A simple, and practical carbothermal chemical vapor deposition route has been developed for the growth of trigonal phase selenium nanowires and nanoribbons. In detail, the mixture of active carbon and selenium was heated for: the chemical reaction to occur, followed by thermal evaporation and decomposition into elemental selenium, The as-prepared sample was characterized by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, high-resolution electron microscopy, UV-vis absorption, and photoluminescence. The results show that trigonal Se nanowires have uniform diameters ranging from 20 to 60 nm and grow along the [001] direction, with the same growth direction found for nanoribbons. Spectral measurements suggest a large blue shift and two types of electron transition activity. The influences of experimental conditions on morphologies and growth processes are also discussed. This synthetic method should be able to be extended to grow other one-dimensional chalcogens and chalcogenides nanostructures.