Abstract

Writing collection comprising:

Lockwood, Alex (2019) H is for Hypocrite: reading 'New Nature Writing' through the lens of vegan theory. In: Through a Vegan Studies Lens: Textual Ethics and Lived Activism (Cultural Ecologies of Food). University of Nevada Press, Nevada, pp. 205-222. ISBN 9781948908108

Lockwood, Alex (2017) The Collaborative Craft of Creatural Writing. In: Beyond the Human-Animal Divide Creaturely Lives in Literature and Culture. Palsgrave McMillan, London. ISBN 9781137603098

Lockwood, Alex (2016) The Pig in Thin Air: An Identification. {Bio}graphies . Lantern Books, New York, New York. ISBN 9781590565353

The submission comprises two book chapters, and a book published by Lantern Books (New York). This research explores various impacts of how creative writing has shaped narratives around global animal protection. In a period requiring urgent attention to human interaction with animals and their habitats, made more critical by the COVID-19 pandemic, the research traces how writers and editors engage in representing human-animal relations and the natural world. Conducting original interviews and engaging in novel textual analysis as well as the production of new creative non-fiction, this research responds to the industrialisation of our relationships with the nonhuman and offers novel approaches for how writers can craft more responsible and intersectional narratives.

Produced through a process of embodied investigation, The Pig in Thin Air is a work of creative non-fiction exploring participation in contemporary animal advocacy. This includes a record of Lockwood’s involvement in slaughterhouse vigils, a restaurant ‘die-in’, as well as a consulting to one America’s oldest and largest farm animal advocacy organisation, Farm Sanctuary. His insights into the role of embodied encounters are woven into explorations of new craft techniques for how the writing of these encounters can shape our ability to respond to and absorb different narratives about those relationships. The Pig in Thin Air has become a primary point of reference for animal protection organisations thinking strategically about their uses of creativity in storytelling.

The publication ‘H is for Hypocrite’ is a critique of new nature writing picked up in the national media (e.g. BBC Radio 4’s Front Row). This chapter offers the insight that most nature writing remains mired in anthropocentric practices of domination, even as it demands people to ‘love’ the natural world, and so reinforces those destructive modes of cultural behaviour. The second chapter ‘The Collaborative Craft of Creatural Writing’ provides original research in interviews with writers and editors engaging in innovative editing practices in ecological writing. The research demonstrates that many writers are drawing upon indigenous cultures and spiritual practices to restore relationships in and through their creative outputs with nonhuman life.

Together, these pieces of work have established Lockwood’s reputation as a narrative expert, leading to roles shaping the communications strategies of welfare and education outreach organisations; for example, as commissioned author on the Vegan Society’s new Food Systems Report.