It was a pleasure to co-convene the Environmental Writing symposium at the University of Melbourne, 7 June 2018. Amanda Johnson and I were thrilled to bring together such a wonderful group of presenters – Alexis Wright in conversation about the Swan Book with Hayley Singer; Tom Griffiths talking about the unique qualities of early Australian 'nature writing'; Tom Doig on activism, irony and the Hazelwood mine fire disaster; Suzy Freeman-Greene on green turtles of Heron Island, once killed for turtle soup now a major tourist attraction; A. Frances Johnson discussing poetry that challenges the comforts of pastoral and elegiac forms; Mireille Juchau on solastalgia and countering cataclysmic narratives laden with ‘messages’; Laura Jean McKay on nonhuman animal resistance in fiction; Cameron Muir showing the disastrous effects of plastic debris on birds of Lord Howe Island; Hayley Singer riffing on ‘fleischgeist’ meaning ‘flesh ghost’ or ‘meat spirit’; Wendy Somerville (with Bethaney Turner) on meeting Country on the Cullunghutti mountain; Lara Stevens performing her ecofeminist ‘SpiderActs’; and me on citizen science, frogwatching, and charting climate change’s impact in the here and now.