Undergrads interested in writing about climate change and the environment will have the chance to collaborate with Penn’s creative nonfiction journal XFic come spring semester 2026.
Students enrolled in Creative Nonfiction Writing: XFic (ENGL 3353) will spend a semester on a feature-length piece of deeply investigated longform to be published as each student’s “final.” For this special single-topic issue, in partnership with Environmental Innovations Initiative (EII), XFic will invite students to tailor it to their own area of interest, and then collaboratively attack the chosen topic from multiple angles. Each story will partner an undergraduate writer with a faculty member whose research will be highlighted in the issue. EII and XFic will work in close collaboration to promote both student and faculty work.
An example of how students might collectively address a topic could be as mundane as the American Lawn. Because turf makes up the largest irrigated crop in the United States—at 40 million acres its area is three times that of corn—it is a major contributor to the biodiversity crisis. Conventional reporting cannot capture the full dimension of Poa pratensis, better known as Kentucky bluegrass, but students reporting from a variety of disciplines could create a more three-dimensional “global view.” One might explore the chemistry of pesticides. Another could investigate water consumption, or alternative uses of property. But students might also profile faculty whose research is cultural: what is the historical connection between fancy lawns and feudal wealth, and how did it become a symbol of the American Dream? When did pushing around a fossil-fuel spouting guillotine on wheels become conflated with masculine identity? Another essay might explore how the status of such a modest weed was popularized through film, advertisements, and fashion.
Because every potential topic related to the environment and climate change has tendrils in every niche of our cultural ecosystem, this three-dimensional (and sustained) approach will allow us to gain critical depth on anything from plastic to wildfires. Because XFic is student-run, they will ultimately decide the topic. But development of ideas will be a collaborative effort between interested undergraduates and faculty, as facilitated by EII.
For the Creative Writing Program, this is a bit of a journalistic experiment! There’s a good bit of skepticism about conventional media’s ability to move the needle on important issues. But, given sufficient time to explore all the facets, can a group of dedicated undergrads achieve such a global view? And can achieving that larger view lead to measurable impact?