Writing toward nature: crafting a more-than-human novel & 'Leafskin'

Schmidt, M (2025) Writing toward nature: crafting a more-than-human novel & 'Leafskin'. PhD thesis, Bath Spa University. doi: 10.17870/bathspa.00016996

Text 16996.pdf Restricted to Repository staff only until 9 May 2026.

Abstract

This thesis includes the novel, Leafskin, and the contextual research “Writing Toward Nature: Crafting a More-than-Human Novel.” The project, as a whole, is my attempt, as the contextual describes, to write toward nature, to reach out to the more-than-human and create space for it in the craft of the novel as well as its subject. Leafskin is a story of characters trying to connect with the more-than-human in our time of ecological crisis and I wanted the craft decisions I made while writing the manuscript to support and deepen this aspect of the story. To this end, as I wrote, I considered the structure, form, and genre of the novel. Chapter One, informed by recent work in econarratology, traces my attempts to find a narrative structure for Leafskin inspired by forms in nature. Chapter Two explores techniques I employed to allow the more-than-human to shape the language and form of my novel through the influence of ecopoetics. Chapter Three engages with the place of folklore in my novel, exploring the ways that inhabiting the spaces between the realistic and the magical can open up liminal spaces that challenge human/nature binaries and divisions. The novel itself is the story of a queer poet engaging with her connections to nature while living through the realities of climate change and creating her family alongside her art. Taken together, this project explores nature-inspired craft techniques creatively while also describing the experience of employing them and contextualizing them within the sphere of contemporary ecological writing.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Note:	The document attached to this record is the contextualising research section of the thesis only. It does not include the creative component, which is the manuscript for the novel, "Leafskin", published commercially by Stillhouse Press in 2025.
Keywords:	PhD by Practice, creative writing, fiction, ecological writing, environmental literature, ecopoetics, ecological crisis, econarratology, folklore, climate change
Divisions:	School of Writing, Publishing and the Humanities
Related URLs:	https://www.stillhousepress.org/stillhou...
Date Deposited:	09 May 2025 13:17
Last Modified:	09 May 2025 13:21
URI / Page ID:	https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/16996

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