October is usually the month I do a spooky newsletter, exploring sporror, horror memes and mythology, or eco-weird fiction. But this year I’ll go off the path some. The world itself is increasingly frightening enough. My call to action this month is to create or find the positive and support those things. Keep yourself, your family, and your community safe. Like Joan Baez said, “Action is the antidote to despair.” I agree. It’s helpful to be aware of what’s happening in the world today but also to balance what you read and see; weigh awareness of the bad with the good parts of the human race. Fall into the good fight rather than into rage bait and misinformation. Recognize that pain often gives birth to things that change us for the better, like a phoenix rising out of the ashes.

Antidotes

I can’t even begin to know where to start describing the joy I’ve felt in this world recently, despite the many ugly parts. If we think we’re alone and powerless, that’s when despair starts. If we join in an action or even just get into something meaningful on our own—for me, it’s listening to music, getting out on the trail, harvesting veggies—then we have the power to start feeling better and imagining better. These things are the cornerstones to making the world better.

I’ve realized lately that the country I was born and raised in, despite its current landslide, isn’t all lost. A powerful number of people, including artists I’ve been inspired by all my life, are choosing to love their home, while recognizing the horror, and stand up for its freedom and democracy. Here’s some examples:

• Bruce Springsteen’s Land of Hope and Dreams. When I was a teenager, I earned enough babysitting money to buy my first album. That album was Springsteen’s Born to Run. The passage of time from then to now is full of loss, death, and desperation at times, but includes the highs of reunions, friendships, family, sunsets, star-gazing, reflective runs through the woods, and love.

  

• I still hear Mom and Dad’s old console stereo wafting music around our brick bungalow and filling empty corners with love: John Denver, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Roberta Flack, Enya. I remember hearing Baez’s “We Shall Overcome” for the first time, a gospel, folk, and labor song about civil and worker rights. She wasn’t the first and won’t be the last to cover the song. Before my birthday this year, my son called me up excitedly, saying he had found the perfect gift. A few days later, the Satisfied Mind multi-album box arrived at my doorstep. Baez is still going strong, sharing art to inspire us, just as she did six decades ago.

• I was reading Brittle Paper not long ago and came across Ibua Publishing’s Raging Waters—an online anthology from 2023. You have to make an account to log in and read the stories. The stories and poems reflect despair from climate change in Uganda, with the editorial suggestion, “Our hope is that they [the stories and poems] go beyond mere enjoyment and inspire you to become an advocate for both global and local climate change action, as well as the establishment of essential safeguards for those who are most vulnerable to extreme weather events.”

• It’s October, and Nova Scotia is cooling enough four us to light the woodstove in the mornings. The past weekend had peak color, and we once again hit up the Wolfville Farmer’s Market. I came across a booth where I met an amazing author, Anne Smith-Nochasak. We talked for a good while. I glanced at two published novels in her new trilogy: River Faces North and River Becomes Shadow. I read a couple pages, and it occurred to me that she’s writing ecological fiction. So I introduced myself, and so did she, and I felt we could have talked for hours. We even had an incredible connection on what dragonflies meant to us. Chance meetings like this are awe-inspiring. If I hadn’t asked my partner if he wanted to go out to the Wolfville that day, well, who knows if I would have met Anne or found her books. It was just another inspiration during this weird time on the planet.

• No Kings. What can I say? Peaceful dissent is the way.

World eco-fiction spotlight

I talked with P. Finian Reilly about his new novel Ice’s End. It’s only the second time the global series has traveled to Antarctica—the first being a conversation with Ilija Trojanow about his novel Lamentations of Zeno. Reilly said about the novel:

For better and worse, we’re seeing things that used to be just sci-fi mainstays—artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, 24/7 surveillance—become parts of our daily lives. Climate change is so fascinating to me as a writer because we’re already locked into climactic changes, but the ways our societies and values have changed are still unknown. A lot of people in the world of Ice’s End—including, initially, the protagonist—have traded away their rights and options in life for security and stability. They live to please the corporation that ships fresh water up from Antarctica and beams them energy over failing grids. Like I said earlier, I think our society’s total dependence on reliable water and energy makes that a real possibility. But some people in Ice’s End are trying to build a sustainable, cooperation-based society. That’s also a real possibility that I don’t think gets enough attention.

Indie corner

I chatted with Micah Thorp, author of Aegolius Creek. The novel “is a study of entities at war with each other: humankind at war with nature, nature at war with itself, and a population fighting to find the balance between progress, tradition, and conservation. The story takes place in Oregon’s abundant forests, where logging companies wrangle for more footage, environmentalists lobby for control, and homesteaders dig in to protect their ownership rights.” – BookLife from Publishers Weekly

Other news

• The Rewilding our Stories Discord is doing some writing sprints on Saturday, October 25. I have missed working on my novel, so am looking forward to it. A few others are joining from 10am to 2pm AT time, or you can come at any time that day if that time zone doesn’t work for you.

  

• Columbia University Press is publishing Ainehi Edoro’s Forest Imaginaries in January 2026. “Forests in African fiction are laboratories for unmaking and remaking the world, where writers break apart familiar forms to test alternate forms of life, knowledge, and power. Instead of treating the forest as a backdrop, these writers imagine it as a living structure: a space where politics, history, myth, violence, technology, the magical, and creativity animate fictional worlds.”

Resources

• 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

• 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

• World Eco-fiction Series: Climate Change and Beyond: This series travels the planet exploring fictional stories close to natural landscapes and wildlife, often with environmental concerns.

• 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 2025 Mary Woodbury