Eco-fiction discussion
What is Eco-fiction? How do you define it?
Jenny - I refer you to "Ecology in Literature and the Arts" which has a large list of eco-lit books, identified by sub-genre. I'm a moderator of this site. It was established by Mary Woodbury, known to many people who frequent this page.https://plus.google.com/u/0/communiti...
Robert wrote: "The characters are fictional. The "story" is not based on fantasy or science fiction, giving readers a realistic experience.. The environment is made of dirt, water, animals, plants, and a major pa..."What's a "negative value"?
Virginia wrote: "Alberta wrote: "Been missing all summer so way behind on the debate - If we have to deal with genre labels (a fact of publishing life I loathe) then I'm a firm believer in eco fiction being about o..."Ecofiction was defined and studied and explained by scholars when it came out in the 1970s, so that is why I am sticking with that definition, because it has already been widely studied and vastly extended and accepted as such, and I don't feel right taking away or undefining it because it's already established.
Two well-known books came out covering ecofiction and included speculative (i.e. science fiction/fantasy). See John Staedler's anthology of short ecofiction stories (mostly environmental science fiction) and Jim Dwyer's field guide (2010) to ecofiction (Where the Wild Books Are: A field guide to ecofiction). His guide is full of other scholars who agree about what ecofiction is, and, having studied and read that book and the works therein, these books definitely extend to magic realism, science fiction, weird fiction, fantasy, and so on. If you look at books in the media under ecofiction, it is the same.
Rather, I prefer to move on from there and examine the works within, and use the term broadly as a good umbrella for examining different types of the already defined fiction it covers. We could spend ages trying to define this, but it was defined decades ago when it came about, and extended in Dwyer's book a few years ago.
I also like to look at modern ecofiction that is making a difference. One example is Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach Trilogy--which has its own subreddit and is being made into a movie next year, making people think about ruined environments, mainly our own. Is the story based on something akin to modern day science? Loosely. Area X is full of things that would not happen here on Earth, but it extends out of possibility. It's a big metaphor, and people get that.
I just think if people are going to argue about what ecofiction means, we're going to have to look at the origins of it and how it was defined both when it came out and up to modern times. Given that the field guide was published just 6 years ago, and added all studies on the subject, it is still relevant!
Respectfully, Mary
Edit: I have been working on a Wiki article with some other ecofiction publishers. Here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecofiction. I hope that answers more questions, though it does rely heavily on research of this previously defined category of fiction--but, just as well, evolves it through to modern times, six years after the field guide was published.
A negative value used to be things like lying, cheating, stealing, killing. But now it seems like all of these behaviors are done by all good people and all good companies, and should be ignored because of all the positive things these people do.Cheating used to be bad, but now appears to be a major tool in the world of business. An epipen cost around $100 in Canada. Everyone's cheating and so should you, if you want to be successful that is.
Killing something to solve a problem has never been bigger. Used as a solution, the side effects, which are actually not side effects but primary effects, are not restricted to a narrow margin. When they sprayed the Nalen to kill mosquitoes down south, some articles mentioned that it also killed honeybees. How bigger can the lies get by so called honest people? Nalen kills hundreds of species, besides the all the diverse species of bugs, it kills shrimp, sea urchins, even strawberries. But the article only talks about bees. A simple mistake. A honest mistake. Not even a mistake, just an oversight. After all, we are only talking about killing as a practical solution to something that interacts with people.
On a lighter note, I recommend reading the poetry collection Echoes lll, Even More Neo-Victorian Poetry. Don't let the title fool you. Without waving the environmentalists do or die flag, this well written series of poems raises worthwhile relevant questions about life in every poem, which all flow together with rhyming and rhythm that makes it impossible to read just one.
Virginia,I think you are saying that anything in Eco-Fiction should be true, like in a school book, and could be used to accurately document the past, if that's what it comes to.
It's really just where teh story is contingent on environmental influences or where environmental influences direct the story. I love that this is a genre and hope that people can take a few grains for the works that they read. Solarpunk next and we will all start actively contributing to the development of a more considerate environmental system.
Using one genre to change the world is going to take a long time, spreading examples in numerous genre at the same time would get the ideas out at a much faster pace.Eco-Fiction has been around for 40 years, so it's not like it's brand new, never seen before. I guess it has gone through quite a few revisions about what it should accomplish.
