2026 Fall Orion Online Environmental Visual Art and Photography Workshop with Shelley Kirkwood
Ends on
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: Forage and Response
In this eight-week course, we will integrate journaling, foraging, and observation in nature with experimental visual art practice. Drawing on mindfulness traditions such as forest bathing and vipassana meditation, participants will engage in group and independent responses to prompts for creative explorations in nature. Weekly sessions will include introductions to new artists, guided reflection and dialogue, and group brainstorming sessions. Students will be encouraged to experiment with a broad range of media and will be introduced to the basics of gelli printing, cyanotype and other approaches to printing with plant pigments. Students will develop personal projects that build on these investigations, culminating in an online exhibition of artworks and artist statements that reflect their creative journey. No prior art experience is required.
Duration: This online course meets across six consecutive Sundays from 5-8pm ET (2-5 pm PT), beginning on October 4th and concluding on November 8th.
Application window: August 1-15
The Instructor: Shelley Kirkwood is an American photographer and writer whose work explores memory, place, and themes of transience depicted through the landscape. Deeply rooted in observation and attuned to the natural world, her practice blends fine art photography, literary sensibility, and curatorial insight to create images and essays that invite reflection on the intersection of the ephemeral and the enduring. Kirkwood earned a BA in photography from Hampshire College and an MFA from the University of Arizona. She has exhibited her work extensively both in the US and internationally. Recent accolades include a Gold Medal and Best in Show at the Royal Horticultural Society’s International Portfolio Exhibition at London’s Saatchi Gallery, an Honorable Mention in the Julia Margaret Cameron Awards, and several features in award-winning art and environmental publications, including Orion.
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
Please send a brief cover letter and up to 1000 words of your best prose, poetry, and/or visual art or photography. If you are a beginner and don't have something to share yet, that's okay, just tell us about yourself in the cover letter. 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.