AustLit

'Occasionally I go bush with a friend, and as we walk she will—with little apparent effort—take in the lie of the land. When we break to catch our breath, or to check our ankles for leeches, or to fix an undone shoelace, she will have counted how many creeks we’ve crossed, will have noticed how the steep cliffs and undulating valleys correspond to the contours of our map. With a swivel of her head along the ridgeline, she’ll be able to establish roughly where it is we now are. As though thumbing back through the pages of a just-read chapter, she might trace with her finger the passages we’ve covered: ‘that must be that section of blue gums’ or ‘that’s back where that landslide was’ or ‘here’s when we made a turn for the east’. I, meanwhile, might have noticed globules of blood-red resin weeping from the base of a tree, or have been startled by a black cockatoo winging itself across my path and scoured the ground afterwards for its feathers … but I will mostly be oblivious. The overall shape of the land we’re passing through will remain a blur to me.' (Introduction)

'Nature writing has never been more popular. In recent years it has become an international publishing phenomenon, with titles such as Helen Macdonald's 'H is for Hawk' (Jonathan Cape, 2014), Robert Macfarlane's 'Landmarks' (Hamish Hamilton, 2015), Amy Liptrot's 'The Outrun' (Canongate, 2016) and Sy Montgomery's 'How to be a Good Creature' (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018) scoring significant worldwide success. Australia, too, has its own rich history of nature writing. For more than a century, nature writing was 'the' primary literature for writing the country; a vital part of the ongoing process, for settler-Australians, of coming to feel at home in what were initially unfamiliar environments, and of creating a sense of national identity around them. Yet, today, nature writing is not widely known or understood here, and it's apparent that more Australians have read 'H is for Hawk' (18,000 copies sold so far according to Bookscan) than any of our own contemporary works.' (Publication abstract)