We’re losing birds, by the billions. Which is why I wanted to mention a movement in which you devote 2/3 of your land to native species of plants. If we could plant even half of our 40 million acres of lawn in 2/3 native plants, and keep them pesticide free, we could turn the bird …
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). …
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 …
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, …
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 …
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 …
What a wonderful opportunity for writers. Each year, two writers become residents for up to a month between May and October. Each resident receives a $750 stipend and, in exchange, commits to offering a public presentation of their work in nearby Taos (public health conditions permitting). The Leopold Writing Program (LWP) is an Albuquerque, NM-based …
There’s nothing like a new year to inspire lifestyle changes, and there is no better time than now to pick up The VegNews Guide to Being a Fabulous Vegan by Jasmin Singer & VegNews Magazine. This gorgeous book, whose subtitle is Look Good, Feel Good & Do Good in 30 Days, is a perfect companion for those who …
Not surprisingly, we’ve been doing quite a bit of reading this year. Here are some of our favorite books. And not all of them were new in 2020. We reviewed Braiding Sweetgrass back in 2019, and it’s comforting to see that book rise to the top of our collective consciousness (a seven-year old overnight success …
Who were the first humans to bake bread? If you had asked me a few months ago, I would have probably guessed the Egyptians. But what if it was the Aboriginal Australians? And not by any small margin. There is evidence to suggest that Australians were cultivating grains and baking bread more than 30,000 years …
Our friends Mary Woodbury of Dragonfly.eco and Lovis Geir from Ecofictology have partnered to create a virtual community of writers and readers passionate about environmental literature. The network is hosted on Discord and you are invited to join. Here’s more about Rewilding Our Stories: Rewilding Our Stories is a safe place for readers, writers, publishers…basically …
If you haven’t heard of The Center for Sustainable Arts (CSPA), do check it out. We’re fans. They are currently looking for a (co)lead editor for the CSPA Quarterly: The CSPA Quarterly is a publication arm of the Centre for Sustainable Arts. It is meant to give a longer format and deeper space for exploration …
This is a wonderful development — an arts magazine expanding to include a dedicated environmental section. And a wonderful opportunity for writers. Here’s more… Wales Arts Review has been a home for high quality critical writing and arts coverage since 2012. The destruction of the natural world is the most urgent issue of our times. …
I live in an old house. So old that it tilts off to one side and you can feel a winter breeze coming up through the floorboards. When we had it renovated several years ago, I wondered if it would have made more sense, environmentally, to tear it down and build a LEED-certified (whatever exactly …
