Writing about nature is an emotional endeavor. It stems from experience and connects your reader to a place or sensation. Whether you are looking for examples of nature writing, inspiration, or background information, the Library's databases are where you want to look.
Begin with our Credo Reference databases for encyclopedias, dictionaries, and atlases to define your terms and introduce your topic.
Our HELM catalog gives you access to books written by and about nature writers.
Our environmental databases allow you to dig deeper to better understand our environment.
Our literature databases provide insight into the writings and authors.
You can access these resources below. You will need to log in with your MyNorthShore username and password to access these off-campus.
Environmental Databases
Literature databases
"Nature is frequently represented through personal observation, emotion, or adventure. The account claims immediacy by being told in the present or recent past, as diary, quasi-diary, letters - or in the eternal present, as televison. Nature writing is didactic: it aims to touch, teach, preach. Even when couched as orthodox-biography or autobiography, the goal may be not so much to make a friend of the reader, as to make a convert."
Jolly, Alison. “Nature, the Environment, and Life Writing.” Encyclopedia of Life Writing: Autobiographical and Biographical Forms, edited by Margaretta Jolly, 1st ed., Routledge, 2001. Credo Reference, https://search.credoreference.com/articles/Qm9va0FydGljbGU6OTU2MzIw?aid=97330.
Through a green lens : fifty years of writing for nature by 
Braiding Sweetgrass by 
Silent Spring by 