It seems simple enough. Write stories with a particular set of subject parameters that will change people's opinion of how things should work.
The more adventurous the story, the less likely it will change anything because it will become entertainment, an event that will be successful when it simply causes the reader to buy another book. Any book.
The more packed with details and hard information the closer one comes to the dreaded info dump that seems to irreparably derail a story as it numbs the senses and causes the reader to turn elsewhere in their search for meaningful characterizations. Info dumps were a popular way to inform readers of everything they needed to know when people hadn't seen an image of everything known to be in the world.
There's a line in a movie, "either you bring the water to L.A. or you bring L.A. to the water." Taking the water to L.A. requires a lot of engineering, time, money and research. Annexing the land the water is on and making the water instantly part of the infrastructure is so much easier.
There is a vast number of books published every year now. You can have a limited number of green stories for people to choose from, that is if they are even able to find them, or you can put some greenery in everything written across the boards so readers will find it normal to see green concepts wherever they look. To do this, one would have to contact the vast army of writers and ask them if they would like to add some greenery to whatever they write. The more prevalent a thing is, the more likely it will be seen as something to be used.
Mary wrote: "Virginia wrote: "Alberta wrote: "Been missing all summer so way behind on the debate - If we have to deal with genre labels (a fact of publishing life I loathe) then I'm a firm believer in eco fict..."There is no point in my repeating myself. Our planet is dying and changing in a catastrophic way, possibly trying to reject it's parasite, the human species. Things are dire. Definitions change. Eco-fiction should not include anything else but real world ecology. Period. I am done weighing in on this. Nothing personal. I appreciate all Mary does for our planet because it is not about us. We will be dead in a few decades. We can't make it about us. It has to be about the planet.
Robert wrote: "Virginia,I think you are saying that anything in Eco-Fiction should be true, like in a school book, and could be used to accurately document the past, if that's what it comes to."
What? I'm bailing out of this discussion because you can only say the same thing so many times and my perspective on it will never change.
Mike wrote: "It's really just where teh story is contingent on environmental influences or where environmental influences direct the story. I love that this is a genre and hope that people can take a few grains..."Hurry up.
There is now an ecofiction entry at Wikipedia. I worked with four others (publishers, authors, academics) to get it all ready. This page is based upon scholarly research into the field going into the past few decades. So, I'm not making up definitions, rather posting findings of others who, for years, have helped to define and scope this branch of literature. By the way--this is kind of interesting to note--Jim Dwyer, who wrote the field guide to ecofiction, said that the first he ever heard of the term was the "Eco-fiction" anthology (edited by John Stadler in the 1970s), which, in fact, was mostly environmental science fiction stories!
Because at that time, possible planetary death/catastrophe was just science fiction. Now it's real.
1970's - possible planetary death/catastrophe was just science fiction -- I guess it depends on how old one is and what they were doing at the time. Soylent Green wasn't dreamt out of nothing. Stand on Zanzibar is speculative fiction that was right on target. They were meant as warnings of what was happening, not what could happen. Rachel Carlson wrote that the world everyone knew was ending if we didn't change our ways. The rivers were rainbow colors from all the rampart pollution as factories dumped straight into the rivers. Back then any kind of pollution was considered bad, if one thought pollution was a bad thing. Now we are pointing at greenhouse gasses as the real culprits and all the rest of the fallout from the industrial - medical - agri processes will be okay if only the power sources for everything has clean green exhausts. I didn't think pollution of any kind was okay then and I still don't see it prolonging anyone's life expectancy today.
Record heat wave across the U.S. this week. Temps never been higher. Every year we break this record. Soon we live underground because the basal temp of the earth is too high for our infrastructure (fires) and human skin. While everything you listed adds to the peril, climate change trumps it all. How fitting that the verb I use to denote catastrophe is "trump". It's not science fiction anymore.
Virginia wrote: "Because at that time, possible planetary death/catastrophe was just science fiction. Now it's real."When the term ecofiction came out, we were well on our way to environmental self-destruction (had been for a while; see Daniel Quinn who argued the downfall starting with vast agriculture or, as Tolkien's novels so vastly illustrated, industrialism), and by the 1970s scientists were well aware of AGW and were converging on the consensus "It's happening."
