Lines in the Sand

Students looking for a chance to tune down the stress and tune up the creativity will have that chance, this August 3-8, at the Central Michigan University Biological Station on Beaver Island, when ENG 513AZ: “Creative Writing in Nature” will be offered for the third year in a row.

English Department faculty member Robert Fanning calls the course “Wonder and Wander,” and he designed it with the beautiful locale in mind. In the course, writers learn to slow down, to listen, to observe closely, to feel their surroundings, whether they’re sitting on the beach, or hiking the trails.

“Knowing the course is on Beaver Island, I thought it was even more important to combine both relaxation and inspiration,” he said. “It is crucial for writers to feel grounded and connected to nature.”

During the week-long course, participants begin the day with meditation on the beach, followed by a “wondering” session—reading and discussing poems by Robert Frost, Louise Glück, Wendell Berry, Mary Oliver, Joy Harjo, Patricia Smith and many others, modern and contemporary. They are then given prompts for short writing exercises. After lunch, students don backpacks and hiking shoes to “wander,” heading out to Little Sand Bay, Iron Ore Bay, the Beaver Head Lighthouse, Mt. Pisgah, and other Beaver Island natural and historical sites, where they also fill their notebook pages.

Davison senior and journalism major Draya Raby says the course changed her creative perspective.

“I have never felt more creatively inspired in my life…or felt so calm and at peace than I did on Beaver Island,” she said. “From the course I learned that poetry is all around and it taught me how to get inspired by things, rather than (only) how to write poetry, which I loved.”

In addition to the creative writing course, students also can register for ART 397AZ, “Nature Inspired Art,” taught by Professor Fanning’s wife, artist Denise Whitebread Fanning. Her course is also designed to gather inspiration from the island, literally, as students learn to make ink from natural materials, as well as make place-based natural art installations, among other projects. Unfortunately, both courses run concurrently, so students need to choose whether they’ll be writing—or painting, drawing and sculpting.

Last summer, senior Louis Keebler, a psychology major from Livonia, returned to Beaver Island to take the art course, following their experience the year before in the Creative Writing course.

“I will always be thankful that I made the decision to go out of my comfort zone to take Professor Fanning's "Creative Writing in Nature" poetry class,” said Keebler. “I immediately fell in love with the natural environment of the island, so I decided I had to return the following year to take Denise Fanning's "Nature Inspired Art" class. The Biological Station and the island are perfect venues for refining approaches to creative ventures.”

Visit the CMU Biostation website to register or for further information on a wide array of summer courses available this summer on Beaver Island.