The structure of this newsletter is different this month because we’re celebrating!
10th birthday
It’s officially here. Today we turn 10. It’s been a great ride so far, starting out as a site with a small list of novels that dealt with climate change to expanding into the broader mode of storytelling called eco-fiction. Today that original list is a database with more than 950 books. Over 200 contributors have spent time chatting with us, adding their book excerpts to the Dragonfly Library, and writing reviews or articles.
Ah, deep summer! Welcome to another newsletter about fiction that’s ecologically aware, evolving, prescient. This is one of my favorite times of year, autumn being the first. Only a couple months until then, with the light of August squeezed in before the fade, reminding me of Faulkner. To learn more about the outside world I cling to, read about the etymology of bonefires, and our modern bonfires, in my Backyard Wildlife series this month. As always, you can visit Dragonfly.eco for more information about rewilded stories.
Early summer comes slowly to Atlantic Canada, but it is one of my favorite times of year. We’ve had a mix of rainstorms and the most pleasant sunshiny days. Read my latest Backyard Wildlife post to find out more.
Tenth Birthday
One of the earliest site banners at Dragonfly (back then eco-fiction.com), licensed for use by Can Stock Photo. Does anyone else remember this artwork from years ago?
On August 13th, Dragonfly.eco turns ten! It’s hard to believe that ten years have gone by since I first began the site. So much has changed in ecologically oriented fiction since I dreamed up the concept of archiving it and raising awareness of it online, which grew into a mega-project of not just a large database but a collaborative site with guest reviewers and posts, interviews, and more as well as some outreach through social media such as Discord. Even before Dragonfly, starting in the mid-2010s, I was writing my first climate-change novel. The curiosity about this literature grew into a lifetime project, and I’m still having fun with it. Thanks to readers of the site, and this newsletter, for helping keep it alive.
It’s spring, so my energy levels have gone way up from the long, stormy winter. And yes, I’ve smelled like sweat, dirt, tomatoes, and everything else at the end of the day lately. You can read my latest Backyard Wildlife series here. I’m seriously loving this time of year, and I hope you are too.
Marmie the woodchuck, hanging out in our yard.
Here’s the big news for this month: I don’t know why, because I always swore I wouldn’t do it, but I started an ecofiction subreddit. I am not a big reddit reader, though I joined a running channel a few years ago and was semi-active in it. Anyway, you’re invited to join, and if you’re fair-minded and could commit to be active, I could probably use some help with it—just a couple people as moderators, who are open-minded and have some knowledge about the diversity of genres dealing with eco-literature and climate change. I think the biggest draw to this subreddit is a megathread where you can self-promote your eco-novels, films, and other projects as well as an almost daily source of resources and news. The place is new, just about two weeks old.
The Rewilding Our Stories Discord is voting on another book to read! I think voting will close tonight. Regardless of whether or not you have time to vote, all the books look great. We’re doing something different this time; we’re going to read along with Lovis Geier—on one of the books that she’s reading anyway for her wonderful Ecofictology vlogger channel. Also, we started a new weekly question thread, which is a lot of fun, helpful, and inspiring, even. We’ve made it much easier to join the Discord recently. And, if you introduce yourself and stay active, you can be promoted to have extra perks, like posting in the self-promotion channel.
I always say that every day is Earth Day, that we need to take action every day of the year to take care of our planet. And, like Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate said, “No action or voice is too small to make a difference.” As artists, as writers, we can make a difference, not just in the art and magic we create but in everything else we do and don’t do. I’m curious to hear about what you all will be doing every day but also on Earth Day. Feel free to email me! My husband and I will be building a bat box out in our meadow to try to attract bats whose population has been reduced by 95% in Nova Scotia.
Sometimes it feels like we’re alone and powerless to fight climate change and do other actions that are good for our environment, but we aren’t alone. I think it’s great to hook into communities that you can share your ideas and actions with; sometimes they are doing most of the legwork. It seems that the general public and governments are still not thinking critically about climate change and biodiversity loss around the world. However, huge movements are fighting for our planet. Check Extinction Rebellion’s latest newsletter for examples. A survey I did a few years ago showed that even reading environmental novels increased readers’ resolve to do something good for our natural world. Check below for the types of actions that 103 participants recorded. This made me feel hopeful and inspired. These are things we can all do throughout the year. Remember, no action or voice is too small to make a difference, and the following are just a few ideas of things you can start doing if you haven’t already. Eco-fiction can lead to climate action.
Welcome to the March 2022 newsletter from Dragonfly.eco, and thanks so much for subscribing. It’s been such a weird and harrowing few years, and each day brings new tragedy, whether with the war, the climate, or the health front. I just want to send good vibes to everyone and wish you the best. I think during these strange years, we have to be resilient as possible in the face of horror but also need relief, even if just for an hour or two, a minute or two. Whether that’s love, a good meal, a funny movie, or a friend who will listen. What’s that old Irish saying?
May the winds of fortune sail you, May you sail a gentle sea. May it always be the other guy who says, 'this drink's on me.'
Welcome to our one-year newsletter anniversary. If you stuck with me this far, thank you! I just hope that this content continues to be interesting to you.