There was fiction being written about anthropogenic global warming. See Arthur Herzog's Heat, probably the earliest example, published in the 1970s. I talked to Herzog's widow (who later passed away, sadly) about "Heat" and she said her late husband had spoken with climate scientists from NASA and other organizations to understand what climate change was because he wanted to base his sci-fi novel on real science.
Herzog's book was published in the 1970s, same as the Eco-fiction anthology. Again, climate change was understood back then by scientists and would have made it to the mainstream if not for politicians and corporate narratives changing their tune due to pressure by the fossil fuel industry.
See https://www.aip.org/history/climate/t... for a timeline. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate... for how oil companies had, in the 1970s, actually produced studies in line with scientists about how global warming was happening. "Since the late 1970s, oil companies have published research broadly in line with the standard views on global warming. Despite this, oil companies organized a climate change denial campaign to disseminate public disinformation for several decades, leading to comparisons of this strategy to the organized denial of the hazards of tobacco smoking by tobacco companies" Remember how politicians like Reagan were also onboard but changed their tune in order to go along with fossil fuel industry? This led to the public not accepting climate change as well.
I find it insulting to authors who have worked so hard in this field, science fiction or not, to say that we have only just now discovered climate change (or any other environmental consequence or major destruction) is real and therefore that all fictional advocate works prior didn't count, or that because they used, or now use, metaphor and other abstractions that take place in imaginary worlds (one of the oldest devices in fiction itself) that they don't count either, or that their work cannot help in raising awareness of ecological issues--which is the main goal of ecofiction.
Further, to dismiss the many science fiction authors who tackled environmental issues before we knew about global warming (and are now and have for decades been writing about climate and other environmental issues, and have evolved with more info--see Margaret Atwood, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Jeff VanderMeer, for just a few examples) is wrong. We should consider them and their works, whether or not science fiction, weird fiction, fantasy fiction, or contemporary more realistic fiction. All in it together. As the Cambridge History of American Novels points out, in its chapter on ecofiction, it's a capacious field of literature. There's lots of room inside.
It seems wrong and dismissive of the great number of authors who write ecofiction that their works suddenly don't matter. These are folks who have brought great awareness to environmental issues, including climate change, in fiction.
Finally, science fiction is:
Science fiction (abbreviated SF or sci-fi with varying punctuation and capitalization) is a broad genre of fiction that often involves speculations based on current or future science or technology. -Goodreads
Science fiction is largely based on writing rationally about alternative possible worlds or futures.[10] It is related to, but different from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically established or scientifically postulated physical laws (though some elements in a story might still be pure imaginative speculation). - Wikipedia
So, just going by two major resources, science fiction can be based on real or current science and it also should be rational. The fact that science fiction has such a stronghold in our culture--that it has often led to actual discoveries, or helped to predict them, is also very important.
Anyway, sorry I went on for so long. Again, my argument is stated respectfully as a debate point and as a way to defend the many authors writing in this field who do not follow a realism model that is suggested here in this thread. I understand that there are very knowledgeable people here with a lot of professional background, whether in science or literature, or maybe both. I am not trying to change minds, only trying to give credit to a field of literature that has been around for still a fairly short period of time, relatively speaking. The studies in this literature began in the 1970s, but the biggest academic works, both Jim Dwyer's field guide and the Cambridge History of American Novels (which has a chapter on ecofiction) have been published within the last six years. This shows that continuing study in this field is established. There have been no changes academically that reduce ecofiction to suddenly not include science fiction, fantasy, or other imagined worlds.
Just wanted to edit this to say that I very much enjoy contemporary fiction that is set on our planet! I'm just arguing that science fiction isn't all about "other planets". Even when it is, well, who is to say that is not a possibility for us? Certainly the president of the United States thinks we can go to Mars. The important take away for ecofiction is that it describes humanity's connection to nature. In fiction, nature has a capacious amount of possibilities, and ecofiction reflects that.
