The next installment of "Green Is the New Blue," a series of free creativtiy workshops in nature, will be held Satuday, January 15, at the Barfield Park Wilderness Station from 10:00 AM to noon.

Entitled Bearings & Affinities in Nature: Al Fresco Writing, the workshop will be led by writer Fred Arroyo with naturalist Margie Hunter. Inspired by author Merrill Gilfillan’s sense of al fresco writing, Arroyo and Hunter will lead participants in composing poems and paragraphs inspired by time and observations outdoors. 

Participants should dress for a walk outdoors, although some of the workshop time will be indoors at the Wilderness Center.

Preregistration is required 

Although the workshop is free, preregistration is required. No prior creative writing experience is required. Learn more and register at 

mtsu.edu/write/public_workshops.php

About the workshop leaders

Fred Arroyo is the author of Sown in Earth: Essays of Memory and Belonging, Western Avenue and Other Fictions, and the novel The Region of Lost Names. The Murfreesboro author's writing has appeared in the anthologies Camino del Sol: Fifteen Years of Latina and Latino Writing and The Colors of Nature: Essays on Culture, Identity and the Natural World. Fred’s writing is also included in the Library of Congress series “Spotlight on U.S. Hispanic Writers.”

Margie Hunter is a naturalist, writer and author of Gardening with the Native Plants of Tennessee: The Spirit of Place. She gives presentations on native plants and natural history, is a member of Tennessee Native Plant Society and Tennessee Invasive Plant Council, and volunteers with the Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Margie is a founding board member of the Tennessee Naturalist Program, an adult education natural history course, and serves as an instructor for several classes. In 2013-2014, she studied poetry writing through The Writer’s Loft (now MTSU Write).

More about Green Is the New Blue

“Green Is the New Blue,” a project bringing together community teaching artists, MTSU professors, and naturalists, guides participants in creatively connecting with each other, themselves, and the natural world. Led by artist and naturalist duos, workshops are offered in movement and dance, writing, and visual art. The project is coordinated by Amie Whittemore, director of MTSU Write. 

The series began in November and will continue through May 2022. The February event will feature dance at Oaklands Park.

The two-hour workshops are free and open to the public, thanks to funding and support from the Tennessee Arts Commission, the Greater Nashville Regional Council, and the MTSU departments of Art, English, and Dance, the Office of the University Provost, the College of Liberal Arts, and the Center for Environmental Education. 

Learn more in this MTSU News release and on this MTSU Write events page.