professor in that island nation.

17 The first of five brief essays my students will prepare for the class is what I'm calling a "Moscow Mountain descriptive essay," building upon the small descriptive journal entries they've written recently. In this case, though, I am asking the students to describe the shapes and colors of the Moscow Mountain ridge, while also telling a brief story or two about their observations of the mountain, either by visiting the mountain itself to take a walk or a bike ride or by explaining how they glimpse portions of the darkly forested ridge in the distance while walking around the University of Idaho campus or doing things in town. In preparation for the Moscow Mountain essays, we read several essays or book chapters that emphasize "organizing principles" in writing, often the use of particular landscape features, such as trees or mountains, as a literary focal point. For instance, in David Gessner's "Soaring with Castro," from his 2007 book Soaring with Fidel: An Osprey Odyssey from Cape Cod to Cuba and Beyond , he not only refers to La Gran Piedra (a small mountain in southeastern Cuba) as a narrative focal point, but to the osprey, or fish eagle, itself and its migratory journey as an organizing principle for his literary project (203). Likewise, in his essay "I Climb a Tree and Become Dissatisfied with My Lot," Chicago author Leonard Dubkin writes about his decision, as a newly fired journalist, to climb up a tree in Chicago's Lincoln Park to observe and listen to the birds that gather in the green branches in the evening, despite the fact that most adults would consider this a strange and inappropriate activity. We also looked at several of Hokusai's woodblock prints and analyzed these together in class, trying to determine how the mountain served as an organizing principle for each print or whether there were other key features of the prints—clouds, ocean waves, hats and pieces of paper floating in the wind, humans bent over in labor—that dominate the images, with Fuji looking on in the distance.

18 I asked my students to think of Hokusai's representations of Mt. Fuji as aesthetic models, or metaphors, for what they might try to do in their brief (2-3 pages) literary essays about Moscow Mountain. What I soon discovered was that many of my students, even students who have spent their entire lives in Moscow, either were not aware of Moscow Mountain at all or had never actually set foot on the mountain. So we spent half an hour during one class session, walking to a vantage point on the university campus, where I could point out where the mountain is and we could discuss how one might begin to write about such a landscape feature in a literary essay. Although I had thought of the essay describing the mountain as a way of encouraging the students to think about a familiar landscape as an orienting device, I quickly learned that this will be a rather challenging exercise for many of the students, as it will force them to think about an object or a place that is easily visible during their ordinary lives, but that they typically ignore. Paying attention to the mountain, the ridge, will compel them to reorient themselves in this city and think about a background landscape feature that they've been taking for granted until now. I think of this as an act of disorientation or being lost—a process of rethinking their own presence in this town that has a nearby mountain that most of them seldom think about. I believe Thoreau would consider this a good, healthy experience, a way of being present anew in a familiar place.

36 Views—Or, When You Invert Your Head

19 Another key aspect of Hokusai's visual project and Thoreau's literary project is the idea of changing perspective. One can view Mt. Fuji from 36 different points of views, or from thousands of different perspectives, and it is never quite the same place—every perspective is original, fresh, mind-expanding. The impulse to shift perspective in pursuit of mindfulness is also ever-present in Thoreau's work, particularly in his personal journal and in Walden . This idea is particularly evident, to me, in the chapter of Walden titled "The Ponds," where he writes:

Standing on the smooth sandy beach at the east end of the pond, in a calm September afternoon, when a slight haze makes the opposite shore line indistinct, I have seen whence came the expression, "the glassy surface of a lake." When you invert your head, it looks like a thread of finest gossamer stretched across the valley, and gleaming against the distinct pine woods, separating one stratum of the atmosphere from another. (186)

20 Elsewhere in the chapter, Thoreau describes the view of the pond from the top of nearby hills and the shapes and colors of pebbles in the water when viewed from close up. He chances physical perspective again and again throughout the chapter, but it is in the act of looking upside down, actually suggesting that one might invert one's head, that he most vividly conveys the idea of looking at the world in different ways in order to be lost and awakened, just as the traveler to a distant land might feel lost and invigorated by such exposure to an unknown place.

21 After asking students to write their first essay about Moscow Mountain, I give them four additional short essays to write, each two to four pages long. We read short examples of place-based essays, some of them explicitly related to travel, and then the students work on their own essays on similar topics. The second short essay is about food—I call this the "Moscow Meal" essay. We read the final chapter of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma (2006), "The Perfect Meal," and Anthony Bourdain's chapter "Where Cooks Come From" in the book A Cook's Tour (2001) are two of the works we study in preparation for the food essay. The three remaining short essays including a "Moscow People" essay (exploring local characters are important facets of the place), a more philosophical essay about "the concept of Moscow," and a final "Moscow Encounter" essay that tells the story of a dramatic moment of interaction with a person, an animal, a memorable thing to eat or drink, a sunset, or something else. Along the way, we read the work of Wendell Berry, Joan Didion, Barbara Kingsolver, Kim Stafford, Paul Theroux, and other authors. Before each small essay is due, we spend a class session holding small-group workshops, allowing the students to discuss their essays-in-progress with each other and share portions of their manuscripts. The idea is that they will learn about writing even by talking with each other about their essays. In addition to writing about Moscow from various angles, they will learn about additional points of view by considering the angles of insight developed by their fellow students. All of this is the writerly equivalent of "inverting [their] heads."

