Author and journalist Lucy Jones talks to us about her latest book 'Matrescence' and her award-winning book 'Losing Eden' which is one of our featured Wild Reads titles for this year's programme.
Lucy Jones is an author and journalist. Her first book, Foxes Unearthed: A Story of Love & Loathing in Modern Britain won the Society of Authors' Roger Deakin Award and her third title, Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild, was named as a Book of the Year for both The Times and The Telegraph as well as being longlisted for the Wainwright Prize. Lucy's latest book, Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood was published by Allen Lane in June 2023.
Losing Eden is also one of six titles selected for the 2024 Wild Reads collection. Wild Reads is a project to encourage readers and wildlife-lovers to explore and celebrate the connection between the natural world and the written word, brought to you by Suffolk Libraries and our partners, Suffolk Wildlife Trust. Wild Reads features a variety of creative writing and arts workshops, each crafted to explore and celebrate the natural environment.
We are also delighted that Lucy Jones will also be joining us for an online author event for Wild Reads on October 23. The event is free to attend but booking is required
Both my parents were teachers and we had a lot of books in the house. Narnia, The Story of Ferdinand, Charlotte’s Web, Carbonel, The Princess & The Goblin, the Moomin books were major for me. I have strong memories of my father reading me The Borrowers and sneaking out of bed at night to the bathroom to continue reading it myself.
I found it both chilling and hopeful. Carson laid out so clearly, diligently and also compassionately what harm the pesticide DDT was doing to the land and different species. Her brave account changed the world. But the power of industry and the economic system over planetary health and wellbeing is still deeply unbalanced. We haven’t learned enough (yet).
I wanted to know how and why contact and connection with the natural world could affect the human mind or mental and emotional health. In my own recovery from addiction and a period of depression and anxiety, walking on Walthamstow Marshes had felt deeply therapeutic. I wanted to look under the hood, as it were, and get into the nuts and bolts of the relationship. How does looking at fractal shapes affect our brains? How do phytoncides impact our nervous systems? How do ancient oaks trigger awe and why does that feel ‘good’? And so on.
As someone raised in neoliberal capitalism, doing anything that’s not "productive" or that feels like rest or chilling can be anathema to me. But the strength of the evidence for how good time in restorative natural environments is for our minds and bodies means I give myself the permission to go to the woods as much as possible. I've come to see it as important as taking medication or having a good diet or getting good sleep.
The forest school and outdoor education movement is crucial. I’d add challenging the dominance of cars so that children can roam safely and seriously tackling unequal access to wild spaces across class and race lines.
Get a hand lens. It will open up new kingdoms and worlds of wonder in moss, lichen and slime moulds. Also research suggests that walking through a park rather than down a busy road on your way somewhere has measurable positive impacts on buffering stress. Even ‘background nature’ has important health benefits for us.
I’m currently writing about a plant we all know and love! You’ll have to guess ;)
I don’t know if she’d call herself a nature writer but I love Amy Liptrot’s writing - The Outrun and The Instant - and I’m excited about what she’s writing next. I think it’s about seaweed.
Writing advice? Focus on the process, not the result, or how it might be received. It’s all about the process.
We have three young children and we’re currently raising a bodacious red and yellow hairy (Sycamore moth) caterpillar called Rodney.
