This anthology brings together 17 pieces from the inaugural Isle of Wight Biosphere Festival 2025 Writing Competition. Writers were invited to explore the rich meeting ground between landscape, wildlife and human experience.

Blending non-fiction, storytelling and reflection, Where Words & Wildlife Meet offers multiple ways of seeing the natural world on the Island: attentive, curious, sometimes joyful, sometimes uneasy, but always alert to the fragile connections between people and the places they inhabit.

From hedgerows alive with bees to submerged prehistoric forests beneath the Solent, from winter swimmers and whispering herons to ancient standing stones and hidden estuaries, this anthology reveals the Island as a place of deep ecological memory and imagination.

Rooted in the unique IoW biosphere, the voices within these pages remind us that when we pay attention to the world around us, language becomes part of what connects us to it.

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Illustrations by Karl Whitmore
Poems by Jean G-Owen