AustLit

Opening paragraph: 'However the craft of nature writing might be conceived, there is a sense in which the nature writer is necessarily called to be a follower. Such writing, that is to say, necessarily follows nature: temporally, in that the natural world to which it refers is presumed to pre-exist the written text; normatively, in that this pre-existing natural world is implicitly valued more highly than the text which celebrates it; and mimetically, in that the text is expected to re-present this pre-existing and highly regarded natural world in some guise. Let me stress at the outset, that I am all for the kind of writing (which comes in a wide variety of literary and non-literary genres) that calls upon its readers to revalue more-than-human beings, places and histories. In defence of such writing, along with the more-than-human beings, places and histories to which it bids us turn our concern, I am nonetheless going to argue here that the relation between nature and writing, especially in the literary mode, might best be thought otherwise.'