Outsiders

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Outsiders: Troopers Hill by Michael Malay

Troopers Hill by Michael Malay

BBC Radio 4 - Outsiders, Troopers Hill by Michael Malay

Writers on how lockdown has changed their relationship with the nature on their doorstep.

A year on since the first UK lockdown, writers reflect on their changing relationship with the outside world. Ep 5 - Michael Malay on the crickets of Troopers Hill, Bristol

Five writers on how a year of lockdowns has changed their relationship with the nature on their doorstep. This is nature writing for the ordinary, overlooked and not-so-great outdoors close to home.

What happens to nature writing when our access to the great outdoors becomes restricted? We asked writers to reflect on their personal experience of the past year and tell us about their small journeys into the outside world. Those patches of ground, water and sky close at hand which somehow seem more precious now that our access to the outdoors has become so strictly rationed. In episode five, writer Michael Malay takes us to the nature reserve in his East Bristol neighborhood. 

Michael Malay is a lecturer in English literature and the environmental humanities at the University of Bristol. He has published articles on poetry, critical theory and animal studies, as well as creative non-fiction on eels, migration and climate change. He is currently working on a book called Late Light, which is about the lives of unloved or disregarded animals on the brink of extinction. 

Produced by Mair Bosworth and Eliza Lomas for BBC Audio in Bristol. Read by the author, with original music by Nina Perry.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Factual

A nature writing series for a time where none of us can venture far from home.

A year on since the first UK lockdown, Radio 4 invites five writers to tell us about the ways in which the pandemic has changed their relationship with the outside world.

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