A 8-Week online course is designed to help writers deal with the complex issues at the intersection of equity, environment, food.
Vermont Business Magazine Sterling College is accepting applications for an online course in food and environmental writing. The program will be offered with tuition-free fellowships and funding from Penguin Random House and other donors. It is the first offering of the Colleges Writing the Wrongs curriculum, which examines how storytelling can help or hinder efforts towards sustainability and justice.
Joe Fassler, deputy editor of The Counter, will lead this immersive, workshop-driven course. It will focus on the impact of politics and power on personal experience. Students will be able to create compelling narratives about the intersection of equity, environment, food through engaging discussion and in-class feedback. Here’s how to apply and more information: https://www.ce.sterlingcollege.edu/food-and-environmental-writing
Fassler’s award-winning writing focuses on the often overlooked, sometimes surprising, ways that equity issues and environmental challenges interrelate. He is uniquely qualified to teach lifelong learners how to:
- craft compelling stories about vast, interconnected systems;
- Balance human-level narratives and complex science and policy issues
- Examine popular narratives that mislead or obscure;
- You can handle difficult topics with sensitivity, nuance, and grace.
The course starts on April 4th, and will run for 8 weeks. There will be live, interactive webinars every week. Sterling is able offer a Diverse voices Fellowship, which covers all costs of course instruction and materials, thanks to the generosity of multiple funders including the Sterling family and Penguin Random House
This fellowship is available to selected individuals who Identify as Black, Indigenous or a Person of Color (BIPOC), or those with deep, enduring personal connections to systematically marginalized-yet-resilient communities, or who are military veterans. The application review opens on March 7th.
Participants will be exposed to essential reading in key topics and case studies of coverage that was lacking. They will also gain a deeper understanding of the subject matter and learn how to navigate each genre’s unique challenges. These lessons will be put into action in the workshop component. Students will have the opportunity to shepherd a specific piece toward publication through instructor feedback and peer criticism.
Students will also discuss professional considerations as well as pragmatic concerns with a range of guest speakers. They include Dr. Cynthia Greenlee who is a James Beard Award-winning writer; Matt Klise who is editor for Penguin Books; Jenny Dorsey, a chef, writer, and director of Studio ATAO which promotes systems-based changes in media.
Fassler is keen to lead a mixed group of writers and practitioners. This course was designed to help both new writers and those with experience in the food system or environmental justice work. This course will also be challenging for experienced food/environmental writers who want to improve their craft in other genres. Students will learn how to write about the past in a way that is receptive to the past, how to structure complex stories, and how to anchor stories about complex systems using dignified character sketches.
For more information on the workshop and continuing ed offerings by Sterling, visit https://www.ce.sterlingcollege.edu/
ABOUT THE STERLING COLLEG:
Sterling College was established in Craftsbury Common, Vermont in 1958. The college promotes ecological thinking through affordable experiential learning. It prepares skilled, knowledgeable, and responsible leaders for the ecological crises caused in part by the unsustainable growth and consumption that threatens the planet’s future. Sterling College is the home of the School of the New American Farmstead as well as the Wendell Berry Farming Program and EcoGather. It is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education and is one of nine colleges or universities that have been designated a Work College by the U.S. Department of Education. Sterling acknowledges that the land where it gathers is part of the traditional and unceded territory held by the Abenaki on its Vermont campus and the Shawnee Osage and Eastern band of Cherokee on its Kentucky campus. For more information, please visit: www.sterlingcollege.edu
Joe Fassler is the deputy editor of The Counter. The Counter is an award-winning non-profit newsroom that covers politics, culture, and business of American food. His writings on food and environment have appeared in publications such as The Guardian, TheAtlantic.com and Longreads. He has been a finalist twice for the James Beard Media Award. He is also a recipient of a Ted Scripps Fellowship at the University of Colorado, Boulder and an 11th Hour Food and Farming Fellowship at the University of California. Fassler’s first book, Light the Dark, Writers on Creativity and Inspiration and the Artistic Process, was adapted from his By Heart interview series at The Atlantic. It has been translated into six languages. Penguin Books will publish his novel, The Sky Was Ours.
Craftsbury Common. March 2, 2022, -Sterling College