It is officially my favorite time of year: pumpkin ale, deer eating all the peaches, apples falling, and golden light and colors.
Thanks for continuing to read Dragonfly.eco’s newsletter. Please be aware that our first big vacation in three years happens next month, so my goal is to put the newsletter out early, but if I can’t do it before we travel to a family reunion, I will publish it later in the month.
What’s New?
Check out Dragonfly.eco for new books and spotlights:
Rewilding Our Stories: The Discord community is starting to read our voted-on book club choice: Becky Chambers’ A Psalm for the Wild-Built, which just won the 2022 Hugo Award for best novella. We’re also having fun with our weekly questions (this week’s is: how do you come up with fictional and gaming character names?). The website accompanying the Discord community is now online but is still a work-in-progress. We have our first submissions call-out for a writing exercise: How has a place you love been affected by climate and ecological changes? Free for all to join and pitch in! Along with your piece, feel free to promote your other work through blogs and social media links.
World Eco-fiction: This month we go around the world while exploring author Lauren James’ YA novel Green Rising, where young teens start a world-wide green rising, aided by their ability to grow plants out of their skin. I want that super-hero ability for sure!
Backyard Wildlife: This month I talk about harvest and crickets, with some bonus photos of two young bucks hanging out in the yard. One is a piebald. Gorgeous!
Indie Corner: My uncle-in-law, W.R. Woodbury, recently published a novel called Boneyard Highway. I’m truly impressed with his writing, travels, art, and experiences. Caring about climate change and how it intersects with the arts must run in the family.
Turning the Tide: Not only do we have the Green Rising feature, but Kimberly Christensen has a review of the middle-grade fiction Trouble at Turtle Pond by Diana Renn.
For more new and upcoming books, see Dragonfly.eco.
Book Recommendation
A beautiful book came in the mail last week! It’s Ducks by Kate Beaton, someone my husband I follow on Twitter. Ducks is a memoir in graphic novel form about Kate’s time spent working in the Canadian oil sands. This is a subject I studied and wrote extensively about a few years ago. So, I grabbed the beautiful big book and dug in. It’s really cool, and I didn’t know graphic novels could be this big. Here is a photo of the book, without the dust jacket, in our front window. Part of the story is about the hardships and realities of life working in the oil sands. Drawn and Quarterly says: “Her first full length graphic narrative, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, is an untold story of Canada: a country that prides itself on its egalitarian ethos and natural beauty while simultaneously exploiting both the riches of its land and the humanity of its people.”
Personal News
I mentioned above that we are getting ready to travel in October. The result of some time off means that two of my upcoming world eco-fiction spotlights this year will not be interviews, but October’s feature will, with Rae Mariz, author of Weird Fishes. The November and December spotlights will be essays on authors no longer alive. I got to thinking that it would be a good idea for me to do a couple spotlights on classic eco-fiction each year, on authors who are no longer alive but contributed to either world-wide or recognizable local classics that deal with ecology and fiction.
I have two upcoming books! On October 8 is the second part of The Adventures of Finn Wilder: Taco, Avocado, Cow. It’s a very short children’s story about Finn’s first hiking trip, albeit in a baby backpack, at a park close to my heart, Turkey Run.
The other book, under my pen name Clara Hume, is the second novel in The Wild Mountain duology: The Stolen Child. In this story, we’ll find a world unrecognizable to those of us in living in the early to mid-21st century. Fran and Leo’s youngest child, Fae, goes missing after extreme wildfires force the family off their Idaho mountain. Fae’s story is told in short interludes, which contrast with the first person narratives written by the adults around her, as her life is upended and she ends up in Schull, Ireland, home of the “last wolf in Ireland.” Also available for pre-order. The prequel, Back to the Garden, received numerous accolades.
Resources
In case you’ve missed these exciting resources at Dragonfly, which are constantly being updated, check ‘em out!
Rewilding Our Stories: A Discord community, now expanded into a website, where you can find resources, reading, and writing fun in fiction that relates strongly to nature and environment.
New subreddit: Ecofiction. A place to find almost daily news about novels, articles, news, and films in the field of rewilded/ecofiction.
World’s biggest playlist? Our environmental/nature song-of-the-week playlist goes back to 2015.
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 900 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
Backyard Wildlife: A hidden gem exploring how we are rewilding our own backyard and meadow
Artists & Climate Change. This is an extraordinary resource delving into all kinds of the arts focused on climate change. For a while now they’ve been rerunning my world eco-fiction spotlights. I’m a core writer for their team, and I’m both honored and grateful. Look for my “Wild Authors” series there.
Copyright 2024 Mary Woodbury