German poet Anja Kampmann’s award-winning debut novel is the dazzling, heart-rending story of an oil rig worker whose closest friend goes missing, plunging him into isolation and forcing him to confront his past Goodreads Reviews Back to Goodreads
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Naturalizing Africa, Cajetan Iheka
Full title: Naturalizing Africa: Ecological Violence, Agency, and Postcolonial Resistance in African Literature Though non-fiction, this text covers novels and narratives written by Africans and, according to Yale News, the book: …highlights how literary texts call attention to human-caused environmental degradation on the continent, including the ways in which postcolonial […]
Read MoreSpotlight – Tlotlo Tsamaase
Click here to return to the series Intro This month we travel to the world of Motswana author Tlotlo Tsamaase, whose short story “Eclipse Our Sins” rocked me in a good way. You can read the story at Clarkesworld. I featured this story in my last article at Medium, Part […]
Read MoreIndie Corner – Ryan Mizzen
Back to the Indie Corner series February’s Indie Corner looks at the amazing Ryan Mizzen and his children’s fiction Hedgey-A and the Honey Bees! Mary: Tell us about yourself–your life so far and how you got started in writing. What else have you written or published? Ryan: My childhood was […]
Read MoreHow Beautiful We Were, Imbolo Mbue
“We should have known the end was near.” So begins Imbolo Mbue’s powerful second novel, How Beautiful We Were. Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, it tells the story of a people living in fear amidst environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Goodreads Reviews Back to […]
Read MoreWaiting for the Night Song, Julie Carrick Dalton
I talked with Julie months ago and am finally happy to be able to share her interesting story! Julie Carrick Dalton is the author of the forthcoming novels Waiting for the Night Song (Forge Books, Jan. 2021) and The Last Beekeper (2022.) She grew up in Maryland and on a […]
Read MoreIndie Corner – Joel Burcat
Back to the Indie Corner series It’s been cool to meet Joel Burcat, an author and recently retired environmental lawyer, who has written a series of environmental legal thrillers. The first, Drink to Every Beast, was featured by Kirkus Reviews, Good Day PA, the Green Life Blue Water blog, and […]
Read MoreEco-fiction Books Coming in 2021
I learned a basic model in an anthropology class long ago, that a cultural pyramid’s base was the environment and all else drew from that, including technology, economy, polity, and ideology. As the planet continues to face multiple ecological crises, not the least of which is climate change, authors around […]
Read MoreSpotlight – Christiane Vadnais
Click here to return to the series We’ll end the crazy year of 2020 on a positive note, with a look at the lyrical novel Fauna by Christiane Vadnais. Here, we travel to the Arctic Circle (as indicated by Ursus maritimus), but the novel’s setting is fictional and inspired by […]
Read MoreMottainai: A Journey in Search of the Zero Waste Life, Virginia Aronson
Author: © Virginia Aronson Type: Fiction Novel Publisher/Ordering: Dixi Books Publication Date: October 2019 Author Links: Website, Instagram Book Description Mottainai means waste. Popular with the Japanese for generations, mottainai (pronounced moe-tie-nye) is the Buddhist term for essence. One can say mottainai and mean “waste nothing.” Or, if something appears […]
Read MoreThe Best Part of Us, Sally Cole-Misch
Author: © Sally Cole-Misch Type: Fiction Novel Publisher/Ordering: She Writes Press Publication Date: September 8, 2020 Author Links: Website, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Throughout her career, author Sally Cole-Misch has advocated for progressive environmental conservation and policy, urging people to recognize the value of nature in their lives in order to […]
Read MoreCrooked Hallelujah, Kelli Jo Ford
Crooked Hallelujah tells the stories of Justine–a mixed-blood Cherokee woman– and her daughter, Reney, as they move from Eastern Oklahoma’s Indian Country in the hopes of starting a new, more stable life in Texas amid the oil bust of the 1980s. However, life in Texas isn’t easy, and Reney feels […]
Read MoreDr. Wangari Maathai Plants a Forest, Rebel Girls
From the world of Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls comes the historical novel based on the life of Dr. Wangari Maathai, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist from Kenya. Wangari lives in a magical place in rural Kenya where the soil is rich for planting, the trees abundant, and the […]
Read MoreA Diary in the Age of Water, Nina Munteanu
Reviewed by Mary Woodbury Nina Munteanu’s newest novel, A Diary in the Age of Water, deftly follows four generations of women fighting for—and exploring scientifically, spiritually, poetically, and philosophically—water. Lynna’s mother Una and daughter Hilde understand water scientifically, but Hilde, influenced by her love-of-life Hanna, often dips into pseudoscience, which […]
Read MoreItaly Part I: Davide Sapienza, Elena Maffioletti, Tiziano Fratus
Click here to return to the series In August, I kick off two parts of a feature that heads to Italy to talk with eco-authors there. Thanks to Antonia Santopietro for her collaboration on these features. Together we planned this article, which became big enough to break into two parts […]
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