Quote by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Wizard of the Crow

We’re in the midst of preparing a Thanksgiving dinner party for nearly twenty friends this weekend. I grew up with big reunions, whether on my dad’s side in Louisville or my mother’s in eastern Kentucky. Food, music, stories, games, and the love of nature brought us together a few times a year. The food seemed central, but before and after meals, my brothers, sister, cousins, and I would hike in the hills, explore wildflower meadows and creeks, race around the old country house in the holler, listen to our uncle play the banjo, or hang out on the front porch listening to Papaw’s stories. It’s no surprise that once I became an adult, I felt it was meaningful to carry on those traditions. The bringers of old are now gone, including my dad, an aunt and uncle, and all my grandparents, and though I can never physically revisit them or our times together, I can transmigrate their essences into the current world. It feels like they are here. Like them, I love crafting meals as much as I do dreaming up stories and putting them out there for others to read.

All these people'll live as long as you remember 'em.
-Ninny Threadgoode, Fried Green Tomatoes

I also grew up with facts, science, and honesty—traits that seem to be curling like shadows and disappearing in the modern world of make-believe. The old standards scatter away like leaves on the wind. We have to hang on to what we have, what we’ve learned, what we know to be true. If it’s eating shucky beans near the flames of the woodstove, laughing with others, and finding a circle of like-mindedness, so be it. As for the food, well it takes some time to create, mix, soak, brine, spice, and bake the numerous dishes for Thanksgiving. The flavor and scents extend beyond food; they surround us with warmth and togetherness, much like a great story. Maybe it is all just a story we will tell some day.

Film of the Month

Speaking of great stories, the third season of “From” just ended last weekend, and the finale was epic. “From” is a television series created by John Griffin and includes some writers from “Game of Thrones” and “Lost”. The show has just been extended for a fourth season. It’s a science fiction horror cult classic, and its viewership is growing.

I love weird shows that have aspects of horror but also explore the human story: who are we, how did we get here, where are we from, where are we going, how do we interact with nature around us. “From” is about a village somewhere in Maine that people get trapped in and can’t leave. The surrounding woods are full of evil people who are dead, or perhaps are still alive in a transmigrated body, and who come out at night to feed on or just plain torture and kill the townspeople. The show’s mysteries revolve around myth, time paradoxes, and nature-based oddities, such as trees and roots. What’s more, this show is filmed near our house, just about ten minutes north of us; we went up there once to try to view the location, but security was there and it was also raining. We saw the colony house though. The fact the show is filmed in our same pocket of sky, forests, lakes, and the local ecosystem makes me feel at home but also at unease while watching it, which is kinda how the world feels to me these days.

World Eco-fiction Spotlight

I met the amazing author Manda Scott and interviewed her for November’s spotlight about her new novel, out by September Publishing, Any Human Power. It’s about a dying woman who makes a promise to her grandson that binds her to her teenage daughter a decade later. Like “From”, this story is another great one; what immersed me in it was how liminal spaces and transformation came into play. The story is about how people, including younger generations, are being failed by an old, power-hungry establishment, which is exactly what’s happening in our world. Weaving together myth, technology, and radical compassion, this mytho-political novel breaks apart all we know of life, death, and the routes to hope, asking us all to dream deeply and act boldly.

Indie Corner

This month’s Indie Corner is reprinted from Authority Magazine, where Rachel Kline interviewed Inland author Kate Risse. Inland (12 Willows Press) is a harrowing account of separation and resilience as two families struggle to reunite after the eastern seaboard succumbs to catastrophic flooding. Trapped in the rapid floodwaters, Juliet and Martin search for a viable way back to Boston while their children face their own challenges for survival in the rising seas. This intense tale of endurance and hope examines the human connection and the unpredictable role of technology in a warming world.

Other News

• Due to a busier schedule these days, I will change the monthly spotlights to occasional interviews in the new year. I’m still thinking of ways to continue to provide new content at Dragonfly.eco while freeing up my time more. I also wrote about 10K words on a new novel this month, and I would like to focus more on that in the new year. The new novel is set in Appalachian Kentucky and inspired by my memories and research. A young woman with similar interests in genealogy deals with a flooding crisis, which reveals mysteries she’s been curious about her entire life.
  

  

• Thanks to Rebecca from the NRDC for reaching out to let me know about the NRDC Climate Storytelling Fellowship submissions. The fellowship will grant $20,000 each to three writers (or writing teams) to support revision of a feature screenplay or pilot that engages with climate change in a compelling way through events, actions, character, emotions, plot, and/or setting. Scripts are due by December 5.

• Our song-of-the-week playlist—Nature, Climate, and Environmental Songs—is ten years old and has 392 songs. The hours of music comes in handy when I’m working in the meadow, hiking, or running! However, it’s time to close the playlist. In the new year, I’ll compile a shorter playlist that will include some of my favorites from the past decade and the occasional new song.
  

  

• As always, we welcome everyone to join the Rewilding Our Stories Discord. We’re wrapping up our Storygraph 2024 environmental reading challenge; we had 23 participants and so far have read 110 books; people read at their own speed. I’m on my 20th book this year, some have read more than a couple dozen novels, and others only recorded a novel or two so far. I need to finish my November book this weekend. It’s been a lot of fun to choose our own book club reads and share them with others on Discord. We’ll be doing something similar starting in January.

• Finally, wow, Bluesky really has taken off lately ever since people decided that billionaires controlling media, promoting hate speech, and being assigned to government positions was not something to support anymore (like duh!). I am bad at social media but joined Bluesky a few months ago. I haven’t been very active on it, but it is a breath of fresh air. Seven million people have newly joined since late October—a lot of them after the election. Bluesky was a great place to be during the days just after the election, even though this time around I didn’t allow myself to linger in grief too long or be surprised. So much thanks for people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who said on November 11:

  Earnest post, but: a thing I like here [Bluesky] is it’s okay to have moments of happiness in public without being broadly scolded, and I believe that sustaining this kind of humanity will be very important as we resist fascism. We have to sustain each other. Making joy isn’t denial, it’s how we will survive.

Resources

In case you’ve missed these exciting resources, including newest books at Dragonfly, check ‘em out!

• LinkTree: Find out more about me.

• Rewilding Our Stories: A Discord community where you can find resources, reading, and writing fun in fiction that relates strongly to nature and environment.

• Our environmental/nature song-of-the-week playlist goes back to 2015, but a new playlist is coming in 2025.

• Book recommendations: a growing list of recs.

• Eco/climate genres: They’re all over the place, and here’s an expanding compendium.

• Inspiring and informative author quotes from Dragonfly’s interviews.

• List of ecologically focused games.

• List of eco/climate films and documentaries.

• Eco-fiction links and resources.

• Book database: Database of over 1,100 book posts at Dragonfly.eco.

• Turning the Tide: The Youngest Generation: Fiction aimed toward children, teens, and young adults.

• Indie Corner: The occasional highlight of authors who publish independently.

• Artists & Climate Change. This site is no longer being updated but still has a wealth of info. I was a core writer for their team, and I’m both honored and grateful. Look for my “Wild Authors” series there.

Copyright 2024 Mary Woodbury