Fall 2026 Orion Online Environmental Poetry Workshop with Elizabeth Bradfield
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Orion magazine hosts regular Online Environmental Writers’ Workshops in poetry and nonfiction. This unique opportunity lets you improve your writing skills and build community from home. Connect with us for six to eight sessions with an experienced instructor and writer. Learn more about environmental writing, and renew, illuminate, and deepen your relationship with nature and place.
Conducted over Zoom (or similar platform) and limited to twelve participants, the workshops will feature a combination of generative exercises, craft talks, readings, special guest appearances, and workshopping of student manuscripts. Please read individual course descriptions for more specifics as each course is different. While individual workshops vary, students can likely expect to spend a few hours a week reading, writing, and commenting on work in and outside of class
We also offer an additional hour-long private group Zoom Q&A session with Orion's editor-in-chief Tajja Isen. This will occur outside your normal class meeting time at a time and date TBD, for no additional charge. It will be a time to peek behind the curtain and ask any general questions you might have about pitching, writing, publishing, and Orion.
The Course: Socializing the Nature Poem
Who you are influences what you notice, how you forge understanding, the connections you seek. In this workshop we’ll embrace how our “social selves”–our race, gender, hobbies, families, cultures, and friendships–can enrich our poems centering the more-than-human world. In each class session, we’ll divide our time between doing a deep read of one or two example poems, reading and discussing them with enough time to let nuance and detail surface, and sharing new work generated from class prompts. Consider this a “soft workshop,” in that we will offer responses and suggestions as a way to reflect what is working and provide insights for possible futures.
Duration: This online course meets across six consecutive Saturdays from 10-1 ET (7-10am PT), beginning on October 3rd and concluding on November 7th.
Application window: August 1-15
The Instructor: Poet/naturalist Elizabeth Bradfield is author of five collections of poetry, most recently SOFAR: Poems, which was a finalist for the Audre Lorde Prize in Lesbian Poetry. She is also author of several collaborative projects, including Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry, winner of a Pacific Northwest Book Award among other honors. A former Stegner Fellow, winner of the Audre Lorde Prize in Lesbian Poetry, and Editor-in-chief of Broadsided, Liz works as a naturalist and directs the Poetry Concentration for the low-residency MFA at Western Colorado University. When asked about her multiple interests, she says, “I am an aspiring generalist.” Forever queer, forever curious, you can learn more at www.ebradfield.com
Tuition
This Zoom course is available for $600. Payment within five days of acceptance will guarantee your spot. Cancelations up until a week before the start of the course will result in a full refund. After that, refunds will be conditional on our ability to fill your spot before the course begins.
How to Apply
These workshops may be competitive. Please send a brief cover letter and up to 1500 words of your best prose, or up to five pages of poems. Sample writing can be published or unpublished, and might, but probably will not be used in class. Applicants will be notified whether they have been admitted within a week or so of the application deadline.
Questions? Contact workshops@orionmagazine.org or check out our Help Center or FAQs.