Click here to return to the world eco-fiction series
I’m so excited to share with our readers some of the book projects the Rewilding our Stories Discord is doing. The Discord community began just over five years ago. Looking back, I wonder if it was Covid that prompted the idea of creating a place where a community of artists, writers, scientists, podcasters, readers, students, professors, gamers, game developers, and musicians could explore the broad scope of ecological themes in fiction and and other art. Whatever called us into this exploration spurred a continually evolving place that’s still growing. We still feel like a tight-knit community, even with over 300 members. Thanks to Lovis Geier for co-founding this group with me and Sara Davis for joining later and helping run things, including acting as our moderator for a few Flights of Foundry panels.
But right now, let’s go around the world to discover some creative talents of our most prolific authors. Each summary is told in the author’s own words.
Ann Cavlovic – Lives in Quebec
Book description: On the surface, Count on Me is a story about love and money colliding in a family. Tia is raising a baby when her older brother Tristan gradually takes over their ailing parents’ bank account, house, and medical decisions. Meanwhile, through the subplot, the novel draws parallels between interpersonal and environmental toxicity; Tia is also an accountant who reluctantly audits environmental charities that have drawn the ire of the government over their opposition to oil and gas pipelines. Woven together, with hope and humour amid the realities of elder abuse, Count on Me explores how we come to feel entitled to someone else’s resources, what it takes to break cycles across generations, and how human relationships can rise above the transactional.
Something most people don’t know about me: Most in the creative writing world may not be aware that I am an environmental economist by day. (The juicy answers will remain top secret!)
Links: Guernica Editions, Montreal Review of Books
M.C. Benner Dixon – Lives in Pennsylvania
Book description: My novel is The Height of the Land, winner of the Orison Fiction Prize and released this April by Orison Books. The Height of Land takes place in the far distant future, in a world suffering from the consequences of generations past. A violent storm sends the villagers of Chert River fleeing for their lives, but Red stays, convinced that the storm was not just a storm but a god returned from exile and come in search for him. And he wants to be found. This novel is a spiritual quest, full of natural beauty and poetry. In his effort to meet a god, Red encounters outlaws, skeptics, and true believers. His questions drive him onward, but the answers unsettle the world he has always known.
Something most people don’t know about me: Whenever I catch a faint whiff of skunk on the air, I always perk up. To me, it smells like fresh brewed coffee until it gets a little more intense . . . eventually I realize my error, but not before I horrify everyone with me by exclaiming, “Oh, that smells nice! What is that?”
Link: Orison Books
BrightFlame – Lives on Turtle Island
Book description: The Working. A modern coven must thwart a looming eco-cataclysm and find the key to the bright futures we need. Betsy’s a modern-day Witch with an ageless problem: she’s worried about screwing up her coven’s ritual. Again. But the coven has a bigger issue to face—the destruction of their home thanks to a fracked gas pipeline. And then an even bigger problem—a greed-fueled entity will soon obliterate Earth’s ability to support life. Follow the coven as they sort among allies and threats, human and ethereal, and seek the magic to avert the cataclysm.
Something people don’t know about me: As a Witch and a writer, I’m very intuitive and creative. But I also love logic and problem-solving. When I was young, I took Electrical Engineering courses for fun. I had nearly the credits for an Associate degree even though I had no plan to go into that field.
Link: Website
Ruthanna Emrys – Lives in the Netherlands
Book description: A Half-Built Garden. The first alien visitors to Earth have crossed the galaxy to save humanity, convinced that the people of Earth must leave their ecologically ravaged planet behind and join them among the stars. And if humanity doesn’t agree, they may need to be saved by force. But the watershed networks that rose up to save the planet from corporate devastation aren’t ready to give up on Earth. Decades ago, they reorganized humanity around the hope of keeping the world livable. By sharing the burden of decision-making, they’ve started to heal our wounded planet. Now corporations, nation-states, and networks all vie to represent humanity to these powerful new beings, and if anyone accepts the aliens’ offer, Earth may be lost.
Something most people don’t know about me: I just moved to the Netherlands, where I’m getting to explore real-life watershed-based governance!
