Category: For Writers

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Take a free online class at the University of Iowa: The Story of Place

You can’t find a better deal than this — a free online class from the International Writing Program (the IWP) at the University of Iowa: Stories of Place: Writing and the Natural World.

You as participants will work with some of the many possible types of creative non-fiction, ranging from essays, science journalism, travel narratives, and speculative portrayals of the natural future. And as writers you will work with ways to portray truth and fact, whether it involves telling stories about the local, the global, the invisible, the beautiful, or the uncertain.

The course content includes writers who are both native and non-native English speakers, and we welcome those of you who are working on your own English language skills. Reading and listening to writers from a variety of backgrounds, and locating your own voice and experience through the writing of stories are strong language practice techniques.

Learn more and register.

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Writing Opportunities: Center for Humans and Nature

The Center for Humans and Nature contributes reviews to EcoLit Books.

But did you know they also publish a blog, a journal (Minding Nature) and an ongoing series: Questions for a Resilient Future?

And they are now looking for contributions. If you have a story to share, an idea to explore, check out their publication opportunities here.

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Six new additions to our list of environmental magazines and journals

Gull Literary Journal
http://www.gullzine.com/

We now have a list of 46 journals and magazines dedicated to environmental essays, stories and poetry.

Here are five of the newest additions:

 

As always, if you have anything new to add to our list, let me know.

 

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Announcing the 2017 Siskiyou Prize winner & finalists

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 environment-related chronic diseases and infectious diseases. She has held faculty positions at Columbia University and Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, and has published widely for biomedical journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine. Additionally, she served at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, for three years, chairing inter-agency projects with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She created two non-profit organizations, Bronx Community Works in New York in 1993 and Madrona Arts in Oregon in 2006. Both organizations addressed issues of social and environmental issues. The Oregon-based Madrona Arts primarily employed visual and written arts to raise awareness of ecosystems and efforts to restore them to vibrant health.

[Photo by David Winston]

Diana will receive a four-week residency at PLAYA and a $1,000 cash prize. 

We are also delighted to announce the prize finalists and semi-finalists:

Finalists
  • Crusoe, Can You Hear Me?: A novel by Deborah Tomkins
  • Lost Coast: A young-adult novel by Geneen Marie Haugen
Semi-finalists
  • Farm to Fable: The Fictions of Our Animal-Consuming Culture by Robert Grillo
  • Xylotheque: Essays by Yelizaveta Renfro
  • Junk Raft: An ocean voyage and rising tide of activism to fight plastic pollution by Marcus Eriksen

 

A very special thanks to all writers who entered the contest … your support makes this prize possible!
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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: Wednesday, January 31, 2018
FINAL DRAFTS DUE: Monday, February 19, 2018

Link

 

 

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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 focus capable of applying productive pressure on practices and discourses alike. Within this framework, art theory, practice, and criticism become intersecting platforms upon which to map current philosophical waves. Books published in this series engage with the politics and contradictions of the Anthropocene as a concept in order to problematize recent and influential philosophical waves like animal studies, posthumanism, and speculative realism in relation to art writing and art making. 

More info

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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.

 

 

 

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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 seeks work that redefines our notions of environmentalism and sustainability, particularly when it comes to animal protection. The award isn’t for books about hunting, fishing, or eating animals—unless they are analogous to a good anti-war novel being all about war. Under these basic guidelines, however, the prize will be open to a wide range of fiction and nonfiction with environmental and animal themes.

The Siskiyou Prize is named for the Klamath-Siskiyou region of northern California and southern Oregon, one of the most diverse eco-regions in the world. Considered a global center of biodiversity, the Klamath-Siskiyou region is an inspiring example of the importance of preservation.

For more information, click here, or visit the Ashland Creek Press submissions page.

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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/

 

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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 and animal protection. Formerly department chair for Animal Studies with the Humane Society University and senior research scientist with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Jonathan is currently Director of Animal Sentience with the Humane Society Institute for Science and Policy in Washington, DC. Learn more at jonathan-balcombe.com.

This year marks our fourth annual Siskiyou Prize, and we are delighted to be offering a $1,000 prize and a four-week writing residency thanks to the generosity of our amazing prize partner PLAYA. All manuscripts submitted for the prize will be considered for publication by Ashland Creek Press.

Please visit the Siskiyou Prize website for complete details about the prize — submissions open September 1, 2017. We look forward to reading your work!