Ep 65: Co-writing and using environment for atmosphere with Devils Island by Midge Raymond and John Yunker

Hey ecofictologists! Welcome to episode 67 of the Ecofictology podcast. I really enjoyed my chat with DSG Burke, author of Mean Higher High Water, a dystopian speculative fiction novel that she was kind enough to send me. I hope you enjoy it too!You can find more about Deborah here: https://www.dsgburke.com/

Hey ecofictologists, welcome to episode 65 of the Ecofictology podcast. This week we are chatting with Midge Raymond and John Yunker from Ashland Creek press and we are talking about their new book Devils Island, which launched in September, published by OceanView Publishing. We cover their inspiration, the experience of co-writing with your spouse and using environment as atmosphere in your writing. Enjoy! Links Devils Island: https://midgeandjohn.com/  Book events: https://midgeandjohn.com/events.html  John Yunker: https://www.johnyunker.com/  Midge Raymond: https://midgeraymond.com/  Ecolit Books: https://ecolitbooks.com/  Ashland Creek Press: https://ashlandcreekpress.com/

Hey ecofictologists and welcome to episode 64 of the Ecofictology podcast! This week we are talking to a younger audience with our guest, Angela Mills, the author of the beautifully illustrated book Bobby the Brown Long-eared bat. I came across Angela while listening to a panel talk that the Bat Conservation Trust was putting on along with other authors who wrote childrens books about bats. And there were a few children on the call and it was absolutely heartwarming to see them engaging so much. I was excited to talk to Angela about what she thought was important when writing for kids and wanting to spark that bit of excitement in them for whatever species you’re writing about. Bobby did the job. You can find her book on her website and a portion of the profits go directly to The Bat Conservation trust so it’s doubly for a good cause. You can find the link in the show notes. I hope you enjoy.  Angela’s website  https://www.bobbythebrownlong-earedbat.co.uk/  Bat Conservation Trust https://www.bats.org.uk/  Join the Rewilding Our Stories discord server! If you want to find more ecofiction lovers like yourself, get recommendations and share resources, head over to https://discord.gg/zbMz59UNdm and join our community!

Hey ecofictologists and welcome to episode 63 of the Ecofictology podcast! This week I’m introducing you to Kaitlyn Elverson, the engagement officer for Bug Life in the UK, who I found through the talks she gave for Buglife on the folklore of insects and on myth and mystery of folklore in the history of wildflowers and trees. I was fascinated and excited as I always am to find someone who turns to storytelling as a way to find connection to nature. Kaitlyn is also an musician and I will be linking all her various social medias below and i highly recommend you check her out. She sometimes uses her music to convey a particular message about nature, so see if you can spot them. I very much enjoyed my interview with kaitlyn and i hope you do too.  Folklore of Insects https://www.buglife.org.uk/events/folklore-of-insects-with-kaitlyn-elverson/  Myth, Mystery and Folklore Guided Walk https://www.buglife.org.uk/events/myth-mystery-and-folklore-guided-walk/  Kaitlyn’s music: https://soundcloud.com/kaitlynelverson  https://kaitlynelverson.bandcamp.com/album/ep-kaitlyn-elverson  Kaitlyn’s social media: https://www.instagram.com/canwefollowalice/  Join the Rewilding Our Stories discord server! If you want to find more ecofiction lovers like yourself, get recommendations and share resources, head over to https://discord.gg/zbMz59UNdm and join our community!

Hey ecofictologists and welcome to episode 62 of the Ecofictology podcast! This week you are getting a twofer as my dad likes to call them. You’re getting a little bit of a book review and then right on its heels, an interview with the author, one that i was downright giddy to do. The book? A Murder of Crows, the first book in the Nell Ward Mystery series. The author? Sarah Yarwood lovett, an ecological consultant who has put her knowledge and her experiences into a murder mystery novel. Can you see why i was excited? This book turned out to be my favourite book of 2022, i devoured it completely. And i loved nerding out with Sarah during our interview so prepare to learn a thing or two about bats. Or four or six things. I’m too excited for you to dive into the world of Nell Ward so i’m going to keep this intro short. As usual, you can find the video versions of these parts on my youtube channel, links are down below, i hope you enjoy. August and September reading wrap up | Monthly reads | Favourite ecofiction novel of Quarter 3!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQTY8cf6eRk&list=PLErvk5p2-eWqIJaGfibZuk8YZvCggE68O&index=47  Bats, bats, bats! | Interview with Sarah Yarwood Lovett | Author of A Murder of Crows https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQohlTk_WZc&list=PLErvk5p2-eWoC2qkqDRKjUm-eLzChdx0o&index=25  Join the Rewilding Our Stories discord server! If you want to find more ecofiction lovers like yourself, get recommendations and share resources, head over to https://discord.gg/zbMz59UNdm and join our community!

