Behind the scenes of The Tourist Trail

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Awhile back I started a “best eco-fiction” list on GoodReads.

While there is plenty of excellent non-fiction out there about animal rights and activism, I wanted to focus on fiction.

Since then, the list has grown as others have suggested books I wasn’t aware of or had completely overlooked.

Here are a few titles from the list that are specific to animal rights:

Elizabeth Costello
J.M. Coetzee

I could have just as easily highlighted two other novels by Coetzee: Disgrace and Diary of a Bad Year. Animal rights is a recurring theme in Coetzee’s work and a few of his protagonists are vegetarians. Elizabeth Costello is a vegetarian (or vegan) and her speech in a chapter of the book called The Lives of Animals has become a popular work on its own. What’s I most like about this book is the dynamic between Elizabeth and her son’s family (who are not vegetarians). It’s a tense relationship to be sure and one that I think many vegetarians can relate to.

A Report to An Academy
Franz Kafka

Though this story is only a few thousand words long, it left a mark on me. It is a speech given by an ape that was once wild but is now “civilized.”

Here is an excerpt:

I could never have achieved what I have done had I been stubbornly set on clinging to my origins, to the remembrances of my youth. In fact, to give up being stubborn was the supreme commandment I laid upon myself; free ape as I was, I submitted myself to that yoke. In revenge, however, my memory of the past has closed the door against me more and more. I could have returned at first, had human beings allowed it, through an archway as wide as the span of heaven over the earth, but as I spurred myself on in my forced career, the opening narrowed and shrank behind me; I felt more comfortable in the world of men and fitted it better; the strong wind that blew after me out of my past began to slacken; today it is only a gentle puff of air that plays around my heels; and the opening in the distance, through which it comes and through which I once came myself, has grown so small that, even if my strength and my willpower sufficed to get me back to it, I should have to scrape the very skin from my body to crawl through.

A Mother’s Tale
James Agee

A Mother’s Tale is a short story that deals head-on with animal slaughter. The story can be read in many ways; it is surely as much about humans as it is about animals.

For children, there is quite a lot of literature out there, from Black Beauty to Mrs. Frisby and The Nats of NIMH. And I must mention that our press has recently published a young adult “vegan vampire” novel: Out of Breath.

I remember as a child being struck by the violence that animals often endured (or were forced to escape from) in these books. Looking back, I wonder how I was able to reconcile reading books that took the points of view of animals with the fact that I was also eating animals. But I quickly learned, as did others, to reserve empathy for those animals we consider pets.

As Coetzee writes in Foe: We must cultivate, all of us, a certain ignorance, a certain blindness, or society will not be tolerable.

It is clear to me that we as a society are just beginning to remove the blinders regarding animal welfare.

I’m looking forward to publishing several books in 2012 that will further the cause. Stay tuned.

If you have any books to add to this list, login to Goodreads and please do so. Or add a comment below.

• If you want to sell lots of books, you’ve got to give away lots of books
• The emergence of eco-literature
• A few more book reviews
• Notes from a road less taken
• Penguins don’t need Google Maps

So what I have been up to these past few months?

Well, I went and co-founded a publishing house: Ashland Creek Press.

As you know, I’m passionate about animal rights and the environment.That’s why I wrote The Tourist Trail.

But one of the reasons I struggled to find a mainstream publisher for this novel was that mainstream publishers didn’t know how to market the book.

Publishers want to publish books that address well-established markets. Like mystery novels or thrillers or chick-lit.

Publishers are not very good at identifying new markets.

Like eco-literature.

The eco-lit label has been traditionally used to describe nonfiction environmental works. But there is no reason why a novel can’t he labeled eco-lit. For example, we recently published a young adult paranormal romance novel, which also happens to be the world’s first “vegan vampire” novel. I would consider this book to be eco-lit, but also one that fits more established categories as well.