Beneath the Smooth Skin of Place

22 Aside from Thoreau's writing and Hokusai's images, perhaps the most important writer to provide inspiration for this class is Indiana-based essayist Scott Russell Sanders. Shortly after introducing the students to Thoreau's key ideas in Walden and to the richness of his descriptive writing in the journal, I ask them to read his essay "Buckeye," which first appeared in Sanders's Writing from the Center (1995). "Buckeye" demonstrates the elegant braiding together of descriptive, narrative, and expository/reflective prose, and it also offers a strong argument about the importance of creating literature and art about place—what he refers to as "shared lore" (5)—as a way of articulating the meaning of a place and potentially saving places that would otherwise be exploited for resources, flooded behind dams, or otherwise neglected or damaged. The essay uses many of the essential literary devices, ranging from dialogue to narrative scenes, that I hope my students will practice in their own essays, while also offering a vivid argument in support of the kind of place-based writing the students are working on.

23 Another vital aspect of our work together in this class is the effort to capture the wonderful idiosyncrasies of this place, akin to the idiosyncrasies of any place that we examine closely enough to reveal its unique personality. Sanders's essay "Beneath the Smooth Skin of America," which we study together in Week 9 of the course, addresses this topic poignantly. The author challenges readers to learn the "durable realities" of the places where they live, the details of "watershed, biome, habitat, food-chain, climate, topography, ecosystem and the areas defined by these natural features they call bioregions" (17). "The earth," he writes, "needs fewer tourists and more inhabitants" (16). By Week 9 of the semester, the students have written about Moscow Mountain, about local food, and about local characters, and they are ready at this point to reflect on some of the more philosophical dimensions of living in a small academic village surrounded by farmland and beyond that surrounded by the Cascade mountain range to the West and the Rockies to the East. "We need a richer vocabulary of place" (18), urges Sanders. By this point in the semester, by reading various examples of place-based writing and by practicing their own powers of observation and expression, my students will, I hope, have developed a somewhat richer vocabulary to describe their own experiences in this specific place, a place they've been trying to explore with "open minds and notebooks." Sanders argues that

if we pay attention, we begin to notice patterns in the local landscape. Perceiving those patterns, acquiring names and theories and stories for them, we cease to be tourists and become inhabitants. The bioregional consciousness I am talking about means bearing your place in mind, keeping track of its condition and needs, committing yourself to its care. (18)

24 Many of my students will spend only four or five years in Moscow, long enough to earn a degree before moving back to their hometowns or journeying out into the world in pursuit of jobs or further education. Moscow will be a waystation for some of these student writers, not a permanent home. Yet I am hoping that this semester-long experiment in Thoreauvian attentiveness and place-based writing will infect these young people with both the bioregional consciousness Sanders describes and a broader fascination with place, including the cultural (yes, the human ) dimensions of this and any other place. I feel such a mindfulness will enrich the lives of my students, whether they remain here or move to any other location on the planet or many such locations in succession.

25 Toward the end of "Beneath the Smooth Skin of America," Sanders tells the story of encountering a father with two young daughters near a city park in Bloomington, Indiana, where he lives. Sanders is "grazing" on wild mulberries from a neighborhood tree, and the girls are keen to join him in savoring the local fruit. But their father pulls them away, stating, "Thank you very much, but we never eat anything that grows wild. Never ever." To this Sanders responds: "If you hold by that rule, you will not get sick from eating poison berries, but neither will you be nourished from eating sweet ones. Why not learn to distinguish one from the other? Why feed belly and mind only from packages?" (19-20). By looking at Moscow Mountain—and at Moscow, Idaho, more broadly—from numerous points of view, my students, I hope, will nourish their own bellies and minds with the wild fruit and ideas of this place. I say this while chewing a tart, juicy, and, yes, slightly sweet plum that I pulled from a feral tree in my own Moscow neighborhood yesterday, an emblem of engagement, of being here.

Bibliography

BUELL, Lawrence, The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture , Harvard University Press, 1995.

DAVIDSON, Cathy, 36 Views of Mount Fuji: On Finding Myself in Japan , Duke University Press, 2006.

DUBKIN, Leonard, "I Climb a Tree and Become Dissatisfied with My Lot." Enchanted Streets: The Unlikely Adventures of an Urban Nature Lover , Little, Brown and Company, 1947, 34-42.

GESSNER, David, Soaring with Fidel: An Osprey Odyssey from Cape Cod to Cuba and Beyond , Beacon, 2007.

ISAKSON, Elizabeth, "Journals." Assignment for 36 Views of Moscow Mountain (English 208), University of Idaho, Fall 2018.

SANDERS, Scott Russell, "Buckeye" and "Beneath the Smooth Skin of America." Writing from the Center , Indiana University Press, 1995, pp. 1-8, 9-21.

SLOVIC, Scott, "Teaching with Wolves", Western American Literature 52.3 (Fall 2017): 323-31.

THOREAU, Henry David, "October 1-20, 1853", Being in the World: An Environmental Reader for Writers , edited by Scott H. Slovic and Terrell F. Dixon, Macmillan, 1993, 371-75.

THOREAU, Henry David, Walden . 1854. Princeton University Press, 1971.

Bibliographical reference

Scott Slovic , “ 36 Views of Moscow Mountain: Teaching Travel Writing and Mindfulness in the Tradition of Hokusai and Thoreau ” ,  Caliban , 59 | 2018, 41-54.

Electronic reference

Scott Slovic , “ 36 Views of Moscow Mountain: Teaching Travel Writing and Mindfulness in the Tradition of Hokusai and Thoreau ” ,  Caliban [Online], 59 | 2018, Online since 01 June 2018 , connection on 26 April 2024 . URL : http://journals.openedition.org/caliban/3688; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/caliban.3688

About the author

Scott slovic.

University of Idaho Scott Slovic is University Distinguished Professor of Environmental Humanities at the University of Idaho, USA. The author and editor of many books and articles, he edited the journal ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment from 1995 to 2020. His latest coedited book is The Routledge Handbook of Ecocriticism and Environmental Communication  (2019).

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