The genre's role in deciding what people will read or not read is the question.In the 1920's when automobiles were becoming an integral part of the so called modern world, leaded gas was first introduced. It was called Ethyl, short for tetra ethyl which was a lead compound. When it was determined that people were dying in the plants that were producing the leaded gas, a movement was started to ban leaded gasoline from New York City, the biggest city in the world. The newly created leaded gasoline industry got the President of the US, Calvin Coolidge, to appoint a panel of scientists from the petroleum industry to investigate the matter. They recommended that the workers wear protective gear so the workers would stop dying on the job from lead poisoning. The moral of this story is that scientists who know better and the White House will always do what is best for the economy and not what is best for people's health. And it's old news. The song remains the same.
In the 1970's people finally decided that the lead in gasoline should be phased out, which it was, 25 years later. Then the campaign for global change started brewing. The song remains the same.
Are people really learning anything? Or are they just trading in older models of thought for newer models of thought that conveniently forget about the problems of the past.
Simple morals, common sense, studying consequences of actions, all of this is as old as the hills. Staking out a genre might make names for some people, might make money for some people, might get the news out to some people, but it is not mainstream.
If we had plenty of time to get things done it would be a different story.
When money is brought into solutions for problems the money takes on a life of it's own. To see how green ideas can go so horribly wrong check out this article about how burning wood in Europe has America cutting down hardwood trees for the firewood.
http://www.salon.com/2016/10/18/fores...
Should green authors be content with their own genre, a private place to hang their hats? Or would they be better off educating mainstream authors about the idea of including a few green things here and there that can be used or seen today in their romances, dramas, fantasies, etc. Advertising green things would be reaching millions everyday rather than on a hit or miss basis. Keeping the exposure to a minimum would eliminate the idea of preaching which is what anything turns into if it goes on about itself long enough.
Never in the history of people has there been more true information available at people's finger tips and yet the mixture of fact and fiction, and the random connections of true but unrelated facts that passes for reality in today's world is absolutely astounding. Fantasy is becoming mainstream right along with the rest of the big name fictional aspirations. Maybe Eco-Fiction will join the mainstream rank and maybe it won't. Question is can we afford to wait. The answer is no because we have been ransacking the planet since day one and for anyone sorry that their grandchildren will have to pay the price are in denial because we are paying the price today. We are soaking in it.
Good questions above. I am a small publisher and print my books at Ingram. They have a genre called juvenile nature fiction (or something like that), but when you get grown up, there is no fiction genre for green or nature fiction at all. There is, however, nature nonfiction. I think that's a little odd.With Amazon and Goodreads, ecofiction is a list and has been I think for quite a while, so readers (or publishers/reviewers) might be able to tag their own books as such.
I like ecofiction for its broad reach. It's a good domain name. But it is not a modern buzzword, and I hope the reasoning behind that is because buzzwords are often short-lived viral things. Ecofiction is still relevant after half a century of its conception--there is a crowd who wants to read the books in this category, and it's still a focus among academics.
But, in fact, a lot of authors prefer not to put eco- or climate- anything in front of their genre labels in order to make the focus on the story itself and reach people who won't be assaulted by these terms. And there are those people who see environmentalism at any level as "radical," which doesn't make sense to me, but a lot of people are like that. Will they read a book in an eco- or climate- genre? These are the people we want to reach with storytelling, or we're just preaching to the choir.
Mary wrote: "Virginia wrote: "Because at that time, possible planetary death/catastrophe was just science fiction. Now it's real."When the term ecofiction came out, we were well on our way to environmental se..."
****No matter if we agree or not, this is a very interesting discussion...but it feels like a Schoedeger's Cat kind of thing...and here I am again...commenting which will be repeating myself...sorry but who started this? Oh. I did. Hm.
When the term ecofiction came out, we were well on our way to environmental self-destruction (had been for a while; see Daniel Quinn who argued the downfall starting with vast agriculture or, as Tolkien's novels so vastly illustrated, industrialism), and by the 1970s scientists were well aware of AGW and were converging on the consensus "It's happening."
Also, all fiction is not real; it's what makes the term fiction what it is. I think we're forgetting that.
****Point made my Robert in past posts. For me, it just comes down to proper categorizing and the simple idea that eco-fiction needs it's own category and how to define it without putting types of fiction that already have their own very well established category in WITH IT=a garbage can.
