This piece created quite a stir yesterday on #Nature Twitter. My own initial reaction was interest and slightly squirmy amusement. I've seen a number of responses by writers who have been name-checked and are quite hurt. And I can see why, actually... https://www.the-fence.com/issues/issue-6/state-of-nature

2/ There's clearly a personal animus at play here - particularly against Rob Macfarlane. I do actually like Rob, both as a writer and a person. He's been generous to emerging writers and environmental activists. His prose does sometimes verge a bit towards the...

3/ violet end of the spectrum, but I think that's common in nature writing, and perhaps creative non-fiction more generally. I mean, if you're engaging deeply with a landscape, its flora and fauna and its history, it's hard not to circle round back to yourself in some way.

4/ There are certainly VERY few poets who would come out of this type of analysis without the taint of literary narcissism. Memoir is now such an important element of many books, fiction and non-fiction. And authors are also encouraged to market on social media in a way that

5/ centres themselves and their stories... All those films of the boxes of debut books being opened, the threads about its slow and torturous evolution as an idea and the rocky road to publication. A tough review is going to feel like an attack on you, not just the book.

6/ Is there a problem with having a very noticeable 'I' in a book, whose experiences and personal impressions are inextricable from the observations about nature? I don't think so - although there certainly is a problem if that 'I' only ever comes from one particular social

7/ stratum
Bracing criticism certainly won't do much to redress that injustice, although it does generate interesting discussion.
Perhaps we need to direct more attention to the publishing industry and its priorities, rather than individual writers, however influential?