Amazon does not yet offer an eco-lit category for publishers. For now, we will build upon existing categories. Next year, we’ve got an eco-mystery planned, as well as two novels that both fall under the eco-lit theme.

The best thing about starting this press is that I’ve realized how many other writers out there who share our passion for eco-literature. I believe the readers are out there as well, and that their numbers will continue to grow.

Every genre has got to start somewhere.

• Why I won’t be getting a review from Publishers Weekly
• A brief survey of animal rights literature
• Amazon doubles Kindle royalties (with strings attached)
• Apple iBooks: Great for bestselling authors, not so good for the rest of us authors
• The Tourist Trail: Six Months On

Hot off the presses! These 1-inch “FAUX” buttons are a positive way of showing your support for non-leather and fur products.

And for anyone who purchases a copy of The Tourist Trail, I’ll include a free button (or more if you buy more).

Purchase here.

• How to set up “Kindle for the Web” on your site
• Leather is losing its lustre among athletes
• The reviews are in…
• Apple iBooks: Great for bestselling authors, not so good for the rest of us authors
• If you want to sell lots of books, you’ve got to give away lots of books

I read yesterday that Brian Gordon, Major League Baseball pitcher for the Yankees, became the first player to use a 100% non-leather glove.

This may seem like a trivial detail, but it’s not. Leather has long been viewed as the best material for many sports-related products — from shoes to gloves to the balls themselves. And this is still largely the case, but Brian’s glove is a significant change. Sports stars influence millions of young people around the world. And you can bet that future pitchers who want to follow in Brian’s footsteps are going to take a close look at a synthetic glove.

The maker of the glove Carpenter Trade Company writes:

Leather in gloves 50 years ago held up better and longer than leather used today. The reason is that cattle raised for slaughter 50 years ago were usually raised naturally—meaning they roamed in open fields, ate grass, and were slaughtered at a mature age (about 5 years). Today’s leather usually comes from factory-farmed cattle. These animals are confined to feed lots where they don’t build muscle or thick hides. They are fed unnatural, fattening diets of grains supplemented with growth hormones. They go to slaughter at a young age (about 14 months). The resulting leather is inferior. While animal leathers have gotten worse, man-made leathers are always advancing.

The time for synthetics in professional baseball gloves has come. Each year more synthetics are being used in parts of Major League gloves. Star players such as Roy Halladay and Alex Rodriguez are opting for synthetic backs. Welting, lining, and padding are increasingly made with synthetics by most brands. The newest synthetics are out-performing leather. Completely synthetic gloves will be an industry standard in the future.

The case for avoiding leather — saving animals — often falls on deaf ears. But when you add the fact that synthetic materials can be more effective than leather — you will quickly find an audience among athletes.

Personally, I can attest that running shoes have followed a similar path of evolution. When I took up running back in the dark ages, leather running shoes were the norm. But leather shoes are heavier. And weight is not a good thing when it comes to running.

Today, you’d be hard-pressed to find a leather running shoe. They exist, but mostly as “retro” shoes, not as something a professional would use.

I recommend Brooks shoes — in which every one of their shoes but one (the Addiction walker — a rather ironic name) is vegan.

But Brooks has gone beyond simply avoiding leather. Their Green Silence model, shown here, uses 70% recycled materials.

It’s an amazing shoe, and a sign of things to come.

As pro athletes embrace faux alternatives to leather, they influence millions of us civilians to do the same. And, more important, they influence their suppliers (the Nikes of the world) to embrace faux products.

Yes, we’re still in the early days. I realize that leather is everywhere and still tightly associated with luxury products and “manly” products.

But small changes are happening all around us.

And that’s how major changes happen. In small steps, repeated by hundreds, thousands, and, eventually, millions of people.

• Notes from a road less taken
• Go FAUX
• The Cove is the tip of the iceberg
• The penguins of Punta Tombo, 28 years later
• 500 dead penguins wash ashore in Brazil