Anyway, in the 1970s, scientists were converging on the agreement AGW was happening. There was fiction being written about anthropogenic global warming. See Arthur Herzog's Heat, probably the earliest example, published in the 1970s. I talked to Herzog's widow (who later passed away, sadly) about "Heat" and she said her late husband had spoken with climate scientists from NASA and other organizations to understand what climate change was because he wanted to base his sci-fi novel on real science.
Herzog's book was published in the 1970s, same as the Eco-fiction anthology. Again, climate change was understood back then by scientists and would have made it to the mainstream if not for politicians and corporate narratives changing their tune due to pressure by the fossil fuel industry.
***There is no doubt science fiction has propelled us forward in terms of facing environmental impacts/catastrophe. No doubt at all but could we not call is Eco-Science Fiction? Maybe the idea is the word ECO is put at the front? Eco-science fiction, Eco-fantasy fiction? And "eco-fiction" reserved for the real world?
See https://www.aip.org/history/climate/t... for a timeline. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate... for how oil companies had, in the 1970s, actually produced studies in line with scientists about how global warming was happening. "Since the late 1970s, oil companies have published research broadly in line with the standard views on global warming. Despite this, oil companies organized a climate change denial campaign to disseminate public disinformation for several decades, leading to comparisons of this strategy to the organized denial of the hazards of tobacco smoking by tobacco companies" Remember how politicians like Reagan were also onboard but changed their tune in order to go along with fossil fuel industry? This led to the public not accepting climate change as well.
I find it insulting to authors who have worked so hard in this field, science fiction or not, to say that we have only just now discovered climate change (or any other environmental consequence or major destruction) is real and therefore that all fictional advocate works prior didn't count, or that because they used, or now use, metaphor and other abstractions that take place in imaginary worlds (one of the oldest devices in fiction itself) that they don't count either, or that their work cannot help in raising awareness of ecological issues--which is the main goal of ecofiction.
***Wow. Who said that? I don't think I said that because there is no way I could ever be that eloquent about it...but if I did say this, wow, I am impressed by myself.
Further, to dismiss the many science fiction authors who tackled environmental issues before we knew about global warming (and are now and have for decades been writing about climate and other environmental issues, and have evolved with more info--see Margaret Atwood, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Jeff VanderMeer, for just a few examples) is wrong. We should consider them and their works, whether or not science fiction, weird fiction, fantasy fiction, or contemporary more realistic fiction. All in it together. As the Cambridge History of American Novels points out, in its chapter on ecofiction, it's a capacious field of literature. There's lots of room inside.
***Who is dismissing anything? I mean, really, for me this is about
cleaning up a category of books...to give our planet her rightful
"genre"--truly. This is my goal.
It seems wrong and dismissive of the great number of authors who write ecofiction that their works suddenly don't matter. These are folks who have brought great awareness to environmental issues, including climate change, in fiction.
***Again, who is saying this exactly?
Finally, science fiction is:
Science fiction (abbreviated SF or sci-fi with varying punctuation and capitalization) is a broad genre of fiction that often involves speculations based on current or future science or technology. -Goodreads
Science fiction is largely based on writing rationally about alternative possible worlds or futures.[10] It is related to, but different from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically established or scientifically postulated physical laws (though some elements in a story might still be pure imaginative speculation). - Wikipedia
So, just going by two major resources, science fiction can be based on real or current science and it also should be rational. The fact that science fiction has such a stronghold in our culture--that it has often led to actual discoveries, or helped to predict them, is also very important.
Anyway, sorry I went on for so long. Again, my argument is stated respectfully as a debate point and as a way to defend the many authors writing in this field who do not follow a realism model that is suggested here in this thread. I understand that there are very knowledgeable people here with a lot of professional background, whether in science or literature, or maybe both. I am not trying to change minds, only trying to give credit to a field of literature that has been around for still a fairly short period of time, relatively speaking. The studies in this literature began in the 1970s, but the biggest academic works, both Jim Dwyer's field guide and the Cambridge History of American Novels (which has a chapter on ecofiction) have been published within the last six years. This shows that continuing study in this field is established. There have been no changes academically that reduce ecofiction to suddenly not include science fiction, fantasy, or other imagined worlds.
