John Yunker 
Terrain’s 6th annual contest for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry is now accepting submissions. The winner of each genre receives $500. Judges are as follows: Luis Alberto Urrea – Fiction Scott Russell Sanders – Nonfiction Pattiann Rogers – Poetry Entry fee is $15. Learn more here.
The Chain: Farm, Factory, and the Fate of Our Food, by Ted Genoways, is an important work of reporting. Based on years of interviews and tireless research, the book spans the length of our food system, focused largely on Hormel Foods, the makers of Spam. It covers the tragically interconnected plight of the workers and of the animals. …
The literary journal Fourth River is now accepting submissions for a special issue themed Queering Nature: Guest-edited by Dakota Garilli and Michael Walsh, The Fourth River’s second online issue, to launch in Fall of 2015, will focus on Queering Nature, and we’re looking for your best, most innovative nature and place-based writing in any genre or …
Halfway through reading The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod by Henry Beston, I came across the following passage: A new danger, moreover, now threatens the birds at sea. An irreducible residue of crude oil, called by refiners ‘slop,’ remains in stills after oil distribution, and this is …
If you haven’t heard of the National Museum of Animals and Society, consider this a heads up. You’re going to hear more about this museum in the years ahead, because it stands on the cutting edge of one of the defining social, legal, and political movements of our time. Based in Los Angeles, the museum is now accepting …
Reading A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold I am struck time and again by how contemporary it feels. This is a testament to Leopold, who wrote this book back in the late 1940s, yet clearly had future generations in mind. Leopold saw the environmental issues we are struggling with today because he was struggling with similar issues in his time. During his life …
People, Place & Planet: WWF Cymru Prize for Writing on Nature and the Environment From the website: New Welsh Review, in association with WWF Cymru and the CADCentre, is thrilled to announce the New Welsh Writing Awards, which will celebrate the finest non-fiction writing in the new and increasingly popular ‘short’ form. We’re looking for …
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 …
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.
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, …
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 …
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 …
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 …
From now until May 31, the literary journal Poecology is accepting “submissions of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction with an emphasis on place, environment, or ecology.” More information
I enjoyed this recent New York Times article on universities using fiction (or “cli-fi”) to teach climate change. I particularly enjoyed seeing our own University of Oregon represented. Go Ducks! From the article: University courses on global warming have become common, and Prof. Stephanie LeMenager’s new class here at the University of Oregon has all …
