ABOUT US
Since 2017, the Southwest Field Studies in Writing program (SFSW) has been amplifying voices and expanding dialogue on environmental and social justice issues related to southern Arizona. Each summer, the program sends three to four University of Arizona Creative Writing MFA students selected through a competitive application process to research and write on social justice and environmental challenges unique to the borderlands during a two-week residency in Patagonia, AZ. These students also lead storytelling workshops and engage in hands-on environmental restoration projects with 10-15 high school students from rural border communities in collaboration with the Borderlands Restoration Network’s Borderlands Earth Care Youth Program.
By coupling creative writing and community engagement, the SFSW program aims to raise public awareness of the environmental and social justice challenges that face our region through the published writing of UA graduate students and to develop the capacity of southern Arizona youth to craft and share their own stories about their ecosystems and communities.
During and after their summer residencies, SFSW participants engage in mentored research and writing under the guidance of professor Dr. Susan Briante, author most recently of Defacing the Monument, and award-winning writer Francisco Cantú, author of The Line Becomes a River. The writing produced by participants in the SFSW program expands the potential for a regional or national audience to experience a sense of attachment and imaginative involvement with a natural ecosystem that disrupts the notion of nature as separate and unrelated to the human ecosystem. Because literary works produce empathy and understanding, we believe that writing can also inspire readers to aid in social justice, environmental conservation, and restoration projects through volunteerism, financial support, and political advocacy that will serve to promote the resilience of Arizona’s natural and human communities.
We can be reached at uafieldstudies@gmail.com