Emily Iris Degn Interview: Nature Writing
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Emily is an environmental advocate, published eco-poet and essayist, nature writer, and artist. Her work is grounded in a strong sense of place, as she explores themes of wildness, ecofeminism, and interconnection. Her writings have been nominated for multiple awards — most recently, the Best of Net.
She has focused her career on forging a bond between people and nature, tackling the assumption that humans are separate from the natural world. Aside from her creative work, Emily also teaches local nature classes to democratize environmental knowledge.
Her website is: www.emilyirisdegn.com
Brenna Valle and Ariadne Marrs speak with Emily below.
In what ways is your writing influenced by your interest in the environment?
I have always felt a really deep connection to nature and literature. My parents met working in Yellowstone, and my grandparents met working in the Grand Canyon, so my childhood was filled with hiking trips and visits to National Parks. My parents would pull us out of school in the spring when it wasn't raining, and we'd go hiking or to the beach instead.
Nature was always a huge priority in my home, and so were books. I was that kid who stayed up reading all night under the blankets with a flashlight, and was writing little stories for my four younger siblings ever since I was about five years old. My grandpa wrote a book, my parents would read to us every night, and when I was a teenager we had a family book club where my mom would read to us.
Storytelling has always been a huge part of my life, and I have been lucky enough to live in nature-dominated locations and explore the wilderness from a young age. The two things, nature and stories, have been the most defining and important things to me, so they naturally went hand in hand. As I've grown up, I have paired that with my concern for the growing climate crisis and my environmental education. Now, my writing is either essentially love letters to nature or lamentations over climate change.
Can you tell me about your writing process?
When it comes to my writing process, I tend to go into a meditative state—especially when I write poetry. I get distracted easily, so it helps me to be somewhere that I feel most calm in and unbound creatively. Growing up, that meant writing under trees or while looking at the ocean.
Now, living in the Blue Ridge Mountains, I like to write in the forest outside my home or just somewhere that gives me contact with the Earth. I like to take off my shoes and go earthing for a few minutes, and really meditate on my feelings and how the dirt feels. It clears my head, and allows me to just focus on nature. Then I write.
I generally just feel an urge to write, and then do this practice so I'm guided toward specific images or ideas. Sometimes, however, I will read an interesting fact about the planet or a beautiful phrase will come to my mind, and then I'll make a note of it in one of my notebooks, returning to it when I can write it outside or at least with the windows open.
When I'm writing eco-travel pieces, however, I keep a notebook as I explore, noting experiences and thoughts, and take a lot of photos. I'm a visual person, so visual cues help my written work a lot—especially with narrative pieces like that.
As an editor, what do you look for in a poem?
As an editor, I look for pieces that are either really sensory or rooted in feeling. I love poems that are emotional. If a poem makes me cry, that's a good thing because it made me feel. I think that's the point of the arts—to make you feel something. I celebrate any poem that nods to that. Sensory poems are really powerful ways to achieve that as well, and they feel visual to me. I love rich imagery and quirky or whimsical points of view. They fill me with wonder, which is a really important feeling.
What are some first steps a person can take to become more connected to their environment?
There are so many ways people can connect further to their environment. If you live in a rural area, close to wild natural spaces, the simple act of spending time in it is powerful. You'll start to notice things like the migratory habits of local birds, the colors of the leaves during certain times of the year, and the direction the water around you flows. These little bits make up a whole, and it's such a good way to get to know a place.
With people, you need to spend time with them in order to get to know them. It's the same thing with nature. I think it's also a good practice to keep a notebook with you, and pay attention to what speaks to you the loudest. Do you connect more to the water systems or the trees? What noises do you notice most? What animal makes you most excited when you see them? This can help you understand who you are in the natural space, but it also offers great writing inspiration.
Don't be afraid to explore and listen to your gut. If a forest is calling to you, go. If swimming in a river doesn't feel safe or isn't your thing, don't do it. Connection to nature looks different for everyone, but the common thread is the acknowledgment that you belong there, since humans are animals too.
If you live in an urban area, you can do the exact same things. Have your windows open. Pay attention to the colors of the sunrise. Acknowledge the sidewalk weeds with love, try to identify the trees planted in the city, and notice the birds. If there is a park or urban garden near you, go there and learn about native plants, but industrial nature is just as valid.
Connect to the nature you have, while also acknowledging the fact that the humans around you are nature. Helping out in a soup kitchen helps the environment just as much as picking up litter does. Whatever you love about your ecosystem, urban or rural, connect with that. That is the key to growing a deeper love and understanding of nature, and I'm convinced it's what drives climate action the most. If everyone felt connected to nature, they wouldn't want to harm it.
How would you encourage other writers to embrace the environment they are from or currently live in?
Again, humans are just as much nature as other animals, so the things they build may not always be healthy for the surrounding environment, but they should be included in ecosystem classifications. Learn all you can about your area, but feel free to explore what you love the most. It's okay to learn about the basics through workshops or a simple Google search, but you may decide to exclusively read books about oceans because you live near one and you get the most excited about it.
In other words, it's okay to not be able to name the species of tree outside your home, while also being able to identify every species of mushroom in the woods near you. A breadth of knowledge is important, but I think listening to your curiosity is even more important. This can really result in great nature writing of all kinds.
Find out more about the Roanoke Review Eco-Poetry Contest here!
