Category — Animal rights

Sometimes small changes are actually big changes.

They just don’t seem like big changes at the time.

When it comes to veganism, I’m always on the lookout for these changes.

A celebrity announcing that he or she has gone vegan.

That’s not a big change.

But when a major retailer begins highlighting vegan products, that’s a big change.

It’s a sign that more and more people are putting their wallets where their values are.

Take the simple act of finding a pair of vegan shoes.

The easiest approach is to shop at an all-vegan store, like Moo Shoes.

But what about the more mainstream online stores, like REI?

About six months ago I noticed that REI had developed a “vegan” filtering option for men’s shoes, shown here:

At the time, there were maybe 11 shoes in this category.

I just check again today and, there are now 38 vegan shoes available. I think the increase is partly due to shoe manufacturers focusing on producing vegan shoes — as well as making a point of labeling vegan shoes appropriately. For example, many running shoes are already vegan, but not labeled as such (though Brooks does a very good job in this regard).

Zappos also now offers a vegan sort option (though it can be challenging to find).

This is a new feature — added over the past six months.

Now what about Amazon (the parent company of Zappos)?

Six months ago, Amazon was headed in the right direction.

Here is a screen grab of Amazon offering a small selection of “vegetarian” shoes.

Vegetarian? Does that mean these shoes might include cheese or butter?

Clearly, Amazon was still figuring things out — and, apparently, simply gave up. Today, there is no vegetarian or vegan filter for shoes.

But Amazon has invested heavily in offering vegan food, as shown here:

So it’s just a matter of time until Amazon adds a vegan search option to more products.

Veganism is good business, and a growing business.

And these changes, small as they may seem, are big.

Every year, the Farm Animal Rights Movement sponsors a Meatout day to, well, urge people to give up meat.

At least for a day.

Or, better yet, one day a week, a very popular trend known as “Meatout Mondays.”

There is ample evidence that cutting back on meat will improve your health.

As readers of this blog know, my focus at Ashland Creek Press has been to publish books that raise awareness of animals and the environment.

And, after our first year, we are proud to have published three novels so far that include strong vegan characters:

• Falling Into Green
• Out of Breath
• The Tourist Trail (okay, technically this book was published two years ago)

There are more books on the way.

What’s important to us about these books is that they’re character-driven stories, with characters that happen to be vegan. It’s time that veganism no longer be viewed as a fringe lifestyle but a normal lifestyle — and it’s time that our literature reflects this growing trend.

Which is a large part of why we’re here today.

PS: If you’re a writer that is working on an “ecolit” novel, we welcome submissions.

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.

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.

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.