The Backyard Bird Chronicles: Amy Tan and Professor Andrew Gosler in Conversation

Jeniam Conversations

What does it mean for life-writers to look outward—to birds and the unruliness of the natural world?
How might birdwatching’s practices of observation and recording shape the writing of the self?

In her memoir, The Backyard Bird Chronicles (2024), Amy Tan turns to the birds outside her window as a way of bearing witness to the rhythms of the natural world, the passage of time, and the experience of grief. What began as a daily practice of observation and sketching gradually became a record of loss, love, and the unexpected consolations of attention. Tan considers what it means to truly see—and how that act of seeing might lead to a deeper understanding of the self.

In conversation with ornithologist Professor Andrew Gosler, Tan reflects on how birdwatching cultivates a form of attention that is both ethical and literary: what does it mean to write a life alongside other species? How might close observation reshape what memoir can notice, record, and say?

Touching on life-writing, nature writing, grief memoir, and the ethics of attention, this conversation explores how practices of observation shape the writing of a life. It will appeal to readers and writers of memoir, scholars of autobiography, and those interested in nature writing. No prior specialist knowledge or preparation is required.