Emerging Form

“What is the most important thing about writing?” That’s the question botanist and writer Susan J. Tweit asked Barry Lopez. His answer helped inform her newest book, Earthbound: A Year of Mindful Connection in Nature. We talk with Susan about how she weaves photography, science, haiku and spiritual practice through each chapter, and how these different genres help us connect more wholly with the natural world. We also talk about making up language for our own passions to better understand them, the reciprocal relationship between reader and writer, the effects of negative self-talk, and how simple conversations with other creatives fuel and ignite our own creative endeavors.
A plant ecologist by training, Susan J. Tweit traded fieldwork for writing when she realized she loved telling the stories in the data. Her fourteen books don’t pigeonhole well at all, ranging from memoirs (Bless the Birds: Living with Love in a Time of Dying and Walking Nature Home: A Life’s Journey) to nature (Seasons on the Pacific Coast and Seasons in the Desert, Chronicle Books) and travel (Colorado Scenic Byways). They are united by the idea of terraphilia and “re-storying” the human-nature bond. Her writing has appeared in magazines and newspapers from Audubon and Popular Mechanics to the Los Angeles Times and High Country News, and in Best American Nature Writing along with two dozen other anthologies. She lives in an orchard-growing valley on Colorado’s rural West Slope, where big sagebrush perfumes the air and high mesas define the horizon. Her newest book is Earthbound: A Year of Mindful Connection in Nature.


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Sometimes a poet can hide inside their work, choosing metaphor over facts. In this episode of Emerging Form, we talk with poet and essayist Wendy Videlock about how writing essays invited a more autobiographical approach–and how that stretched her as a writer and as a person. We talk about Desert Kin: Speaking Animal in the Southwest, Essays and Poems, as well as how using a mythological approach helped her to write about her family members. We also talk about writing from the body and the mind, how her creative practice has deepened as she ages, how to write a good invocation poem, and much more.
Wendy Videlock lives on the edge of a mesa in western Colorado. Her poems and essays appear in Dark Horse, Best American Poetry, Poetry Magazine, The New York Times, Rattle, O Magazine, Hudson Review and elsewhere. Wendy is the two-time recipient of the Keats Soul Making Award, and the winner of the Cantor Poetry Prize, The Fischer Prize, the PbtS Sonnet Prize and the Rattle Ekphrastic Prize. Wendy is a syndicated columnist for newspapers across the Four Corner States. Her books are available wherever books are sold. Her book, Desert Kin: Speaking Animal in the Southwest, Essays and Poems just came out.


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“The problem with heroes, of course, is that no one is perfect, says Heather Hansman, author of Fierce Country. “Mine aren’t. They bumbled and lied and burned bridges and screwed up. They were often egotistical and angry, driven by an obsessive kind of love.” In this episode of Emerging Form, we talk with Heather about how her new book explores new kinds of heroes–specifically women in the outdoors–and why these voices have not been heard much in the past and why it’s important that we do hear about more women. In addition we talk about how hard it is to be honest about our heroes–to present them with all their flaws and struggles as well as their triumphs. We talk about researching real people after they’ve died, the importance of walking away from a project, and obsession.
Heather Hansman is an award-winning freelance writer and the celebrated author of Fierce Country: The Untold Story of Three Women Who Ignited America’s Love for the Wild, Powder Days: Ski Bums, Ski Towns and the Future of Chasing Snow and Downriver: Into the Future of Water in the West. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Outside, among others. She lives in Durango, Colorado, right by the river.



This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

“I feel like these two questions are at the heart of all creative process: What is here? What else is here?” In this episode, Rosemerry and Christie talk about Rosemerry’s new book, The Wonderment, and the four questions that are at the heart of it. How do questions drive a creative practice? We also talk about how to create art out of what is familiar and common, how paradox and metaphor work to create a larger lens for re-seeing the world, how sometimes we swing between loving and hating what we’ve written, and how to write poems about injustice and what is happening in the world without making them overtly polemic or divisively political.
Poet and teacher Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer is co-host of this podcast. She lives with her family on the banks of the wild San Miguel River in southwest Colorado. Her daily audio series, The Poetic Path, is on the Ritual app. Her poems have appeared on Prairie Home Companion, PBS News Hour, O Magazine, Washington Post’s Book Club, and Carnegie Hall stage. Her recent collections: The Unfolding and The Wonderment. As poet laureate for Evermore, she helps others explore grief and love through poetry. Since 2006, she’s written a daily poem, sharing them on A Hundred Falling Veils.
Rosemerry and Christie will be giving the closing keynote at the Grand Mesa Writer’s Symposium this weekend! Come join them as they talk about how to nurture a creative practice in the midst of everyday chaos.
The Wonderment
Rosemerry’s Website



This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe