John Yunker 
From the snake tempting Adam and Eve to the sheep that saved Odysseus from the Cyclops, animals have featured prominently in literature from the very beginning of literature. Today, animals play leading roles in many bestselling novels, from the dog Almondine in The Story of Edgar Sawtelle to Marcellus, the Pacific octopus in Remarkably Bright Creatures. In a …
Love Story with Birds, by Derek Furr, is a work of literature that defies easy categorization, which is partly why I enjoyed reading it. By way of poems, essays, stories, and asides I spent a great deal of time alongside Furr, as he watched birds, endured Covid, and cared for a dying dog. Birds play …
I love to share EcoLit Success Stories from authors who have used our extensive list of environmental outlets to find homes for their poetry, stories and essays. So I’d be remiss in not mentioning an essay that I was fortunate to find a home for in The Revelator, an essay on the power of names …
Reading non-fiction books about climate change has, over the years, come to feel like a form of masochism. Rarely do I come away feeling optimistic about the future of this planet and, honestly, it has taken an emotional toll. Which is why I’d much rather read novels that tackle climate change (and not necessarily of …
I’m excited to be sharing this writing opportunity. It’s not every day that a literary journal asks specifically for animal-centric literature. The Bellevue Literary Review is publishing a theme issue titled Animalia. Here are the details: Animalia: What animals can teach us about being humanHealth is not simply a human concept. The experience of inhabiting …
Here are a number of recently published or about-to-be-published books that have come across our desks. Love Story with Birds By Derek Furr “Let us be at a loss for words,” writes Derek Furr in Love Story with Birds. He writes this, as he writes everything in this collection of his stories, poems, and essays, with an …
Here’s an amazing opportunity for environmental writers focused on the South: The deadline is October 1st. Learn more and apply.
We have the pandemic to thank for this eye-opening, empathetic and long-overdue tribute to one of our most misunderstood and widely despised relatives. The rat. And I use relative intentionally as I learned from the book that the human species descends from rats. During the early days of Covid, while so many people were out …
Amazing books keep coming our way and we’re pleased to share a few of them this month. Enjoy! Any Human Power by Manda Scott Sometimes it takes a revolution to change the world, sometimes it takes a relationship. The visionary new novel from Manda Scott, author of the Boudica series. As Lan lies dying, she …
Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) was not the first scientist to test on animals, now was he the last. But he is perhaps the most famous. And he has somehow escaped mainstream scrutiny in how he and his lab treated dogs. In college, when I learned about Pavlov and classical conditioning, I never considered how Pavlov tested …
Guest book review by Gene Helfman. “…a woman’s place…is in the wild.” This remarkable book is a memoir, a unique lesson in natural history, a love poem to the wild, and a plea for peaceful coexistence with the natural world. Brenda Peterson is a multiple-award-winning, tremendously versatile, and prolific author, having published adult novels (mystery, drama, humor), …
