PAUL EVANS

Paul Evans combines natural history and psycho-spiritual interests in Nature, place, landscape and journey in his writing, which was grounded by his working experience as a gardener. He gave readings with the Anglo Welsh Poetry Society in the late seventies and collaborated with musicians, forming a number of bands which performed widely around Britain. When horticulture took him to New York in the mid 80s he began performing with the NY Writers and Artists Underground. Back in Britain in the 90s, and working for nature conservation organisations, he developed a narrative, documentary style from his nature writing, environmental journalism and philosophy. Since then, as a freelance writer and broadcaster, this form has morphed into natural history documentary, radio poems and drama-documentaries. Paul has been a contributor of Country Diaries for The Guardian since 1992, and thinks of his three diaries a month as a continuous work of nature writing that so far amounts to about 400,000 words. His columns also appear in the Guardian Weekly, published in 173 countries, and he has written feature articles for The Guardian and for a variety of environmental magazines. Paul holds a PhD in Philosophy from Lancaster University and is a Fellow of the English Association. He became an academic in 2010 and is currently a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing in the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University and one of the founding members of the Centre for Place Writing. His most recent book is How to See Nature (Batsford, 2018). Paul’s submission for PLACE 2020 explores the Welsh coast.