Writing

“[Through her] trained eye, insistent sympathy, and deep humanism… not only do you get to see everything to which Shauna is drawn, but you actually become drawn in yourself, brought into a bright and unknowable world…”
—Sumanth Prabhaker, Editor-in-Chief, Orion

My writing addresses art, animals and environments, language, geography, and explorations of identity. A regular contributor to Orion, I have also published various essays and exhibition texts, and I was shortlisted for the 2021 Nan Shepherd Prize for underrepresented voices in nature writing. Current fascinations include neurodiverse aesthetic experiences; the nēnē, or Hawaiian geese, in London’s St James’s Park; and the calm, “sea like a mirror” end of the Beaufort wind force scale. A selection of my projects can be found below.

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Gay Is the Thing with Feathers

A feature article exploring the role feathers play in camp and drag culture and performance, and what they mean to the LGBT+ people around them.

Up, Up, on Implausible Wings

Despite its absence in Icelandic poetry and prose, the puffin is now a national emblem – while its population declines. My essay connects the dots.

Into the Red

My contribution to Into the Red – a book dedicated to the UK’s red-listed birds – is an ode on the long-tailed duck, a master diver of cold northern seas.

Bambi for Audrey

My guide to Felix Salten’s Bambi for the audiobook app Audrey tackles the political, ecological, and existential themes in this literary classic.

Ping, Purr

Through poetry and illustration, this chapbook explores my partner’s love language of Instagram cat reels after long Covid put her life on pause.

Exhibition Texts

Through commissioned essays and exhibition texts, I write about contemporary Icelandic art as well as art concerned with animals and nature.

Visual Fields

This recurring column in Orion Magazine examines a range of environmental issues through meditations on works of art, guided by formal analysis.

Of Birds and Barley

How did Iceland’s swans turn from beloved beauties into ravenous beasts? This essay exposes biopolitics underlying this human–wildlife conflict.