Category — The Tourist Trail

A lot, actually. Which is largely why this blog has remained untouched for so long.

That small press that Midge and I founded about a year ago is humming along nicely. We’ve got about 10 books in various stages of production.

Most of these books have strong environmental themes. Like Falling Into Green and The Dragon Keeper and Balance of Fragile Things.

And those are just the books publishing this year.

It’s comforting to come across other writers who see the need for eco-literature — and are creating it.

And it’s especially gratifying to play a role in bringing this literature to the world.

I’ve also begun writing again. For the longest time I was stuck. Many people had told me to write a sequel and I did (and do) feel the urge to keep up with Robert and Angela and Aeneas.  I’ve got so many notes already. But I’m not sure I want to write a sequel, at least not in the conventional sense. Perhaps the characters reappear in a connected novel. I honestly don’t know at this point. All I do know is that I’m writing again and at least one novel is going to emerge from it.

So that’s it for now.

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.

Answer: Probably never.

The Tourist Trail has been out for eight months now and I’m still sending out review copies. Granted, I’m only sending out one or two a week at most, but if I find someone who has an audience and might be willing to devote time to reading the book, I’m more than happy to send a copy along.

Of course, not everyone who promises to write a review actually follows through. And I don’t like to nag so I just let it go. That’s part of the process — letting things go, particularly if the reviews aren’t what you expect. Fortunately, I’ve received mostly great reviews so far.

And I’m always looking for more.

I have found that reviews are the most important way to get this book noticed. If you’re a blogger with an audience and you think you might want to review The Tourist Trail, let me know. I’ve got copies…