Just wanted to edit this to say that I very much enjoy contemporary fiction that is set on our planet! I'm just arguing that science fiction isn't all about "other planets". Even when it is, well, who is to say that is not a possibility for us? Certainly the president of the United States thinks we can go to Mars. The important take away for ecofiction is that it describes humanity's connection to nature. In fiction, nature has a capacious amount of possibilities, and ecofiction reflects that.
****So how about we put the word ECO in front...eco-SCIENCE fiction, ECO-fantasy fiction, and Eco-fiction is focused on earth in all her boring scientifically accurate elements?
Robert wrote: "The genre's role in deciding what people will read or not read is the question.In the 1920's when automobiles were becoming an integral part of the so called modern world, leaded gas was first in..."
The genre's role in deciding what people will read or not read is the question.
In the 1920's when automobiles were becoming an integral part of the so called modern world, leaded gas was first introduced. It was called Ethyl, short for tetra ethyl which was a lead compound. When it was determined that people were dying in the plants that were producing the leaded gas, a movement was started to ban leaded gasoline from New York City, the biggest city in the world. The newly created leaded gasoline industry got the President of the US, Calvin Coolidge, to appoint a panel of scientists from the petroleum industry to investigate the matter. They recommended that the workers wear protective gear so the workers would stop dying on the job from lead poisoning. The moral of this story is that scientists who know better and the White House will always do what is best for the economy and not what is best for people's health. And it's old news. The song remains the same.
In the 1970's people finally decided that the lead in gasoline should be phased out, which it was, 25 years later. Then the campaign for global change started brewing. The song remains the same.
Are people really learning anything? Or are they just trading in older models of thought for newer models of thought that conveniently forget about the problems of the past.
****I think Robert just hit the crux of the issue here for me--I said it in earlier posts when a friend of mine asked me to read his draft "eco-fiction" novel that was all made up and admitted to me he made it all up because was too lazy to care about the real thing. He's too lazy to incorporate real RARE plants into his story, or REAL endangered species...so he made it all up and called it eco-fiction which quite frankly, because I so painstakingly research the ecology for my eco-novels, kind of irritated me that HIS book and MINE, which uses real biodiversity and issues in it, are now suddenly s'mushed together into the same genre.
His is Eco-fantasy fiction. Mine is eco-fiction.
Simple morals, common sense, studying consequences of actions, all of this is as old as the hills. Staking out a genre might make names for some people, might make money for some people, might get the news out to some people, but it is not mainstream.
If we had plenty of time to get things done it would be a different story.
When money is brought into solutions for problems the money takes on a life of it's own. To see how green ideas can go so horribly wrong check out this article about how burning wood in Europe has America cutting down hardwood trees for the firewood.
http://www.salon.com/2016/10/18/fores...
Should green authors be content with their own genre, a private place to hang their hats? Or would they be better off educating mainstream authors about the idea of including a few green things here and there that can be used or seen today in their romances, dramas, fantasies, etc.
****Thank you Robert. Said very well. See my comment above. This is what I TRY to do. Get the authors of "eco-fiction" maybe out into the REAL woods to look at a REAL oak tree, God forbid, or a real newt...By including the REAL ecology in their stories, they honor our planet, educate...making it all up doesn't honor anything and you CAN do this but call it what it is.
Advertising green things would be reaching millions everyday rather than on a hit or miss basis. Keeping the exposure to a minimum would eliminate the idea of preaching which is what anything turns into if it goes on about itself long enough.
Never in the history of people has there been more true information available at people's finger tips and yet the mixture of fact and fiction, and the random connections of true but unrelated facts that passes for reality in today's world is absolutely astounding. Fantasy is becoming mainstream right along with the rest of the big name fictional aspirations. Maybe Eco-Fiction will join the mainstream rank and maybe it won't. Question is can we afford to wait. The answer is no because we have been ransacking the planet since day one and for anyone sorry that their grandchildren will have to pay the price are in denial because we are paying the price today. We are soaking in it.
