Workshop Leader
Diane Ackerman
Diane Ackerman’s most recent book, "The Human Age: The World Shaped By Us", won the 2015 PEN New England Henry David Thoreau Prize for literary excellence in nature writing. "One Hundred Names for Love" was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Books for a Better Life Award. "The Zookeeper’s Wife" was a New York Times Bestseller for 54 weeks and was made into a feature film starring Jessica Chastain and Daniel Bruhl. Other nonfiction titles include "Dawn Light: Dancing with Cranes and Other Ways to Start the Day"; "An Alchemy of Mind", a poetics of the brain based on the latest neuroscience; "Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden"; "Deep Play", which considers play, creativity, and our need for transcendence; "A Slender Thread", about her work as a crisis line counselor; "The Rarest of the Rare"; and "The Moon by Whale Light", in which she explores the plight and fascination of endangered animals; "A Natural History of Love"; "On Extended Wings", her memoir of flying. Inspired by "A Natural History of the Senses", she also hosted a five-hour PBS television series of the same name. Diane’s poetry has been published in leading literary journals. Her poetry books are "Origami Bridges: Poems of Psychoanalysis" and "Fire; I Praise My Destroyer"; "Jaguar of Sweet Laughter: New and Selected Poems"; "Lady Faustus"; "Reverse Thunder: A Dramatic Poem"; "Wife of Light"; and "The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoral". Her essays about nature and human nature have appeared in The New York Times, Smithsonian, Parade, The New Yorker, National Geographic, and many other journals. She is an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times and also writes nature books for children. As if this was not enough, Diane also has the rare distinction of having a molecule named after her—the dianeackerone.
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Diane Ackerman: For Love of the World: A Virtual Weekend
“When we breathe, we pass the world through our bodies.”
-Diane Ackerman
Writer, naturalist, explorer, philosopher, and bridge between humans and wild things, Diane Ackerman has written more than two dozen acclaimed books of nonfiction and poetry, including “The Human Age”, “The Zookeeper’s Wife”, and “A Natural History of the Senses”. Her clear and evocative prose is the next best thing to being there. As she follows her “nomadic curiosity,” getting herself into all kinds of troubles and delights, her keen observations encourage us to savor every moment, to wake up to nature’s everyday miracles as well as the kind that come, with luck, once in a lifetime. Diane has a pilot’s license and a crocodile sex hormone has been named after her. To read her is to love her; her faithful readership spans the globe. We are thrilled and delighted to offer you the opportunity to join this incandescent writer and seeker in a weekend webinar series.
Over the course of the weekend, in three 90 minute online sessions, Diane will talk about her life as a professional writer, her process, rituals, goals, trials and joys. Then, in the shadow of the current pandemic, she will go deeper into the craft itself to look at memoir writing in particular, asking how one can write movingly and convincingly about personal versus historical trauma, one’s own suffering or that of a loved one, against a backdrop of the struggles and triumphs inherent in being human. And in the last session, she will answer your questions about books, the creative life, and the human saga. And writers will be invited to share a specific craft problem they’re wrestling with in their own work.