Link: Book order
Clara Hume – Lives in Nova Scotia
Book description: The Wild Mountain duology includes Back to the Garden and The Stolen Child. In the first novel, a group of family and friends on an Idaho mountain seek out to find loved ones in a post-apocalyptic world. Twenty years later, in the final novel, we’ll find a world unrecognizable to those of us in living in the early to mid-21st century. Two of the main characters from the first book, Fran and Leo, have a young daughter Fae, who goes missing after extreme wildfires force the family off their Idaho mountain and into British Columbia. Fae’s story is told in short interludes, which contrast with first person narratives written by the adults around her, as her life is upended. She ends up in Schull, the legendary home of the last wolf in Ireland.
Something most people don’t know about me: When I began writing fiction, another Canadian author named Mary Woodbury was an established and prolific writer of children’s books in Canada, so I decided to choose a pen name. Clara Hume isn’t randomly chosen, though. In Spanish class when younger, the teacher called us by our real Spanish names, but because there was another Mary/Maria in class, I had to choose something different. I fell in love with the Spanish name Clara: bright and clear. Decades later, I got obsessed with “Lost”, and my favorite character was Desmond Hume. I decided to combine my early Spanish name Clara with Desmond’s last name, and there you go.
Link: Dragonfly Publishing
Rae Mariz – Lives near the Pacific Ocean
Book description: Weird Fishes. When Ceph, a squid-like scientist, discovers proof of the ocean’s slowing currents, she makes the dangerous ascent from her deep-sea civilization to the uncharted surface above. Out of her depths and helpless in her symbiotic mech suit, Ceph relies on Iliokai, a seal-folk storyteller, who has seen evidence of clogged currents as she surfs the time gyres throughout the lonely blue. Navigating the perils of their damaged ocean environment, and seemingly insurmountable cultural differences, Ceph and Iliokai realize that the activities of terrestrial beings are slowing the spiraling currents of time. On a journey that connects future and past, the surface and the deep, the unlikely friends struggle to solve a problem so big it needs a leviathan solution. It’s “a classic fish-out-of-water tale, except entirely underwater.”
Something most people don’t know about me: I’m a pretty private person, so the stuff people know about me are the things I feel comfortable with them knowing about me—which is what makes writing fiction so scary! All the real stuff seeps (terrifyingly!) into the writing, revealing all my secrets. But more of a “fun fact” thing: I just started collaborating with a game designer friend on some projects and, even though it’s still early in the process, I feel like designing video games could be my calling. I’m loving the work so much! Hope I’ll be able to share more later.
Link: Stelliform Press
JP Nebra – Lives on Earth with an orange cat
Book description: Forfeiture is an ecological sci-fi novel. One reviewer described it as “part thriller, part moral reckoning, and part love letter to Earth itself. If you like your science fiction full of big ideas, heart, and a serious punch, add this one to your list.” An advanced alien civilization who venerate the presence of life and diversity of life—since it is the rarest thing they have found in millennia of searching the galaxy—return to Earth in the present day, summoned by indigenous cultural memories. They are aghast at what they find—and the story unfolds over their next 12 months on Earth. It touches on descriptions of the natural world, alien takes on human ideologies and society, alien perspectives on abiogenesis and panpsychism, the complexity of humanity’s response and ultimately leads to a dramatic conclusion.”
Something most people don’t know about me: When I see a large, mature tree cut down—one I am familiar with in my local environment—it is painful and disturbing to me. It takes me weeks to get used the scene missing the tree. I think it is a mild form of grief.
Links: Website, order book
Rachel A. Rosen – Lives in Canada
Book description: Cascade: In the wake of a worsening climate crisis, magic runs rampant and demons roam across the Canadian prairies. A long-dead god stirs in the Pacific Ocean, while the wilderness is choked by invasive, screaming grass. The Cascade has shattered political stability, leaving a scandal-plagued government clinging to power in Ottawa. As catastrophe looms ahead, a precognitive political rainman, Ian Mallory, stands between run-of-the-mill corruption and a nightmarish, dystopian future. It is up to a diverse and unlikely band of activists, scientists, journalists, and one underpaid, emoji-spell wielding intern to save their beleaguered country from its own worst impulses.
Something most people don’t know about me: I’m obsessed with baking shows and used to work for NASCAR.
