"Art of the Wild," a UC Davis-based summer writing program held in the Sierra, will be highlighted in a documentary airing on public television stations this fall. (On Nov. 2, the documentary, underwritten by the Foundation for Global Community, will air at 5:30 p.m. on San Francisco's KQED.) The writing program illustrates a national trend of growing interest in writing about our experiences with the natural world. Last spring, for example, leading U.S. nature writers and poets gathered for a national conference in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the connection between American writers and the natural world. Gary Snyder, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and a UC Davis English professor, was among the keynote speakers. The documentary features in-depth conversations with 14 writers whose focus is on nature and wilderness. The writers interviewed have gathered for a weeklong summer writing workshop in the Sierra, where they share their insights with other poets and writers. Workshop director Jack Hicks describes the writing program this way: "What counts is a feeling for or interest in wild places and how you catch that in a story or a poem. A shared feeling for the power of nature connects us all." Snyder, Terry Tempest Williams,William Kittredge, and Sandra McPherson and Francisco Alarcon, both from UC Davis, are among the writers featured in the documentary.