The Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing

… oh, joy!

Two years ago my lover and I had our first solo dinner together in eight weeks. Our son didn’t wake up until I was finished. We had celebration pie, my favourite dinner, to celebrate my first book being longlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing. It was a wild time— I was still in the thick of postpartum fog, the world was still unsure of how to navigate the pandemic, and my book had been lunched into a world with no party, no events in person— it all felt somewhat surreal to be honest. But it felt so beautiful to be able to sit at our small yellow table, with flowers I’d grown in our garden, and drink nosecco as the sun set after the news was shared online.

Over the top of my nightie I wore my favourite silk kimono and honestly it felt like no matter what happened I would always have that memory. How that the ordinary can be made brighter, lighter, through such small and easily maintained ritual. It mattered such a lot to me to carve the time , even with such an attached newborn in our care, to eat together with these small touches. To celebrate such a beautiful thing.

Tonight we have no idea what we will eat— this time round we spent the day in Galway— my favourite city—with our wild two year old, and we have just made it home after running into Derry friends down for the Film festival. I will gather flowers from the garden, no matter why we are eating and if I had managed to mend it in time, I’d have worn my kimono. Marking these things matter, in ways I am only beginning to really understand this last while.

Not that prizes are a big deal, to be fair; lots of incredible books never make any lists at all and I’ve learned a lot this time round with Cacophony Of Bone about shifting my view of what success looks like…

My second book is a quiet, tender wee one. It’s not been on any list before now. It had no print coverage at all in the UK. It was reviewed by one place only in the UK; online by the ever supportive and amazing Caught By The River and I am so grateful that this was the place that gave my words their care and love. It is one of the most beautiful reviews I have ever read. For a book like this to make it into this list is nothing short of a miracle and I am humbled and so joyful.

This book is a quiet telling of a life changed; a time like no other. Booksellers love this book and have championed it in ways that make my heart sing. Bloggers have been nothing short of gorgeous; I am so humbled and heart glad to see the ways in which readers respond to it. The events I have been lucky enough to do so far have been amongst the best of my career and the experience of bringing this book into the world has even further deepened my sense of what it might look like to move differently through the world when it comes to my work and how it is offered; the shapes it might begin to take.

It takes so many folk to make a book and I am so grateful to all who walked the path by my side.

What a thing to have it recognised in this way. What joy.

Prizes are lovely but so many important books never appear on any list.

What is gorgeous for me is the opportunity this affords for dialogue. This book came into a changed world—born from those shifting, harrowing times we survived; times we are still living through.

The term Nature writing has always been a wee bit tricky for me. What is nature?

Nature is not separate from us.

We are nature.

The various crises we are experiencing—some of us wildly disproportionately —are more finely woven together than we might like to accept. In Cacophony Of Bone I explored how we might try to navigate this collective grief; find new ways to show love to this world and all who dwell within; our kith & our ki & our kin.

We are being asked, over & over, what it means to be human. Children are drowning on our shores because of laws that remove their human right to seek safety; we are losing species at a rate that would make you weep if you didn’t check your own privilege & realise you have work to do; we are losing homes — those made of brick & those made from roots alike— all to line the pockets of a few white men. We are being cajoled into hatred in the place of humanity through fear; we are living in the wake of late stage capitalism: one we never willingly signed up for and I am not able to lie down to it any longer.

May I take this chance to encourage you to read up on the Nature Restoration Law, Irish Wildlife Trust have great info.

Have a look at Home Tree Charity for ways to educate yourself for what lies ahead here in Ireland. Find your equivalent NGO if you live elsewhere.

I was honoured to meet the exceptional artist Vukasin Nedeljkovic this year and see his harrowing, important work honoured. Check it out, as well as MASI Movement of Asylum Seekers Ireland to learn more about what we are putting people through and how to make the changes needed to move towards a more supportive, welcoming, humane Ireland.

The Simon Community and Depaul are doing incredible, important work here in Ireland. Everyone deserves a safe place to sleep at night, a place to call home.

We are mammal; we are human; we are nature.

I’m ready to start remembering what that means, find new ways to love.

I’m away to Charleston Festival of the Garden where I plan on having the time of my life. I’ll be taking with Marchelle Farrell and Lulah Ellender — two of my favourite writers, and listening to others I adore — including Alice Vincent who is also rightly on the list! I can’t wait.

I’ll wear the new mint green jumpsuit I bought yesterday in the charity shop, I’ll mingle with beautiful humans and I’ll take all the selfies with all the flowers because isn’t that what one does when it is summer and we are alive and oh my heart what a beautiful beautiful world this is.

How full of all things bright, all thingsdancing, and all things beautiful. X