Announcing the first Green Writers Press travel program for writers and readers, with a focus on incorporating a sense of place into your writing.
Located between 61 and 66 degrees north latitude on the southern edge of the Arctic Ocean, Iceland is a country of dramatic extremes, where geysers and steaming lava flows coexist with powerful waterfalls and vast calving glaciers. Due to its location at the edge of the Artic Circle much of the country remains under ice; Iceland contains the third-largest ice cap in the world after Antarctica and Greenland.
But the glaciers are melting quickly. As in other arctic and sub-arctic regions around the world, global climate change is an accelerating and highly visible phenomenon.
At the same time, as an island straddling the rift valley where the American and European tectonic plates diverge, Iceland is one of the most volcanically active countries on the planet. Seventy percent of its energy is renewable, mostly from geothermal sources, considered one of the most promising non-carbon-based sources of future world energy.
The program begins in vibrant Reykjavik, Europe’s northernmost capital. Learn about Iceland’s rich literary tradition and its fascinating Viking history; visit Reykjavik’s famous Blue Lagoon geothermal pool; and get essential background on climate change, Iceland’s volcanoes and glaciers, and the country’s exciting alternative energy programs, Participate in a field-based journaling exercise designed to begin incorporating the dramatic north Atlantic landscape into your writing.
From Reykjavik we travel south and east to Höfn, remote gateway to mighty Vatnajökull Glacier, the world’s third-largest ice cap. In Höfn, we meet up with GWP author M Jackson, who is spending the year in Iceland on a U.S. Fulbright-National Science Foundation Arctic Research Fellowship
We’ll spend our days writing, reading, and venturing out to expl
ore Iceland’s rugged and beautiful wilderness. Hike to stunning waterfalls that tumble over basalt cliffs to roaring glacial rivers and uninhabited fjords.
With M as our local expeditionary guide, we’ll take part in extraordinary adventures such as glacier trekking, cruising on glacial lagoons, and soaking away the chill at the end of the day in one of the country’s natural hot springs.
M will take us off the beaten path and share incredible local places few travelers to Iceland ever see.
The program will feature evening talks by GWP writers Tim Weed on the power of descriptive writing in narrative prose and M Jackson on evocative “science” writing and creating place in memoir, along with publisher Dede Cummings on using poetry as a tool for activism. Daily field-based writing and reading exercises will allow participants to enhance their skills as writers and their appreciation as rea
ders for the power and impact of descriptive writing in literary prose and poetry in the context of the changing global climate.
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Note: This program includes moderately strenuous activity and participants must be in good physical condition. Accommodations are in simple, well-located Icelandic hostels. The tentative dates of the program are August 6– 12, 2016. The approximate cost of the program will be $3000-$3500 including RT airfare from Boston to Reykjavik.
Below are some of M Jackson’s amazing photos of where we will be going!
Contact Dede Cummings for more information and to reserve a spot . . . dede.cummings1@gmail.com or 802-380-1121
More photos—the latest!—from M Jackson:
Dede Cummings 