A beautiful afternoon in a garden, eagles trilling in the sky above. The title of this post could be something someone wrote in the class I designed and hosted August 3, 2024: Travel Write from Wherever You Are. Wait a second, someone did write that—me! Riffing off my love of birds and their presence in whatever space I occupy, I participated in my own class for the writing assignment I had given the seven participants that afternoon: write about where we are right now, in this garden together, from your distinct lens.

As you may know from these emails, my lens is as a birder in the world, finding connection from nature to bring people together. That Saturday afternoon, I organized a group of us in discussion of chosen travel essays, listening, writing, and reading aloud from our writing in place during the session. I’m trying out writing class instruction as another way to make connection in my community, and it appears to be working!

My writer friend Rumi Tsuchihashi, generously summarized the experience in her own newsletter a few days later:

Last weekend, my lovely friend Bryony Angell taught a class in Skagit Valley titled Travel Write from Wherever You Are. The class was immersive, accessible to all levels of writers, and masterful at teasing out the unique lens you bring to travel writing. (Highly recommend!)

We met in a grassy, flowery corner of a working farm. The owners, a husband-and-wife team, named it after Jello molds, and I saw their repurposed art on display everywhere. The hours we spent at the farm were as dreamy as a summer afternoon outdoors gets.

This class inaugurated my initiative for small group, in-person creative instruction in beautiful places, and so far-so-good! Students reported the experience was as advertised, except for the parts that were better than expected! Thank you to the seven women who trusted me to instruct them in travel writing in place and helped me kick off my first class!

Come see for yourself the next time I offer a class: contact me to be notified or visit my events calendar to see what’s coming up (the latter link shows speaking events in the months to come—join me there, too!).

And enjoy some behind the scenes of the class set-up and experience.