Amy Clarkson is a creative ecology practitioner, exploring human relationship with wildness through writing, research and facilitation.
DFA/ PhD Creative Writing candidate at University of Glasgow, funded by AHRC. Researching and exploring themes of ‘Rewilding the Self: a creative-critical practice of ecological enmeshment and cultural emergence.’
Guide/ co-facilitator for contemporary wilderness rites-of-passage, Earth Initiation. Collaborative practitioner for programmes of ecological restoration and nature immersion across Scotland and Spain.
Coordinator of rewilding land-based project, Airigh Drishaig, Applecross, NW Highlands.
Creative Ecology: many years ago, I woke from a dream with these words planted firmly in my mind. Without understanding exactly what they meant, I knew right away that this was to be my practice. Following the invitation of these words has woven a path through various educational, community and spiritual explorations of place-based relating. From founding a community woodland project, The Fasgadh; living and working as part of a spiritual retreat centre, Anam Cara; apprenticing as a guide to hold wilderness rites-of-passage; to exploring how wildness can be written, each engagement along the path deepens my ecological awareness and creative practice.
Current practice of creative writing and place-based research enquires into the relationship between self and (re)wild place. Exploring the role that individual human presence, community experiences and creative practice can play within the act of rewilding, my research situates the practice as a reciprocal process of mutual restoration between people and land.
Open to collaboration/ commission with writers/ artists, rewilders and facilitators, or to places/ projects/ publications that explore our ecological connections and capacity for (re)wilding ourselves.
