Cooper Street Workshop: Writing Nature as Solace & Jubilation

About the Workshop

Nature is a perennial theme in writing: we anthropomorphize; we romanticize; we give it a persona. In this workshop we will explore writings that treat nature in a myriad of ways. Drawing on poets who use a kaleidoscope of techniques to engage with the natural world, turning to it for both solace and jubilation, we will begin drafts of our own work. Weather permitting, we will walk the campus to discover nature in the urban setting to use as inspiration or we will provide foraged items to the class as a material prompt. Participants will come away with one or more beginnings of drafts.

This is an in-person workshop held on the Rutgers-Camden campus. Advance registration is required.

COST: $60 or $30 General, $10 Camden city residents & Rutgers-Camden students

About the Instructor

Naila Francis (she/her) is a Philadelphia-based poet and writer. Her debut poetry collection, the album “Wonder Unsung,” a collaboration with guitarist and producer Paulito Muse, was released in 2024 to multiple streaming platforms. Her poetry has appeared in publications including Wild Greens, The Healing Verse Poetry Line, ONE ART, Braided Way, Tendrils, and Reckoning: creative writing on environmental justice. Naila is a recipient of the Joyful Abundance Emerging Artist Commissioning Award from Mendelssohn Chorus and a Leeway Foundation Art + Change Grant. Naila is also a certified grief coach and death midwife as well as a founding member of Salt Trails, an interdisciplinary collective normalizing grief through community rituals.

Amy Beth Sisson is a 2025 winner of the Lambda Literary J. Michael Samuel Prize for Emerging Writers Over 50, the Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia’s Joyful Abundance: Emerging Artist Commissioning Award, and a finalist for the Cleaver Magazine Visual Poetics Contest. She is Fence Magazine’s Steaming (online) visual poetry editor and serves on the board of Blue Stoop, where she helps with educational programming. She is the author of the visual poetry chapbook Mouthbrooder (fifth wheel press, forthcoming 2027).