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“Harlem in the Woods” CCNY Writers’ Nature Retreat Debrief—
October 6-8th, 2023

Overview

For the fourth semester, students from the City College of New York participated in an artistic residency at the Stephen & Betsy Corman Harriman Outdoor Center. As in previous semesters, the retreat was designed to simultaneously afford our students an escape from the city, and to deepen their appreciation for and connection to the natural environment while honing their craft as writers. Participants were reminded of nature’s capacity for connection, inspiration, and so much more.  This opportunity was once more provided at no cost to students, thanks to the generous support of the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC), the CCNY Outdoor Initiative and the Office of the President through the College’s “Democratizing the Outdoors” Initiative. 

Twenty-one students participated in this semester’s retreat. All were MFA candidates pursuing degrees in writing poetry, fiction, or nonfiction. We were joined for the second time by Professor Emily Raboteau, whose experience and expertise with writing nonfiction—in particular, nonfiction with a climatological focus—informed students’ writing throughout the weekend. In tandem with Professor Michelle Valladares, Emily guided students through a number of prompts that asked students not only to reflect on their natural surroundings, but to reflect on their own places within this environment. The writing students produced within these workshops was extraordinary, and demonstrates once again the importance of retreats like Harlem in the Woods. A number of these student-written pieces have been included in the appendix to this recap.

I feel obligated to mention two other people without whom this retreat would not have been the same. On Friday evening, during dinner, a pair of naturalists introduced themselves to our group. Their names were John and Lisa. Both members of the couple volunteered for AMC, but their relationships to the natural world differed. John, whose day job was as a science teacher, viewed our surroundings through an empirical, data-driven lens. By contrast, Lisa, who worked in finance, tended not to analyze but to feel the world around her. The next day, then, when John and Lisa led us on a hike around Harriman’s lake, they directed our attention toward different things. John set about naming species of mushrooms and trees and birds, laying out for us their relationships with each other, sketching a map of the ecosystem of which they formed a large part. Lisa, meanwhile, encouraged us to sink into our surroundings—to listen to the rain on the oaks’ remaining leaves, to smell the fallen leaves as they broke down and became earth.

And so we grew to know—or to better know—our natural world in both ways. Nature was data, but it was also made of the same atoms as us. It was a part of us, and we of it. And knowing nature in both these ways—through our minds, through our hearts—we learned to love it better. This has always been Professor Valladares’s maxim, and in four semesters our time up at Harriman has yet to fail to bear out this truth.

We are pleased to report that a post-retreat survey showed, once again, that students were unanimous in their enthusiasm for the retreat. When asked to describe their experience, their responses were exclusively encouraging. One student wrote, “I marveled at the writing of students I’ve never taken a class with. I met three tiny red newts. I tested my bad knees on new soil (they passed!) and went canoeing for the first time in a decade. I’ve returned with more ideas to bring to the students I teach, a clearer sense of what my thesis will be, and so much gratitude. Thank you for making the impossible possible. ” Another student expressed similar sentiments: “Of course, we would do it again and highly recommend the Harlem in the Woods Writing Retreat to you. And what you can expect are new friends, stronger bonds with existing friends, clean facilities, kind personnel, and nature’s healing essence.” A wider selection of responses has also been included as an appendix to this recap.

In short, the responses we received from our participants affirm the value of the Harlem in the Woods retreat, and only deepen our commitment to continuing and improving this opportunity in the future.

-Submitted by Colin Lubner and Michelle Valladares

Student Testimonials