I have a new email: rewildingourstories [at] gmail. It keeps my personal email separate and the Tutanota one something I’ve decided to phase out of due to the amount of spam that comes through. So it’s the best way to reach me if you have any feedback, a submission to make to Dragonfly.eco, or even just to say hello.
Welcome to a new year. Life goes on. Dreams continue. And as we struggle through hotter than normal summers, stormier winters, a pandemic, and the continuance of humanity’s selfishness and hatred, we might find ourselves more resilient than ever. One thing I can’t help but do during these times when we’re buried in snow dumps and cold, when even the idea of going out to a pub for a coldie is hindered by such things as Omicron, is to take a walk around the property and start planning for the spring. Not to ignore the beauty of the current season, for we’ve watched two winter storms come through in the last couple weeks, which into the wee hours of the morning mesmerized us with crazy wind, snow, ice, even thunder, and other powers of nature. Still, it is the time of year to start planning for the big season: what to plant, what to build, what to write. This creative process is similar to the work I do at Dragonfly.eco, which tries to find meaning in the stories we tell about our connections to natural landscapes around us and how to cope in a changing world where ecological disasters are more overwhelming each year.
Hello, and much happiness to whatever end-of-the-year thing that you celebrate! For me it is the natural world, winter solstice (at least in the northern hemisphere), the silence of the meadow at night, and the way snow falls so beautifully and hushes the rest of the world around us. I also love to hear the wildness of this time of year, the gales and howling rains and thunderstorms. When coming up with this newsletter, I thought of doing a retrospective of the year. And then I thought that, really, every year comes not with more nostalgia but solastalgia than the year before. Not to be utterly dark and grim, but if we cannot recognize the palpable pain of losing species, natural landscapes, healthy ecosystems, and all the cultural and experiential traditions that come along with these things, then we are lying to ourselves and burying inconvenient truths. The fact is, we can be courageous, fearless, and hopeful during these times, too, despite hard facts. I recently watched an emotional and great new movie called A Boy Called Christmas, wherein an aunt relates a fable to the young children in her family to get them excited by the holiday as well as to help them deal with the pain of losing their mother. Because the story she tells also has pain in it and the kids question her about how to deal with it, she replies, “Grief is the price we pay for love, and it’s worth it a million times over.” That quote explains how I also view solastalgia, which is a form of psychic or existential distress caused by environmental change. We know climate change is not some far-future thing that will happen. It is already here. I’ve watched family nearly evacuated in British Columbia over the summer, due to wildfires, and just this fall, due to flooding that killed hundreds of people and thousands of animals. Coupled with COVID 19, another environmental disaster, I’d say that while a lot of us are still able to insulate ourselves against the worst scenarios, it is getting more impossible to do that every year.
Hello, subscribers! Thanks so much for continuing to read the Dragonfly.eco newsletter, published in the middle of each month. Dragonfly is a place to find meaningful stories about our natural world and humanity’s connection with it. The site explores the wild, crazy, and breathtaking literary trail of eco-fiction, with a large book database, spotlights, interviews, and more. Our motto is “blowing your mind with wild words and worlds.” This site raises awareness of the impact of, and diversity in, storytelling around the world that explores climate and ecology.
Like so many others, I’m pushing toward the end of my next novel’s first draft at NaNoWriMo, having completed the first 70K-word-goal on The Stolen Child this past summer. This 300+ page sequel to Back to the Garden is one I dreamed of four years ago when my family went to Ireland for part of the summer and I completed a trailrun atop the Cliffs of Moher. I’m excited to relive some of my experiences there and will publish this novel late next year.
Winter is coming, at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere, and because of so much wind, snow, and cold where I live, I get a lot of writing done in the season. But I also like to uphold the now, celebrate it. I look out my window and see deer in the back meadow. The meadow has turned mostly brown and gray, with accents of green from spruces, yellow from golden-rods and rose leaves, red from maples, and orange from hawthorn and cherry trees. My dining room farm table has turned into a crafts station as I make gifts for the holidays, and the wood stove burns bright with golden flame. Happy November, everyone!
Speaking of L.M. Montgomery, last month we traveled to Prince Edward Island and I got to see the house the author was born in as well as the house that inspired her to write Anne of Green Gables, a favorite childhood story. That got me thinking: how many writers are strongly influenced by place? What if that place is in nature or a rural area? I think a lot of eco-fiction authors can tick that checkbox, and from the many interviews I’ve conducted, it seems to be a unanimous thing.
Speaking of interviews, I am forever grateful to all the people I’ve interviewed or who have in some way contributed to the website. See all the 114 (so far) contributors here. Their voices flesh out the content at Dragonfly.eco, so thanks to all of them.
Rural countryside around the inspiration for the setting of Anne of Green Gables.
