In the Beginning: The Eden of the Fens

 WRITING INSPIRED BY LANDSCAPE

Woodcut: Felix Packer


Welcome to the first post on our blog, featuring texts written by a group of people intimately connected to the Fens landscape. The group first came together over a period of five weeks to write about their experiences and interconnections with the natural world. The landscape was inspiration for fiction, poetry, memoir, life-writing and short textual experiments.  

The environment became increasingly important to people during lockdown and those escapes from our homes into the landscape were often an emotional sanctuary from our fears, loss, and the pressures of a swiftly changing world. Living as we are through an escalating history there has always been the solace of the seasons, the comfort of the countryside. 

Have we learned to look and listen again? Maybe we are connecting with the landscape, birdsong, trees in the way we did when we were children, full of wonder, curiosity and gratitude.

The group was led by me, writer and creative facilitator Belona Greenwood. We have had a series of weekly prompts, which the group bravely took on. I am proud of the writing on offer here. It is vibrant, exciting, knowledgeable, profound, moving and compelling. We hope you enjoy reading our texts.

Thank you to Marketplace Creative Conversations for supporting this project. 


This project is in collaboration with MarketPlace as part of the Creative Conversations In Isolation commissions project. MarketPlace is part of the Creative People and Places programme, initiated and funded by Arts Council England through the National Lottery.





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