LA GRANDE — This month, Eastern Oregon University’s MFA program is hosting a New Nature Writing Con with a special concentration in landscape, ecology and community.

According to a press release, the conference seeks to “highlight books and authors that are pushing the boundaries of eco-writing, broadly construed, in the Northwest and beyond, and to help reclaim or reinvent ‘nature writing’ by turning from traditional homestead or a-walk-in-the-woods narratives to stories and explorations that are more inclusive, more experimental and interdisciplinary.”

The annual conference will consist of two days — July 19-20 — of readings, conversations and workshops. Additional workshops and community events are also planned. Register at eou.edu/mfa/newnature-writingcon.

Pre-con classes

These classes, held at EOU, are available for individual registration at $20 each.

• July 15, 3:30 p.m.: “Writing COVID (or any collective societal experience) in Short Fiction” with Claire Boyles.
• July 16, 3:30 p.m.: “Writing Interiority: Getting the minds of your characters on the page” with Molly Reid.
• July 17, 3:30 p.m.: “In the Archive with Beer & Skittles: The Pleasure and Joy of Research” with Melissa Mattheson.
• July 17, 3:30 p.m.: “Landscapes of Family and Kinship” with Megan Kruse.

Weekend workshops

The following classes will be offered July 19-20, and registration is $85.

• July 19, 1:15 p.m., Zabel Hall: “Writing the Climate Crisis” with Christopher Kondrich and “No Ideas But in Things: Writing the Physical World” with Jaclyn Moyer.
• July 19, 2:20 p.m., Zabel Hall: “Practical Tips for Writing Multiple Points of View” with Ash Davidson and “Layers of Landscape: Harnessing the Power of Place” with Joe Wilkins.
• July 20, 8 a.m.: “Spark Birds and Migratory Legends” with Laura Da’.
• July 20, 10:10 a.m., Zabel Hall: “Writing About Sound, Writing With Sound” with David George Haskell and “Chimeric Writing, Lichen Architectures: Writing about that which resists language” with Callum Angus.
• July 20, 2:30 p.m., Zabel Hall: “Centering Nature: Poetry in the Persona of the Non-Human” with Paul Hlava Ceballos and “Writing About the Animal — Both Self and Other” with Erica Berry.

Other events

Several events are free and open to the public.

• July 17, 7 p.m., HQ, 112 Depot St.: MFA faculty member Joe Wilkins launches his second novel, “The Entire Sky.” His first novel, “Fall Back Down When I Die,” was the winner of a High Plains Book Award and finalist for the First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction. Wilkins will be in conversation with MFA faculty member Eliot Treichel, whose book “A Series of Small Maneuvers” won a Reader’s Choice Oregon Book Award. After the talk, music by Margo Cilker begins at 8 p.m.
• July 19, 3:30 p.m., Zabel Hall at EOU: Ash Davidson, author of the national bestseller “Damnation Spring,” will talk about her book with MFA faculty member Megan Kruse.
• July 19, 6-8 p.m., Art Center East, 1006 Penn Ave.: David George Haskell will read from his science-filled book “The Songs of Trees: Stories from Nature’s Great Connectors” to open “Arboreality: A Broadside Exhibit.”
• July 20, 9 a.m., Zabel Hall: Jaclyn Moyer, author of “On Gold Hill: A Personal History of Wheat, Farming and Family from Punjab to California,” will talk with MFA faculty member Claire Boyles.
• July 20,
• 11:20 a.m., Zabel Hall: “Writing Place in a Virtual Age” — panel discussion featuring EOU MFA faculty and visiting writers.

July 20,

• 1:20 p.m., Zabel Hall: Reading and Q&A featuring Paul Hlava Ceballos, author of “banana [],” and Allison Cobb, author of “Green-wood” and “Plastic: An Autobiography.”

July 20,

• 7 p.m., HQ: Erica Berry, author of “Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear” will talk with MFA faculty member Molly Reid.

July 20, 8 p.m., HQ: Callum Angus, author of “A Natural History of Transition,” will talk with Melissa Matthewson. Angus’ story collection was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in Transgender Fiction, the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, and an Oregon Book Award/Ken Kesey Award in Fiction.