Link: The BumblePuppy Press
Lauren C. Teffeau – Lives in the Southwest
Book description: A Hunger with No Name is a coming-of-age tale with an environmental focus featuring an immersive fantasy setting inspired in part by the high desert of New Mexico. Thurava of Astrava is intended to become a herder, a most honored position for her dwindling community that clings to life on the banks of the Najimov, the river that’s the lifeblood of the high desert. But the Glass City on the horizon threatens the delicate balance the Astravans have managed to hold on to for centuries, polluting the air and water as the city grows bigger and bigger. The Glass City’s clockwork liaisons offer to bring the Astravans into the Glass City’s walls, but they will have to give up their ways and their precious herds to do so. Thurava must decide who she is without her animals, using the stars as her guide, putting herself on a collision course with the secrets the Glass City holds dear.
Something most people don’t know about me: I’ve just earned my first belt in Aikido. I was looking for ways to stay active because I do a lot of sitting as a writer, and I’ve always wanted to explore the martial arts. Plus my daughter is of an age where I’d like for her to learn how to protect herself. We lucked into a great dojo that trains us together so we can keep each other motivated as we progress. I really enjoy how aikido requires you to use your brain and your body together in a sport that showcases mobility alongside strength. There’s a meditative quality to a lot of the movements as well. It’s been a lot of fun embracing our inner samurai since we also train with wooden swords and the jo staff.
Links: Website, University of Tampa Press
Marissa van Uden (editor) – From New Zealand, now living in a cabin in the woods in Vermont
Book authors: Eugen Bacon (Tanzania/Australia), E. Catherine Tobler, Hiron Ennes (Colorado), K-Ming Chang (California/New York), Kay Vaindal (Maryland), Kelsea Yu (Pacific Northwest), Renan Bernardo (Brazil/Rio de Janeiro), and many other brilliant authors.
Book description: ECO24: The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction is the first of a new annual anthology that curates the most compelling short stories published in this genre every year, and it’s also the first release from Violet Lichen Books, an imprint of Apex Book Company that focuses on weird and ecological fiction. ECO24 explores humanity’s deep relationships with other species and of our communal fears, grief, and passion as we try to protect our natural world, all told through the lens of the fantastic. It features award-winning works as well as stories by rising stars and overlaps with many other genres.
Something most people don’t know about me: I once spontaneously took a job in a small city where I didn’t know a soul and moved there for a year with only my pet ferret and two Oscar fish in a six-foot tropical aquarium as housemates.
Links: Apex Book Company, Violet Lichen Books
Clara Ward – Lives in or on the Pacific Ocean
Book description: Be the Sea is a queer solarpunk sci-fi novel that reimagines ocean ecosystems and human involvement. In November 2039, marine scientist Wend Taylor heaves themself aboard a zero-emissions boat skippered by elusive nature photographer Viola Yang. Guided by instinct, ocean dreams, and a shared birthday in 1972, they barter stories for passage across the Pacific. When they reach Hawai’i, Wend and their emerging chosen family must navigate an ever-shifting future, complicated by bioengineered microbes and a plot to silence scientists, entangled with inexplicable dreams and a calling to Be the Sea.
Something most people don’t know about me: While my first love was the ocean, I’ve recently taken up nature journaling to develop a fresh perspective on land-based ecosystems, including those right outside my front door. Nature journaling has renewed my sense of wonder. I spent nearly an hour sketching the fig vines encasing a nearby vertical wall and over an hour investigating a California sagebrush that hunched precariously atop a windy hill. (Hint: I didn’t even know it was a California sagebrush until after I’d drawn it at three different magnifications and filled two pages of my notebook with questions!)
Link: Atthis Arts
Carina Zacharias – Lives in Germany
Book description: My current work in progress is a biographical novel: The life of an extraordinary woman, retold in novel form. The Scottish poet Isobel Wylie Hutchison (1889–1982) was many things: a poet, painter, author, botanist, and explorer. Contrary to all conventions, she always sought freedom and independence. In a time when it was still customary for women to become mothers and housewives, she traveled alone, despite all dangers and obstacles, into the wilderness of Greenland, Alaska and Canada to study the flora. With her sensational journeys, she achieved fame beyond the borders of her homeland during her lifetime and contributed to our knowledge of the distribution of species
Something most people don’t know about me: I grew up in a zoo. Quite literally. The partner of my mother used to be the director of the zoo of my hometown and that job went along with an apartment on the zoo’s grounds. As a kid and teen, I loved going into the zoo after visiting hours or watching the penguins from the kitchen window!
Links: Website, YouTube, Beyond the Game
