It’s remarkable how many famous authors have also been keen walkers. What is the link between walking and creativity? Linda Cracknell talks to John D Burns about her love of walking and how it brings her closer to the landscape and influences her writing.
Linda Cracknell is a writer of narrative non-fiction on the natural world, as well as of fiction and radio scripts. Her first story collection was nominated for a Saltire Award (now Scotland’s National Book Awards) and the Robin Jenkins Award for environmental writing, and her essay collection Doubling Back: Ten Paths Trodden in Memory, about journeys she took on foot in Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, and Kenya, was serialised for BBC Radio as a Book of the Week.
All of Linda’s writing is inspired first and foremost by place, and she teaches creative writing, especially nature and place writing. Linda talks about some of the techniques she uses to paint pictures of landscape in her writing.
Linda Cracknell is a writer of place and nature who believes in being alert, observing, and writing from the particulars of each experience. Engaging bodily with her writing, she is someone for whom getting mud on her boots, sleeping high up in the hills, or being slapped by salt water can all be part of her process. She follows Susan Sontag‘s advice to “Love words, agonize over sentences and pay attention to the world.
