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This generative creative nonfiction workshop for adult writers of all levels will teach you how to use your innate senses to become aware of the natural world around you and describe it through writing.
As animals, humans belong to the natural world, but modern life can make it hard to remember. Our bodies, made of cells and fluid, are already connected, whether we are conscious of it and can be used as tools to reconnect to the earth. This generative creative nonfiction workshop for adult writers of all levels will teach you how to use your innate senses to become aware of the natural world around you and describe it through writing. We will look at examples of nature writing, especially short prose and poetry, and use concise prompts and dynamic exercises to generate our own work.
Pens and notebooks will be provided for participants. You are also welcome to bring your own materials and/or a writing device like a laptop.
Facilitator Amy Gastelum has been a public health nurse, a teacher, staff reporter for a nationally syndicated radio show, and a business owner. She’s also mom to two kids. Gastelum earned her Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing from Indiana University in 2008 and began her nursing career on the antenatal unit at the county hospital in Indianapolis. After, she continued in mother/baby care, making home visits to first-time moms in New York City and Indianapolis. In 2012, she graduated from the eight-week intensive Transom Story Workshop for radio storytelling on Cape Cod and completed her MFA in Creative Nonfiction at Butler University in 2025. As a freelancer, she has reported for PRI’s The World, NPR News, Undark, Side Effects Public Media, Guernica Magazine, and has taught at Indiana University and Butler University. Gastelum now owns an ecologically-minded garden design and consultation business, Velma Jean Flowers, named after her grandmothers. She is writing a book about pursuing self-realization through gardening.
About the Butler MFA Community Workshop Series
The Butler MFA Community Workshop series is a free writing program facilitated by Butler University alumni of the MFA in Creative Writing. These one-off workshops, hosted at partner sites including bookstores, nonprofits, and public libraries in the Greater Indianapolis area, connect adults at all stages of their writing journeys with workshop experiences shaped by graduate-level study. Thanks to a generous gift from the Efroymson Family Fund, alumni from the program's concentrations in Poetry, Creative Nonfiction, and Fiction will guide local writers into creative practice. Each workshop is designed to help participants generate new work, learn new ways of thinking about the craft of writing, and more confidently continue their own writing practices. Learn more about Butler University's Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing by visiting their website.
A new 16,000-square-foot branch for Warren Township opened in 1974, positioned adjacent to Lakeside Elementary School and northeast of Warren Central High School. After a fire in 1979, the branch closed for seven months. A $1.1 million renovation completed in 2016 was the first major renovation since the Warren Branch originally opened.