Hey ecofictologists and welcome to episode 61 of the Ecofictology podcast! This episode was really just a giant brain dump of things that I had been thinking about, lots of ideas and mostly questions about how important is scientific accuracy in fiction. We’ve all had that experience where we read something outside of our field of expertise and think it’s really cool and well researched and then read something inside our field and think, well this would never happen its entirely unrealistic. But how much artistic license could we give the author in order to make it a compelling story? Where do we put those boundaries? And it probably depends on what the purpose of the piece of fiction is: to teach or not to teach? I filmed this collection of questions in two parts but have combined them together here so you can be overloaded with questions all at once, you lucky ducks, and I first talk about fiction where science communication is the goal and something called the CSI effect, and then about fiction that really isn't trying to teach you anything, but might have unintended consequences anyway of not being accurate or realistic. I talk about environmental disaster films and films that demonise predators like Jaws. In fact, I go on a bit of a rant about it. If you’d rather watch me do that than listen, you can find parts 1 and 2 linked in the shownotes. Also, if you have thoughts on this topic, please reach out to me because it’s something i really enjoy talking about! Enjoy the rant How important is scientific accuracy in fiction? | Science Communication | CSI effect | Part 1  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOoOTtKGh_k&list=PLErvk5p2-eWrrcYOqiDbHPufF5XR3sr94&index=20  Scientific Accuracy in Fiction | Anti-Ecofiction | Demonisation of predators | Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKIo0wBY6sw&list=PLErvk5p2-eWrrcYOqiDbHPufF5XR3sr94&index=21  CSI Effect papers  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1163231  https://www.jstor.org/stable/29762978   https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/7381446/stith_roane_the_csi_effect-_us_news_and_world_report-with-cover-page-v2.pdf?Expires=1645362650&Signature=LBN6D1TpQD7LDReCEI0jrtaty1n6x2NexOD1ARFzP3Rpu7dw~tNid8IToaTdoelXRgS21JZK0lvZ8-J7Jk9VaQWdqULiqz31WJYu4YUI0hi83Fgw0AKTfBw8EoDy13HP0JpVtStAGan10uEkid~jLLwgF0MXDaW-qFolPobH-X3wUftnvGi5kHc8shEKXLj7LpNvhYuquu4FQ0B-~NpeWXOB~pcxpfJsezIl~J9ki2EAZBB5H8khiM6V5SKeEvKF7obE4CjPhXXKgrKUdzAqBvEx~zKanFVyc4MZo2NmIyHQclhD6Y3eAvuLEQ5TsY9xSd7nRQjtaCSGQrpS-ONb0Q__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA  https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1027&context=themis   https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/csi-effect-does-it-really-exist  Environmental Scientists on Vanity Fair  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz42l-KZgJo   Article on the effect of Jaws  https://daily.jstor.org/sharks-before-and-after-jaws/#:~:text=The%20blockbuster%20Jaws%20(1975)%20provoked,think%20of%20sharks%20before%20then%3F&text=It%20lives%20to%20kill.,A%20mindless%20eating%20machine.   Join the Rewilding Our Stories discord server! If you want to find more ecofiction lovers like yourself, get recommendations and share resources, head over to https://discord.gg/zbMz59UNdm and join our community!

Hey ecofictologists and welcome to episode 60 of the Ecofictology podcast! This week I am introducing you to a wonderful author, AE Copenhaver, who I had the great pleasure of talking to. This interview is a little different than others I have done because I wasn’t only interviewing her about her book, My Days of Dark Green Euphoria, which was published by Ashland Creek Press, you’ll recognise that publisher if you’ve been around for a while...but i wasn’t only asking questions about that, what i really wanted to talk to Athena about was the strength of messaging in ecofiction. When i first read the book which Ashland creek press sent to me, i was a little unsure whether i enjoyed it because the vegan messaging was so intense, until i realised that it was supposed to be over the top and satirical, more of a commentary on the angry vegan than actually saying this is how people should act. And then it became funny and more powerful. But it was such an interesting discussion and we really enjoyed ourselves, so i hope that comes across here. This is an archived episode from my youtube channel so if you want to watch us have this chat, which i would almost recommend because we laughed a lot and Athena is very engaging to watch, you can find the link in the shownotes. I hope you enjoy My Days of Dark Green Euphoria by AE Copenhaver https://www.ashlandcreekpress.com/books/darkgreeneuphoria.html  Finding your audience with AE Copenhaver | My Days of Dark Green Euphoria | Strength of messaging https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF2lhOslPYQ&list=PLErvk5p2-eWoC2qkqDRKjUm-eLzChdx0o&index=24  Join the Rewilding Our Stories discord server! If you want to find more ecofiction lovers like yourself, get recommendations and share resources, head over to https://discord.gg/zbMz59UNdm and join our community!

