Date/Time
Date(s) - Mon 25th Aug - Sat 30th Aug, 2025
All Day
Location
Moniack Mhor, Kiltarlity, Inverness-shire , IV4 7HT
The Wild into Words
Nature writing involves filtering your feelings for the life around you through observation and knowledge. The aim of this course therefore is to explore not just nature and wildlife, but the way we use language and the ethics of writing about a world we have so diminished. Central to the week is understanding how direct observation and internalising experience can be processed into high-quality poetry or prose. For this reason, the course includes as much time as possible amongst the wildlife-rich places that lie close to Moniack Mhor, including possible encounters with otters, badgers and pine martens. Make sure you come with your boots, binoculars, hand-lenses, notebooks – and waterproofs! Most of all, you will need deep curiosity to discuss, learn and negotiate the role of the writer in a more-than-human world.
The course will feature a trip to Glen Strathfarrar (Britain oldest willow tree, golden eagle, ancient Caledonian forest) and an evening at a hide dedicated to nocturnal wildlife (hopefully pine marten and badger) as well as an evening of conversation with Aigas Field Centre rangers, including a reading by Sir John Lister-Kaye.
Mark and Karen ask for submissions to be up to 1000 words and for them to be submitted 24 hours before your tutorial slot.
Tutors
Mark Cocker is a multi-award-winning author of creative non-fiction who writes and broadcasts on wildlife in a variety of media. His book One Midsummer’s Day: Swifts and the Story of Life on Earth, is a portrait of a favourite bird and a celebration of the interconnectedness of all life. He has contributed to the Guardian country diary for 37 years. Twelve other books include biography, history, literary criticism and memoir. A Claxton Diary: Further Field Notes from a Small Planet (2019) won the East Anglian Book of the Year Award and Crow Country was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, and won the New Angle Prize.
Karen Lloyd is a Senior Researcher and writer in residence with Lancaster University’s Future Places Centre, author of Abundance: Nature in Recovery (Bloomsbury, 2021) (Wainwright Prize longlisted) The Gathering Tide: A Journey Around the Edgelands of Morecambe Bay (Saraband, 2015) (a book of the year in the Observer) editor of North Country: an Anthology of Landscape and Nature (Saraband 2023) and co-editor and contributor to The Wolf in Culture, Nature, History (Boydell, 2023). She has been published in LitHub, Dark Mountain, Ecologist, BBC Wildlife and elsewhere, and in Storm Cloud: Picturing the Origins of our Climate Crisis (Yale University Press and The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, 2024).
Guest Event
Aigas Field Centre is ideally located for exploring the Highlands of Scotland and the plethora of wildlife that lives here, both on the Aigas estate and in the surrounding landscape. Aigas rangers and guests spend their days in search of dolphins, eagles (both golden and white tailed), red and black throated divers, a plethora of waders and seabirds, red and roe deer and many more coveted native and migratory species. The Aigas hides are frequently visited by pine martens and badgers and the loch is home to a family of beavers with visiting otters and ospreys.
John Lister-Kaye is one of Britain’s best known conservationists, naturalists and nature writers, and Director of Aigas Field Centre. He has written 10 books on wildlife and most recently an autobiography of his 1950s childhood in England, The Dun Cow Rib, which was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize in 2018. His book Gods of the Morning (2015) won the Richard Jefferies Prize for Nature Writing.
Fees
The full fee for this course is £725. This includes your accommodation in a single room with shared bathroom, all meals, hot drinks and snacks from Monday afternoon until Saturday morning, and your tuition. For more information about the format and practicalities of our courses, tutored courses, and retreats, please visit our About the Residential Courses & Retreats page..
A limited number of en-suite rooms are available, which can be booked in advance for a £50 surcharge. We will also reserve an en-suite room for anyone who may need it due to a medical condition. This will be offered out as an upgrade nearer the course start date if it is not needed.
A limited number of Twin Room places are available at a discounted price of £675 per person. When booking a Twin Room place, please tell us in the comments box which gender you are and which gender(s) you are comfortable sharing a room with. This information will remain confidential.
A small single room with a skylight is available at a discounted price of £700. Please note this room does not have an ordinary window, only a small skylight.
A deposit is required to secure your place, which is non-refundable after a 14-day cooling-off period. The balance payment of £575 is due six weeks before the course begins. Refunds are not always available – please read our Terms & Conditions for full details about our cancellation policy. If you would like to pay the full amount in advance, please call our booking office on 01463 592 828 or email info@moniackmhor.org.uk.
Bursaries are always available, and you also have the option to pay in instalments. If you have any problems paying online, or wish to discuss paying in instalments or applying for financial help, or would simply like assistance, please contact us by emailing info@moniackmhor.org.uk or phoning us on 01463 592828.
Access
Please let us know in your booking form if you have any access requirements, for example a ground floor bedroom and / or access to a step-free accessible shower room. We also reserve one en-suite bedroom per course for anyone who may need this due to a medical condition. For more information about access to our courses, please visit our Access page.
Terms and Conditions
Please read our Terms & Conditions before booking.