Many congratulations to the winner of the 2017 Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature: Diana Hartel, for her essay collection Watershed Redemption: Journey in Time on Five U.S. Watersheds. Judge Jonathan Balcombe writes of Diana’s book: “In Watershed Redemption, Diana Hartel’s sweeping, richly researched account conjures up a Bierstadt landscape. With elegant, crystal-clear prose, she weaves a dire yet hopeful tapestry of ecological ignorance, genocide, and tenacious activism. There is something for everyone—environmentalist, policy-maker, ethnologist, historian, biologist, epidemiologist, artist—in this powerful piece of advocacy.” Diana Hartel writes on public health and ecosystem health issues. She graduated from Columbia University with a doctorate in epidemiology and concentrations in …
Opportunity for Writers: SAGE Magazine
An interesting opportunity for environmental writers and artists — the window is closing quickly… We are inviting all members of the SAGE community to submit your stories, photographs, original artwork and more for inclusion in the upcoming 2018 Print Edition of SAGE Magazine. If you are interested submitting a piece for inclusion in the print edition, please fill out the form below with information about your story idea by Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at the latest. If your pitch is accepted, you’ll be invited to submit a final draft for our print edition released this spring. Submission Details: PITCH DEADLINE: …
Opportunity for Writers: Art after Nature from The University of Minnesota Press
I’ve long been a fan of Antennae, a literary/artistic journal created and curated by Giovanni Aloi. So I was thrilled to see that the University of Minnesota Press is partnering with Giovanni and Caroline Piccard on a new book series titled Art after Nature. Here’s their vision for the series: Art after Nature maps new aesthetic territories defined by the humanities’ recent ontological turn. In the face of the unprecedented shifts in humanity’s conceived relationship with the natural world, modes of critical and political artistic engagement are adapting in response. As notions of pristine sublimity crumble, Art after Nature proposes to explore the consequences of this transition, further destabilizing anthropocentrism, and revealing the dark ecological fluidity of naturecultures. The urgency imposed by anthropogenic lenses of inquiry provides an ethical …
Upcoming deadlines for environmental writing (nonfiction/fiction/poetry)
Calling all ecolit writers… A number of journals are closing their submissions windows over the next month: Ecotone: October 1st Alluvian: October 11th The Fourth River (Tributaries Special Issue): October 15th Camas: October 20th For our growing list of outlets for environmental writing (now at 40), click here.
Submission window is now open for the 4th annual Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature
Now in its fourth year, The Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature is now open for submissions of published and unpublished manuscripts, including novels, memoirs, short story collections, and essay collections.. The 2017 prize will be judged by New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Balcombe. The winner will receive a cash award of $1,000 and a four-week residency at PLAYA. The submission deadline is September 30, 2014. For complete writers’ guidelines, click here. All unpublished manuscripts entered for the Siskiyou Prize will be considered for publication. “New environmental literature” refers to literary works that focus on the environment, animal protection, ecology, and wildlife. The prize …
Cold Mountain Review: Special Issue on Extinction
Literary journal Cold Mountain Review is currently taking submissions for its Fall 2017 special issue devoted to extinction: As species decline globally at an accelerating rate, greater than at any time in the past 65 million years, we invite submissions that give voice to endangered and vanishing creatures, cultures, and tongues; re/imagine and express creaturely relationships on the brink, including the human and more-than-human; imagine ourselves ceasing as a species; and encounter and name the political, economic, and cultural forces driving this human-induced extinction event. http://coldmountainreview.org/special-issue-extinction/
Our 2017 Siskiyou Prize judge is Jonathan Balcombe
We are thrilled to announce that our 2017 Siskiyou Prize judge is Jonathan Balcombe. Jonathan’s most recent book is the New York Times bestseller What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of our Underwater Cousins, an extraordinary journey underwater that reveals the vast capabilities of fishes. He is also the author of the books The Exultant Ark, Second Nature, Pleasurable Kingdom, and The Use of Animals in Higher Education. Jonathan has three biology degrees, including a PhD in ethology (the study of animal behavior) from the University of Tennessee, and has published more than 50 scientific papers on animal behavior …
Announcing the winner & finalists of the 2016 Siskiyou Prize!
We are delighted to announce the winner of the 2016 Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature: Katy Yocom, for her novel THREE WAYS TO DISAPPEAR. Judge JoeAnn Hart writes, “THREE WAYS TO DISAPPEAR begins with a focused lens on the endangered Bengal tiger then expands its reach with every page to reveal the interconnectedness of the natural world and fragility of all life. Weaving together the worn threads of ecological balance, this ambitious and moving novel addresses scarcity, climate change, family dynamics, cultural conflict, human accountability, women’s economic autonomy, and most of all, love, in all its wondrous forms. This is a story not …
Q&A with Mary Woodbury of Moon Willow Press and Eco-Fiction.com
I’m pleased to welcome to EcoLit Books an interview we conducted recently with Mary Woodbury, founder of Moon Willow Press and Eco-Fiction.com. Mary also played an instrumental role in getting Ecofiction added to Wikipedia! You’re a writer and a publisher. Can you tell us a bit about your writing and how you came to found Moon Willow Press? Most of my writing these days is in the form of nature writing and posts for my running blog and interviews and essays at the main site. However, I have written several short stories and two novels. One novel (Back to the …
Announcing the 2016 Siskiyou Prize finalists
This is the third year of the Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature (which is sponsored by Ashland Creek Press, which also sponsors EcoLit Books). We’re pleased to see the Siskiyou Prize gaining momentum and awareness. Now more than ever we need a chorus of creative and passionate voices speaking up for the planet and all of its species. This year, we received more than a hundred submissions, which included a wide range of fiction, short story and essay collections, memoirs, nonfiction nature books, and a number of previously published works in all categories. We began reviewing submissions when the contest opened in September of last …