John Yunker 
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 …
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 …
A week ago I traveled to Seattle to participate at the AWP Conference and Bookfair — the world’s largest gathering of writers and writing programs. Ashland Creek Press hosted a booth, and a number of our authors attended for panels and book signings. We also met editors at the environmental journals Newfound, Flyway, Catamaran, and Terrain. …
