From Woods to Water: How Nature Holds us in our Darkest Times

About the event

Nature has an incredible ability to comfort and heal. It can help us connect to something bigger, and allows us to see the world and our lives in new ways. Host Simon Moreton is the author of WHERE?, a hybrid memoir of prose and visual material, exploring his father’s death, his childhood in rural Shropshire, nature, and belonging.

Simon will be joined by guests Katherine May and Lawrence Illsley to consider how immersing ourselves in the natural world can offer peace and enable us to confront, and move through, our grief.

Katherine May is a wild swimmer and author of two bestselling books. The Electricity of Every Living Thing is her memoir about her walk in the wilds as she came to terms with an Asperger’s diagnosis, while Wintering explores the incredible power of rest and retreat when faced with difficult times.

Lawrence Illsey is a Cornish writer. His 2020 book, A Brief History of Trees, won the Live Canon Collection competition. After his mother’s death, Lawrence found solace in walking through woods and forests, feeling more connected to her and her long-held desire to return to this world as a tree. His book’s narrative poems interweave a story of grief with a history of trees in the UK.