Arboreal: a collection of new woodland writing

There was public outcry in 2010 when the Conservative Government announced plans to sell much of the Public Forest, consisting of some 635,000-acres and including royal forests and ancient woods. Such a widespread, emotional response lead to a Government U-turn. It also tells us just how important woodlands still are too us, even if they are no longer part of our ever-busy twenty-first century lives. No other landscape matches the complexity and variety of life in a woodland, both above and below ground. They are given names on maps, shape our language, and feed our imagination.

Common Ground and Little Toller plan to revive public interest in woodlands with this anthology, combining essays from a variety of contributors – novelists, botanists, artists, architects, foresters – to explore why these landscapes still matter and mean so much.

Authors:
Ali Smith, Simon Armitage, Simon Leatherdale, Alan Garner, Alec Finlay, David Nash, Fiona Stafford, Sara Maitland, George Peterken, Helen Dunmore, Jen Hadfield, Philip Marsden, Nina Lyon, Paul Kingsnorth, Paul Evans, Richard Skelton, Tobias Hill, Germaine Greer, Fiona Reynolds, Jay Griffiths, Richard Mabey, Peter Marren, Philip Hoare, Deborah Wilenski, Jim Crumley, Rob Penn, Neil Sinden, Piers Taylor, Madeleine Bunting, Kathleen Jamie, William Boyd, Gabriel Hemmery, Tim Dee, Evie Wyld, Will Ashon, Sean Lysaght, Robin Walter