The editorial team of The Ecological Citizen is looking for submissions of rewinding success stories: The pieces we publish are short (generally around 750 words) and describe inspiring stories about nature’s rebounding. If there is a rewilding example from your corner of the world that you might like to write about, then please get in …
Let me begin this review by saying that university presses and small presses have published some of the most creative and thought-provoking environmental literature I’ve read over the past few years. In this case, I want to praise the University of California Press for publishing the impressive work of author Christina Gerhardt and her collaborators, …
In Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet author Ben Goldfarb shines a light on the millions of animals who perish on our roads. There are four million miles of paved roads in the US on which a million animals die each year. Goldfarb notes the tragic irony of our road …
In fishing, there is what you catch, and then there is bycatch. Catch is what is intended; bycatch is what is unintended. A necessary evil. That is, until one understands the fishing industry. We are long past the days of dinghies and fishing rods. In every ocean, fishing vessels extend nets so vast they could …
JoeAnn Hart, long-time contributor to EcoLit Books, is the author of three novels (including Float) and a forthcoming short story collection from Black Lawrence Press: Highwire Act & Other Tales of Survival. This collection, the winner of the 2022 Hudson Prize, includes stories that have been published by a number of literary journals, including Prairie …
Gene Helfman, EcoLit Books contributor and author of Beyond the Human Realm, has a new book out — a “novel of relentless satire” and an impassioned defense of sharks. I recently asked Gene about the book and what inspired him to write it. Here’s what he had to say… Tell us about your latest book FINS, …
A Review of Gloria Dickie’s Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future In my life I have had the privilege of seeing more grizzlies, more blacks, and more polar bears than I can remember, most at respectable distances but some a bit too close for comfort. And while I may not be able to recall details …
The slogan for The Ecological Citizen is Confronting human supremacy in defense of the Earth. Which is why I welcome each new issue, including this recent edition, published recently. Essays of note include: WITNESS: A garden without sparrows – from population to ecosystem collapse, and beyondWitness by Cardini AAccess PDF A life of deep connection: A tribute …
Author Edwin Way Teale, a somewhat forgotten naturalist extraordinaire, was a pleasing lyrical writer who followed the seasons across America in cross-country car trips with his wife Nellie four times in his lifetime. These coast-to-coast meanderings across America resulted in four signature natural history books: North With The Spring (1951), Autumn Across America (1956), Journey Into Summer (1960), and the Pulitzer …
So many new and exciting novels and books of nonfiction and poetry have come across our desks and inboxes as of late. Here are just a handful that caught our eyes… B/RDS Beatrice Szymkowiak B/RDS endeavors to dismantle discourses that create an artificial distinction between nature and humanity through a subversive erasure of an iconic work …
Tenacious Beasts by Christopher Preston explores a wide range of animal recovery efforts — and challenges humans to think differently about how we view wild animals. Book review by Christopher Lancette.
Note: Readers hoping to avoid spoilers may wish to skip this review. Julie Carrick Dalton’s novel The Last Beekeeper, set in a world that has “come undone,” is the story of a young woman trying to understand her puzzling past as she navigates an uncertain future. Four years after aging out of the state care facility …
As with so many books about the plight of animals in today’s world, Martha C. Nussbaum’s Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility needs to be read most of all by those who eat animals, visit zoos, buy puppies, and so on — in other words, those who may not realize (or who don’t wish to …
Guest book review by Gene Helfman. “. . . are such rare, extraordinary kinships valuable because they remind us of a continuity with living creatures that we easily forget?” Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief (turned into an Oscar-winning movie starring Meryl Streep) and The Library Book (a must read for any bibliophile), titled her latest book On Animals when …
Creativity is something that is easier to identify than to explain. And one person’s definition of creativity may vary from your definition. For proof, you need only enter the modern art wing of a museum to hear “Why is that art?” uttered. But though creativity may be in the eye of the beholder, nobody would …