I wrote the following as an application to a writing residency in 2018. I include it here as I rather like it. It's a bit out of date.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front…”
Only I need not continue. It seems natural that Thoreau should lead us into this conversation. You, who have a remote Oregon cabin you wish to lend out to an aspiring writer. I, said aspiring writer, presently lacking a Harvard patron.
My interest in this residency will not easily be captured in 600 words, but allow me to try. I wish to write, to follow in the footsteps of the great American nature writers that have come before: Thoreau, McPhee, Abbey, Duncan, Lopez, Snyder, Bass, Dillard—a handful that come to mind. I am under no false pretenses: likely anything I pen will not make me a penny in my lifetime, nor do I expect the good fortune of Thoreau or Nietzsche to be discovered after I perish. I like writing—the discipline, the creativity, the attentiveness it instills, the beauty that can result, a creation that I can call mine. So, I will write and it will go where it wills.
I feel most at home in the Pacific Northwest—allured by its mountains, forests, rivers, glaciers, dare I say wildness. This is the place where I wish to live and to write about. I have lived in Missoula, the Olympic Coast of Washington, and many years in various part of Alaska. Some members of my family long ago resided in Idaho, Washington, and Alaska. One of my favorite novelists, David James Duncan, is an Oregonian. My attachment is thus more than cursory.
I am used to solitude. I have given so much of my life to it. Nor I am a stranger to wild, lonely places, having spent many months on long-distance wilderness hikes and river trips. I am no hermit. I appreciate the achievements of culture, and the practicalities that come with towns and cities. I do not wish to be alone forever, but now is the best time for such an endeavor: I am not locked into a year-round job, have no children, no pets. Despite all the time I have spent in the world’s wild corners, I have yet to stay in such a place and write.
Philosophically, I am most informed by Thoreau and David Abram, and those philosophers that draw our attention to the natural world, that strive to awaken our senses in earnest—not just for the spiritual clarity it affords the individual, but for the vital necessity of societal transformation found therein. One of the values of spending time apart from society is to gain insights that only distance allows. Away from power struggles, marketing, and unrelenting information, the world gains clarity, the city becomes just another point in the landscape. You remember what the world is.
I am presently working on a PhD in Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder. It is an interdisciplinary program that includes science, values, and policy. My work is closer to the philosophy, values, and humanities end of the spectrum, though I am also very knowledgeable about the practicalities of public lands, and well-versed in the achievements of various sciences. Though my higher aspirations are to write creative non-fiction, I also have a great deal to work on in the academic vein. I should confess that I dabble in poetry as well.
Only I need not continue. It seems natural that Thoreau should lead us into this conversation. You, who have a remote Oregon cabin you wish to lend out to an aspiring writer. I, said aspiring writer, presently lacking a Harvard patron.
My interest in this residency will not easily be captured in 600 words, but allow me to try. I wish to write, to follow in the footsteps of the great American nature writers that have come before: Thoreau, McPhee, Abbey, Duncan, Lopez, Snyder, Bass, Dillard—a handful that come to mind. I am under no false pretenses: likely anything I pen will not make me a penny in my lifetime, nor do I expect the good fortune of Thoreau or Nietzsche to be discovered after I perish. I like writing—the discipline, the creativity, the attentiveness it instills, the beauty that can result, a creation that I can call mine. So, I will write and it will go where it wills.
I feel most at home in the Pacific Northwest—allured by its mountains, forests, rivers, glaciers, dare I say wildness. This is the place where I wish to live and to write about. I have lived in Missoula, the Olympic Coast of Washington, and many years in various part of Alaska. Some members of my family long ago resided in Idaho, Washington, and Alaska. One of my favorite novelists, David James Duncan, is an Oregonian. My attachment is thus more than cursory.
I am used to solitude. I have given so much of my life to it. Nor I am a stranger to wild, lonely places, having spent many months on long-distance wilderness hikes and river trips. I am no hermit. I appreciate the achievements of culture, and the practicalities that come with towns and cities. I do not wish to be alone forever, but now is the best time for such an endeavor: I am not locked into a year-round job, have no children, no pets. Despite all the time I have spent in the world’s wild corners, I have yet to stay in such a place and write.
Philosophically, I am most informed by Thoreau and David Abram, and those philosophers that draw our attention to the natural world, that strive to awaken our senses in earnest—not just for the spiritual clarity it affords the individual, but for the vital necessity of societal transformation found therein. One of the values of spending time apart from society is to gain insights that only distance allows. Away from power struggles, marketing, and unrelenting information, the world gains clarity, the city becomes just another point in the landscape. You remember what the world is.
I am presently working on a PhD in Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder. It is an interdisciplinary program that includes science, values, and policy. My work is closer to the philosophy, values, and humanities end of the spectrum, though I am also very knowledgeable about the practicalities of public lands, and well-versed in the achievements of various sciences. Though my higher aspirations are to write creative non-fiction, I also have a great deal to work on in the academic vein. I should confess that I dabble in poetry as well.