Book Review: The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery

Studies of animal intelligence have demonstrated the impressive cognitive abilities of certain animals: rhesus macaques, crows, bottlenose dolphins, border collies.  Recently, there is another animal gaining increasing recognition for its intelligence: the octopus. The Soul of an Octopus is, as its subtitle aptly describes, “a surprising exploration into the wonders of consciousness.”  Written by Sy …

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Book Review: HOMES by Moheb Soliman

In HOMES, interdisciplinary poet Moheb Soliman traces the intricate borders of the Great Lakes—Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior (HOMES)—and explores the meanings of home, place, and identity in the spaces where water meets land and nature meets industry.  This stunning collection of postmodern ecopoetry prods the ironies that live in these in-between spaces. Soliman excavates …

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Book Review: Touching Creatures, Touching Spirit by Judy Grahn

The stories and essays of Touching Creatures, Touching Spirit: Living in a Sentient World form a beautiful tapestry of communications across species and consciousness. From grateful dragonflies to fatherless strawberries to companionable stones, poet and activist Judy Grahn details meaningful connections from her own experiences of the sentient world. Throughout her firsthand accounts, she weaves in histories …

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Book Review: IN THE COMPANY OF MEN

Véronique Tadjo’s slender, haunting novel In the Company of Men offers myriad points of view—human and nonhuman—in its story of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014. Published in French in 2017 and in English in 2021, it’s a timely novel that makes important connections, revealing the devastating impact of how humans treat the …

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Book Review: The Meaning of Birds by Simon Barnes

In The Meaning of Birds, Simon Barnes traces the history of birds—as well as humans’ relationships and interactions with them—over several millennia and across multiple continents. Barnes is a UK-based nature writer, so North American readers will enjoy an opportunity to become more familiar with Britain’s backyard birds, such as the wood pigeon, the Scottish …

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Book Review: The Shark Club

Ann Kidd Taylor’s novel, The Shark Club, is not only a delightful read as we head into spring and summer “beach reading” time, but it is a much-needed antidote to Peter Benchley’s Jaws. Rather than instill fear in readers, The Shark Club highlights the importance of these four-hundred-million-year-old creatures to our ecosystem and debunks the myths that other books …

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Book Review: Irreplaceable by Julian Hoffman

In Irreplaceable: The Fight to Save Our Wild Places, Julian Hoffman shows us endangered habitats and the creatures who inhabit them—as well as the humans who are fighting to save these fragile landscapes. He puts us vividly within these places, portraying just how special and vulnerable they are, and also shows us the passion, dedication, …

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Eastern Oregon University offers new MFA concentration focused on Wilderness, Ecology, and Community

A year ago we began compiling a list of writing programs with a focus on the environment and animals. The latest addition to the list is EOU’s new low-residency MFA program: Eastern Oregon University is pleased to announce the launch of a new low-residency writing MFA with a concentration in Wilderness, Ecology, and Community (WEC). …

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Writing opportunity: PANK Magazine special issue on environmental futures

PANK Magazine is now accepting works (poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, hybrid) for a special issue: Environmental Futures Folio, guest edited by Aram Mrjoian. Here’s the call: The health and sustainability of our environment continues to be threatened and detrimentally harmed in real time. This folio is a call for art that not only considers imagined …

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Sitka Center now accepting residency applications

Located north and west of us here in Ashland, Oregon, the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology provides educational courses and residencies to artists. And they’re now open for residency applications. Here’s the call: Calling all painters, novelists, climate activists, photographers, biologists, composers, poets, journalists, architects, film makers, performers, inventors, botanists, curators, foresters, ceramicists, playwrights, illustrators, …

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Review: The Yield by Tara June Winch

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 …

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New and Upcoming Environmental Books

Here is a small selection of new and forthcoming environmental books that have come across our inboxes… Persephone in the Late Anthropocene This ecopoetic collection interweaves the voices of Persephone, Demeter, and a human chorus with a range of texts, including speculative cryptostudies that shed light on the culture of the “Late Anthropocene.” More Monster …

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Upcoming event: Evolving Beyond Animal Ag

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 …

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