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.

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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!

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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.

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• 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.

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• 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!

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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.

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