Hey ecofictologists and welcome to episode 59 of the Ecofictology podcast! This is the final part of our Spells and Specialists episode with mauricio garcia and i have thoroughly enjoyed learning about perfumes and smells and all the wondrous things that he has taught us in previous parts. This part 4 is where we brainstorm a story to communicate all that wondrousness to the world and i have to say, i immediately want to write this story. I feel like i say that every spells and specialists episode but i got really excited about this and the story just came together so nicely! We explore themes of coming of age, fighting oppression, finding yourself, and all the while we teach readers about perfumes and smells. It’s fantastic. And of course i am joined by my wonderful cohost Clark Rowenson, the magic engineer, so be sure to check out his channel on youtube for more cool stuff on magic systems and his blueprint method we used in the last part. Get your storytelling hats on and enjoy. Mauricio Garcia’s website https://www.herbcraftperfumery.com/about-mg-2020  Coalition of Sustainable Perfumery https://www.sustainableperfumery.org/  Join the Rewilding Our Stories discord server! If you want to find more ecofiction lovers like yourself, get recommendations and share resources, head over to https://discord.gg/zbMz59UNdm and join our community!

Hey ecofictologists and welcome to episode 58 of the Ecofictology podcast!  I’m sure you’ve been waiting for this part of our Spells and Specialists episode with Mauricio Garcia where we build a magic system based on the art of perfumery and our seed crystal of “magically infused perfumes can gently alter aspects of reality as well as creatures, minds and bodies”. What a cracker of a seed crystal! And we do come up with a cracker of a magic system as well, and we totally don’t control ourselves when it comes to not jumping forward to part 4. In fact we finish this part with quite a lot of the plot already figured out so next week’s episode is going to be slightly strange. But of course this part 3 revolves around the magic system which we develop using the Magic system blueprint which my cohost clark rowenson developed and you can find more info on that as well as the video version of this episode on his youtube channel the magic engineer. This part does have the visual component of tweaking the blueprint as we go through the steps so i do recommend checking that out if you’re interested in how it all works. But i think you get most of it just by listening too so i’ll shut up now and let you get on with it, I hope you enjoy Mauricio Garcia’s website https://www.herbcraftperfumery.com/about-mg-2020  Coalition of Sustainable Perfumery https://www.sustainableperfumery.org/ Join the Rewilding Our Stories discord server! If you want to find more ecofiction lovers like yourself, get recommendations and share resources, head over to https://discord.gg/zbMz59UNdm and join our community!

Hey ecofictologists and welcome to episode 57 of the Ecofictology podcast!  This is Part 2 of our spells and specialists episode with Mauricio Garcia, the perfumer and aromatherapist who blew our minds last week teaching us all the cool stuff. As a recap, our main messages from part 1 were that smell is form of pseudo psychic messaging, that industry and scent create global connections, and that the process of perfumery is resource intensive and we have a responsibility to do it ethically and sustainably. Part 2 as you know by now is all about finding our seed crystal, which is a concept that my cohost Clark Rowenson came up with to distill all our thoughts down to a single sentence from which our inspiration will take off. You can find more about that and about magic systems in general on Clark’s youtube channel, the magic engineer, which is also where you will find the video of this episode. The link for that is in the show notes along with the link to Mauricio’s website and all that good stuff. Honestly i love the seed crystal we came up with and i hope you do too. Enjoy! Mauricio Garcia’s website https://www.herbcraftperfumery.com/about-mg-2020  Coalition of Sustainable Perfumery https://www.sustainableperfumery.org/  Join the Rewilding Our Stories discord server! If you want to find more ecofiction lovers like yourself, get recommendations and share resources, head over to https://discord.gg/zbMz59UNdm and join our community!