I finally got a chance to go on my first vacation in two years. Our very last holiday was spent at Salt Spring Island in British Columbia: camping, hiking, and hanging out at the beach. Then we moved to the east coast of Canada and Covid hit. Things are starting to open up more, so my mother-in-law and a family friend visited us, escaping the wildfires in BC. We went to the northern part of Nova Scotia, which was like revisiting Ireland, minus any ruins. In Cape Breton were cliffs guarding the sea along the famous Cabot Trail, a Scot-Irish distillery, signs in Gaelic everywhere, stores to find tartans and things, and many hiking and beach trails. We also visited our first cèilidh, and will start doing more of those in the future. We spent some time on Prince Edward Island, which was beautiful and warm, with lots of dunes and sandy beaches. We stayed near the Anne of Green Gables sites, and they were neat to see, as that was a favorite read of mine when younger. Now that I’m back home, it’s time to get the September newsletter finished and share what’s going on in the world of fiction that deals with ecology and climate change.
Happy 8th birthday to us on August 13th! Eight years ago, the website became a thing. A floundering thing washed up on a rock. And then it gradually evolved to what it is today. To celebrate, I am finishing the first draft of my new novel, The Stolen Child. Writing the prequel, Back to the Garden, heavily inspired the path to what has become Dragonfly.eco. NaNoWriMo, and the encouragement of the Rewilding Our Stories Discord, have been big motivations as I pen the new novel. Most days I write minimally 1,000 words, and the first draft is nearly complete. To celebrate this birthday, I had previously teased about publishing the third post in my Medium article series, “Around the World in 80 Books,” but the novel took precedence, along with planning for some company soon—and I am still working on the third Medium article, so stay tuned.
Speaking of Discord, it’s the perfect time to join our Rewilding Our Stories. We have an influx of new members, bringing us to over 130 now. We’ve recently taken on two additional moderators, Sara Davis, who blogs at LiterarySara.net, and Forrest Brown, who runs the Stories for Earth podcast. We’re also on the second book in our new book club, reading Jeff VanderMeer’s Hummingbird Salamander. We read fairly slowly due to some of us having big reading lists because of reviews and such, but we’ll be voting on a new book soon!
Welcome to the July 2021 edition of Dragonfly.eco’s newsletter. I’ve been very busy writing the sequel to my novel Back to the Garden, a climate-change novel I began in 2009. It was first published in 2013, with a 2nd edition in 2018 to make it part of a duology. I began a NaNoWriMo challenge this spring: to write 70,000 words on the sequel, The Stolen Child, and have a first draft complete by early next year. I have hit the 50K mark, so am ahead of schedule, but that’ll give me time for the editorial stage. I hope to have it published by next fall. Anyway, that’s been keeping me busy and creative this summer, but I also have lots of other news below.
Coming soon: Our 9th birthday is August 13. Look forward to a new Medium article going around the world in 80 books. If you missed my first two, check here for the first part and here for the second. I honestly never figured I'd keep writing new articles every year or two, but so much eco-fiction is happening around the world, so why not?
Welcome to Dragonfly.eco’s monthly newsletter, a place to find news on what’s going on in the world of eco-fiction.
Our News
Airing on YouTube, June 5, is a Cymera Festival climate writers’ talk I sat in with the awesome authors Bijal Vachharajani, Lauren James, and James Bradley.
Welcome to our fourth newsletter! This news is based upon my work at Dragonfly.eco, a place to find meaningful stories about our natural world and humanity’s connection with it. Dragonfly explores the wild, crazy, and breathtaking literary trail of eco-fiction, with a large book database, spotlights, interviews, and more. Our motto is “blowing your mind with wild words and worlds.” The site raises awareness of the impact of, and diversity in, storytelling around the world that explores climate change and related ecological themes. Fiction covering this territory is steeped in other genres, ranging from science fiction to fantasy to the weird to magical realism to Afrofuturism to Indigenious speculative fiction. You can find out more about the wonderful world of eco-fiction here.
Our News
Dragonfly’s May World Eco-fiction spotlight is on Yaba Badoe and her new novel Wolf Light. It’s a beautiful tale of three young women, born in the wolf light, tackling environmental crises in their locales: the mountainous area of Gobi-Altai near the Gobi desert of Mongolia, the tropical forest region of Ghana in West Africa, and the stormy moors of Cornwall in England.
I don’t know about you, but here in Nova Scotia, spring has just barely arrived. We’ve noticed buds on the fruit trees and a few colt’s feet springing up in the meadow. It’s an exciting time of year, and there’s a lot of news to share!
Well, there’s a ton of news this time around! First, I want to thank a few authors and publishers for sending me their books. My reading list is big right now, but I am not complaining!
For years, readers have asked me if I had a newsletter. I was already active on Twitter and Facebook, so figured one more outlet might be overkill. Well, I’m slowing down on other social media but am not foregoing them altogether. But now I’m searching for more personal correspondences and focused, direct news about fiction reads in which the wild is integral. So, here ya go. I plan to do this monthly.
Invitation to Rewilding Our Stories Community Discord
Welcome to Dragonfly News, which covers world ecofiction in a new newsletter each month. Explore fiction about the natural world and humanity’s impacts on it—and how the diversity of this important literature is revealed in fiction around the world.
Mary Woodbury lives in Nova Scotia and runs dragonfly.eco, a site exploring ecofiction around the world.
