EcoLit Books : Page 30 of 35 : Book reviews & writing opportunities in new environmental literature

Writing opportunity for undergrads and grads: Sloth, A Journal of Human-Animal Studies

September 16, 2014 by John Yunker

The Animals and Society Institute has launched a journal exclusively for undergraduate and graduate students, to publish papers, book reviews, essays, and other work. Sloth is an online bi-annual journal that publishes international, multi-disciplinary writing by undergraduate students and recent (within three years) graduates that deals with human/non-human animal relationships from the perspectives of the …

The Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Writing: Only three weeks remaining

September 11, 2014September 8, 2014 by John Yunker

Just a brief reminder that we are fast approaching the deadline for the 2014 Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Writing. Our final judge is award-winning author Karen Joy Fowler. You can learn more here. Full disclosure: This prize is sponsored by Ashland Creek Press, the same press that hosts this blog.

Book Review: Steelies and Other Endangered Species: Stories on Water, by Rebecca Lawton

September 6, 2014 by Mindy Mejia

I began reading this short story collection during a stay at a tiny cabin on Minnesota’s Gull Lake and couldn’t have asked for a more perfect setting to enjoy Rebecca Lawton’s stories. Flipping pages to the soundtrack of the waves hitting the shore, I became effortlessly drawn in to the worlds of the Western whitewater …

subTerrain writing opportunity: MEAT (closing Sept. 1)

August 13, 2014 by John Yunker

I just came across an interesting opportunity (via Aerogramme) for writing focused on our relationship with meat: Issue #69 (Winter) — Theme: “MEAT” Humans have hunted, trapped, and killed animals for their “meat” (Old English mete = food) from at least as far back as our “hunter-gatherer” days. From guinea pigs to bison, quail to turkeys, …

Book Review: Lost Antarctica by James McClintock

September 29, 2019August 7, 2014 by Midge Raymond

As James McClintock points out in his enlightening book, Antarctica is often referred to as “the poster child” for global warming, a bellwether of climate change, the place where we see the most drastic results of a warming planet. McClintock’s Lost Antarctica: Adventures in a Disappearing Land offers a firsthand view of the challenges facing …

Book Review: The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard

October 23, 2015August 4, 2014 by Shel Graves

Read this in the heat of August — languorous, sweltering, submerged. It begins, “Soon it would be too hot.” J.G. Ballard’s The Drowned World is a classic in the growing genre of climate fiction — fiction that brings attention to climate change. It’s not about the cause of a manmade global catastrophe (For this, Martin …

Book Review: Threatened by Eliot Schrefer

September 29, 2019July 31, 2014 by Mindy Mejia

Eliot Schrefer’s Threatened reads like a thematic sequel to his 2012 National Book Award finalist Endangered. Both books tell the story of a teenager who leaves human society in Africa for the jungle and the company of other hominines. Where Endangered focused on a Congolese girl’s life changing journey with bonobos, Threatened moves east to Gabonese AIDS orphan, Luc, …

Pity the predators. A review of Beasts by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

July 7, 2014 by John Yunker

What happens when a predator becomes prey? Today, the animals we have long viewed as predators – lions and tigers, bears and sharks – are in some cases on the verge of extinction. And, thanks to science, we now know that these predators are not nearly so violent or dangerous as we were once told (or continue to tell ourselves). Nevertheless, we …

Book Review: The Awareness by Gene Stone and Jon Doyle

June 17, 2014 by Shel Graves

The Awareness (March 2014) is told in the shifting point of view of a wild bear, a circus elephant, a factory farmed pig and a rescued pet dog — all of whom have gained a human awareness of the world. It’s told in four parts. One chapter in each section contains the point of view …

Writing Wild

October 23, 2015June 16, 2014 by JoeAnn Hart

Writing Wild Forming a Creative Partnership With Nature By Tina Welling New World Library, 2014 My favorite quote from Writing Wild is one Tina Welling borrows from Jesus, of all people: “If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will save you.” This comes from the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas, …

Book Review – The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them by Wayne Pacelle

September 29, 2019June 11, 2014 by Midge Raymond

Wayne Pacelle’s The Bond is much more than its gentle title suggests. Rather than present a quaint book about the human-animal bond, Pacelle (president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States) takes readers through a complex history of the relationships among human and non-human animals, from farming to hunting to pets to wildlife. …

Book Review: Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

September 29, 2019June 3, 2014 by Midge Raymond

Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior does all that a great work of eco-fiction should, addressing the issues (climate change) without sacrificing the story (a woman whose small-town world is broken wide open by a mysterious act of nature). Dellarobia Turnbow, married at seventeen due to a pregnancy in which she lost the baby, is a decade later …

Book Review: Exodus 2022 by Kenneth G. Bennett

June 10, 2014May 27, 2014 by Shel Graves

Exodus 2022 by Kenneth G. Bennett (author of the young adult novels, The Gaia Wars and Battle for Cascadia), succeeds nicely as an eco-lit foray into the thriller category set in the Pacific Northwest. It follows genre conventions well by moving along at a nice clip, ending each short chapter with a hook, and teasing …

Terrain.org 5th Annual Contest is now open for submissions

May 19, 2014 by John Yunker

The environmental literary journal Terrain has opened submissions to its annual contest — for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. You have until September 1 to submit. Here’s the link. I’m happy to see that Julian Hoffman will be judging the nonfiction category. His book The Small Heart of Things: Being at Home in a Beckoning World recently won the AWP …

Fill ‘er up: A review of Living Oil by Stephanie LeMenager

May 6, 2014 by John Yunker

Living Oil: Petroleum Culture in the American Century by Stephanie LeMenager is an academic book and priced accordingly. In other words, this is not the sort of book you’d find in an airport bookstore. Perhaps it should be. This book provides historical and cultural insights into our complex relationship with oil — from the “peak discovery” period of the …