#ecofiction

Creepy, cozy, cryptid fantasy with an ecological point of view. Publishers Weekly calls Strange Animals "a wholly captivating tale of magic and nature."

I'm looking for eco-fiction/solarpunk novels/poetry/short stories

Examples I can think of at the moment: A Psalm for the Wild Built (Becky Chambers), Parable of the Sower (Octavia Butler), The Road (Cormac McCarthy), and Nineveh (Henrietta Rose Innes).

“The first sign of growth was a lone shingle covered in pine needles on the forest floor.”

- Tabitha Soper in “Percentage, House”

And, eventually, I incorporated a lot of the ideas I discovered there into my own creative work. Peeling back the skin of a particularly bad story and pointing out all the flaws is a great way to teach someone how stories work. Eventually, this no longer suffices as creative education, and the student has to start looking for good examples to emulate, rather than bad examples to avoid (A Black Fox Running is one of those brain-stretching good examples).

However, once you actually start recommending a book, telling someone to actually seek it out rather than to avoid it, the question of spoilers comes into play. Now, this is a tricky subject, and I think my opinion on it differs from the mainstream one. Many people covet the unspoiled experience of a story, and I understand that. However, there have been multiple times in my life where the only reason I approached a story in the first place was because I stumbled upon a massive spoiler and thought hey, that sounds awesome, I’ll check it out! (this was the case with my favorite show, Black Sails, and one of my favorite books, Monstrous Regiment). Often, it’s knowing that there will be a big payoff to come that keeps me engaged with a work. It also helps to keep my attention when someone has already highlighted certain strengths of the book to me before I read — for instance, “the prose-style emphasizes the role of the environment in a really interesting way” or “I’m obsessed with this character.” That way, I know it’s worth continuing to invest my time and attention (I’ve been burned many times before).

Additionally, I think the best stories are able to hold up to multiple readings — ie, that they have more to offer as a whole even when the reader knows the linear events of the plot. Essentially, spoilers aren’t a major concern for me unless they make me think things are going to turn out shittily on a craft level, in which case I’m less likely to open the book at all.

Here in this world he changed his life. Arthur’s promised resurrection pales in the face of his existence. The king may not come again, but his dream will never die, not while there are those who keep the candle burning. As White turned to Malory in the wake of World War II, as Mirrlees imagined a mirror of London in the aftermath of World War I, I've turned to their work, and to the work of Le Guin and Clarke as the United States continues its descent into right-wing authoritarianism. Each novel reckons in a different way with what a “love of country” unbounded by borders and grounded in a recognition of nonhuman agency could look like.

[…]

It would be easy to read each novel as fatalistic and the defeats and tragedies the characters suffer throughout as confirmation of the futility of their cause. Instead, that perpetual incompleteness functions as evidence of a long and living tradition, as a call to action that makes the reader an active participant in the story, an inheritor of its life past the end of the page. Arthur’s call to keep the candle burning, Stephen’s promise that Lost-Hope will be “in time set right,” even Estraven’s heir’s request to Genly to hear “…about the other worlds out among the stars— the other kinds of men, the other lives?" all gesture toward the fact that the work is never finished, the grail never reached. The story goes on, and therein lies the hope. In Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, which Ackroyd also quotes in his Albion (another link in that ever-growing chain) a different version of Merlin tells Arthur:

For an ye heard a music, like enow

They are building still, seeing the city is built

To music, therefore never built at all,

And therefore built for ever

A better world is not fated or promised. Although I love the places that have made me, I often fear that Le Guin’s skepticism of even this more localized love of place is correct, as it too can be weaponized and subverted into serving the project of nation-making. But in the intuitional, border-dissolving language of fantasy, in work spanning centuries and oceans, I’ve found again and again as counterpoint to and shield against that nationalist threat a turn towards a living natural world and a collective tradition that stretches forward into the future.

Almost daily now, I read in the news that the U.S. government has bombed another country or provided the weapons to do so; that they’ve gassed people in the streets, at home and abroad, that they’ve kidnapped, beaten, and shot those who would oppose them. And still, professors link arms and form a wall around student protestors as riot cops advance; faith leaders and public servants walk side by side with immigrants into court, placing their bodies in the line of fire; neighbors blow whistles and block streets as hooded ICE agents kidnap children to fill their camps. Although many individuals still languish in ICE detention, others have been freed through the tireless efforts of lawyers, activists, and local officials. In 2025, Australia’s humpback whales, which were hunted to a near extinction population of 150, returned in numbers higher than the pre-whaling population, thanks to a decision to ban commercial whaling of the species in 1963. And this past July, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights recognized that “ecosystems—such as forests and rivers—have the right to exist, regenerate, and maintain their life cycles.” This landmark decision would not have been possible without the earlier work of Māori rights of nature activists and Indigenous water protectors in Ecuador, among many others. These gains were not given but fought for.

Tennyson’s Merlin, naturally, saw it coming: We have not built the city; we probably never will. And we are building still.”

okay okay OKAY

I wrote a book about what it feels like to try to get an agent to notice your novel

and what it feels like to start doing activism and find friends who share your values but also lose friends who don't

it's written in the form of unhinged query letters

and then somehow rysz merey wanted to publish it with the tRaum books press for queer agenre books

and rachel a rosen designed me one of the greatest covers of all time, with blackout poetry:

and then rysz was like, did you want an even less hinged cover for the special edition since it won't be censored by amazon and rachel was like, i can do fewer hinges, and this happened:

[tumblr won't let me blaze this post with the special edition cover so um if you want to see it you need to click the link here, do it, I promise it's worth it, this is Art, maybe not safe for work tho, don't click it at work]

if you enjoy print books or capitalism, click here to buy it, the indie links have the special cover

Imber is a B.R.A.G. Medallion honoree!🏅

This award from indieBRAG recognizes independently published books that excel in storytelling, writing quality, and overall reader experience. Only about 1 in 4 submissions receive this honor, so I’m especially grateful.

If you enjoy eco-dystopian sci-fi, atmospheric thrillers, or high-stakes survival stories, Imber blends all three.

[Image description: A book cover. It’s mostly light green. In the centre is a red daylily with six petals and a long stamen shaped like a three-pronged radio antenna. Title: A Summer with the Immortal. Author: Paris Vivian. End ID.]

The Tachytelozoic Era is an age of constant change. New species appear every day. Advanced biotechnology, floral telecommunication and fungal computing and algal engineering, is everywhere. The country of Kenor, where it all began, is now home to the Verdantland - a brand-new rainforest full of altered plants and animals. Taryn Viato, a biology student at Kenor's most famous university, has been entrusted with an important task over her summer break. Acacia, the city's resident celebrity-turned-recluse (who also happens to be biologically immortal), has asked her to find the reason why his radio-lilies have been wilting. As she investigates, her own life starts changing faster than the organisms around her. An expedition to an ancient ruin site, a brush with the growing anti-Verdantland movement, and a spark of new romance all await. The mystery of the wilting lilies may not be the only one Taryn solves this lively summer. Nor do the problems she has to solve remain so small-scale. As the current of transformation rushes ever onwards, sweeping her to shores beyond her imagining, she is made to reckon with the natures of change and changelessness themselves.

After four long years, my debut novel A Summer with the Immortal is finally out! If you like:

Science fantasy

Living technology

A developing F/F romance with a meet-cute

Ancient ruins holding strange sights

An autistic MC and LI written by an autistic author

Environmental politics

Stories about the search for surety in an ever-changing world

this book is for you!

Link to purchase: