I didn’t plan to read the nonfiction book Dark Emu shortly before reading the novel The Yield by Tara June Winch. But I couldn’t think of a better pairing. While Dark Emu deconstructs colonial myths about Australian Aboriginal civilizations, The Yield illustrates how these myths were used to justify tearing apart families and cultures. In …
Imagine that you’re an nth-generation farmer and you’ve been raised to continue business as usual in animal agriculture. But you can’t help but notice that the world is changing around you. People are eating less meat, consuming less dairy. Animals activists (such as myself) are saying cows and sheep and pigs and chickens deserve peaceful …
What a wonderful opportunity for writers. Each year, two writers become residents for up to a month between May and October. Each resident receives a $750 stipend and, in exchange, commits to offering a public presentation of their work in nearby Taos (public health conditions permitting). The Leopold Writing Program (LWP) is an Albuquerque, NM-based …
How about a new writing contest to kick off 2021? This one is sponsored by Grist and looks very interesting (and timely): Welcome to Imagine 2200 — a new climate-fiction contest by Fix, Grist’s solutions lab. What we’re seeking: short stories that envision the next 180 years of equitable climate progress. What we’re offering: $8,700 …
Migrations is a stunningly beautiful novel about a woman who has always been running—from her childhood, her mistakes, her memories—and this time, she’s traveling from Greenland to Antarctica, following the world’s last flock of Arctic terns on their final migration. As the novel opens, Franny Stone approaches the captain of the only boat who might …
There’s nothing like a new year to inspire lifestyle changes, and there is no better time than now to pick up The VegNews Guide to Being a Fabulous Vegan by Jasmin Singer & VegNews Magazine. This gorgeous book, whose subtitle is Look Good, Feel Good & Do Good in 30 Days, is a perfect companion for those who …
Not surprisingly, we’ve been doing quite a bit of reading this year. Here are some of our favorite books. And not all of them were new in 2020. We reviewed Braiding Sweetgrass back in 2019, and it’s comforting to see that book rise to the top of our collective consciousness (a seven-year old overnight success …
Our friends Mary Woodbury of Dragonfly.eco and Lovis Geir from Ecofictology have partnered to create a virtual community of writers and readers passionate about environmental literature. The network is hosted on Discord and you are invited to join. Here’s more about Rewilding Our Stories: Rewilding Our Stories is a safe place for readers, writers, publishers…basically …
If you haven’t heard of The Center for Sustainable Arts (CSPA), do check it out. We’re fans. They are currently looking for a (co)lead editor for the CSPA Quarterly: The CSPA Quarterly is a publication arm of the Centre for Sustainable Arts. It is meant to give a longer format and deeper space for exploration …
This is a wonderful development — an arts magazine expanding to include a dedicated environmental section. And a wonderful opportunity for writers. Here’s more… Wales Arts Review has been a home for high quality critical writing and arts coverage since 2012. The destruction of the natural world is the most urgent issue of our times. …
Here’s an excellent event coming up this Monday at 7pm PST on Zoom and Facebook. The event features writers Corinna Cook, Marybeth Holleman, Adrienne Lindholm and Nancy Lord, moderated by Libby Roderick. More info below… Women Writing the Natural World Oct 19, 2020 6:00 PM Alaska (7:00 PST) Join the Zoom Meeting here:https://zoom.us/j/94709301572 Meeting ID: 947 0930 1572
I live in an old house. So old that it tilts off to one side and you can feel a winter breeze coming up through the floorboards. When we had it renovated several years ago, I wondered if it would have made more sense, environmentally, to tear it down and build a LEED-certified (whatever exactly …
Eco-tourism has become increasingly popular in recent years, travel intended to help conserve and contribute to remote communities and delicate ecosystems, but…disaster tourism? We’re all familiar with rubbernecking drivers, and South Korean novelist Yun Ko-Eun escalates our morbid curiosity with catastrophe into a full-blown industry in The Disaster Tourist. This is Yun’s second novel to …
If you are one of those for whom solid scientific information is a balm for environmental anxiety, Dark Side of the Ocean is the book for you. Albert Bates, the author of 18 books on climate, history, and ecology, provides a torrent of information in easy to understand language. It is technical but not thick. It …
In 1989, Robert Fulghum published All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Three decades later, reading Hope Jahren’s new book, The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here, I found myself thinking about Fulghum and his lessons learned. Number one: Share everything. It’s an …