****Said well my friend. Thank you.
Virginia, some of my points were responses to things like this, "There is no point in my repeating myself. Our planet is dying and changing in a catastrophic way, possibly trying to reject it's parasite, the human species. Things are dire. Definitions change. Eco-fiction should not include anything else but real world ecology. Period. I am done weighing in on this. Nothing personal. I appreciate all Mary does for our planet because it is not about us. We will be dead in a few decades. We can't make it about us. It has to be about the planet. "None of us here would argue with your assessment of the planet. I am sure each of us is as concerned. How to make our concerns heard in fiction? Well I think it really is with good stories, not marketing brands and labels.
However, the thread asks, "What is ecofiction?" Definitions have been given and linked, from studies that began half century ago and are ongoing in academia today as we look at newer issues on our planet.
This thread, it seems to me, went from asking what is ecofiction to not accepting the answers from modern academic studies/explanations/definitions and wanting to revise ecofiction to be about our planet only. I don't honestly know what else to say about that or where to go with it.
Ecofiction is a "super genre" according to John Yunker, author of The Tourist Trail and cofounder of Ashland Creek Press, a publisher that does recognize the term ecofiction and publishes environmental books. This category or super genre or composite genre (per Jim Dwyer) does cover a lot of territory, including speculative fiction.
I dunno, maybe this group could figure out a new phrasing for Planet Earth fiction? Or maybe there already is one? It's a good idea, and new genres seem to come down the pike at an increasing speed these days. Who knows!
We agree to disagree--this is how science is--we revise, we think things over, we revise--for now, I am going to stick to my guns, er trees. Doesn't mean anyone else has to. I am a trained ecologist. When I look out my window the Latin names of plants go through my head instantly--when someone else looks through my window, they see dead brown stuff so they want to make up a story about it...The red fritillaries I used to visit have been "fire cleared" out of existence. The milkweed was hacked down this week (and so goes the small pop of monarchs that used to visit them). My life is hell and misery because I know the land. Because I love the land. Of course, I want my fellow primates to understand what they destroy but they never will, and yes, we are parasites on this planet. I don't elevate the human primate. We're out of control monkeys. So, I selfishly want a little slice of a genre to honor my planet. Nobody has to agree with me (though my fellow biologists do). There is a penalty to be paid for knowing the earth, as Aldo Leopold said in 1953, and I pay it every time I go outside. Beautiful piece of property I walked by today covered with surveyors--to be sub-divided soon--native plants all over it, old growth manzanita. Who the hell cares? I do.It's a goddamned lonely existence.
But back to eco--for now, I say put ECO in front of whatever fiction you want...but eco-fiction alone belongs to our planet.
Nobody has to agree with me but this where it sits for me.
I honor all you do Mary, truly, truly, truly. I am a heart-broken passionate soul who has watched thousands of my good friends go locally and regionally extinct and I miss them. Thousands of years of evolution gone in a single day by a monkey with a backhoe. I probably should have gone into accounting. I would be A LOT happier.
VA
And by the way, you should check out Robert Z's completely scientifically precise/accurate eco-epigrams--Event Horizon book. I can't call them poems (see my review). Intense, weird, incredible. I would love to know what you think of them Mary (and anyone else!).
(Hope the plug is ok RZ!)
VA
RZ sums it up for me: "The luxury of debating the future has passed, we are now simply reacting to what comes next."Thus shall we deem eco-fiction fiction stories the literary scaffolding of which is our very own and precious real earth (eaarth, McKibben spelling).
The End.
Virginia, just wanted to say, since our interview a year or two ago, I truly admire you as a person. As a kid I learned all the flora and fauna around me, and continue to do so to this day. I grew up reading Gary Snyder's poetry; he said to know your nature. Now, so many years later, I remember his lessons (who says literature can't make a mark!?) I make sure I understand the watersheds, animals, plants, and everything else surrounding me, where I hike and run and live. I bring this into my own storytelling but also appreciate different worlds.
Latin names floating over my head when I wake up? I truly envy you! I only wish I could go that far.
And I share your passion for our planet. I think it's obvious we're coming from the same place.
I will look up Robert Z.
Literary scaffolding--nice way to phrase it.
Mary wrote: "Virginia, just wanted to say, since our interview a year or two ago, I truly admire you as a person. As a kid I learned all the flora and fauna around me, and continue to do so to this day. I grew ..."I admire you. We are the exception. We need to teach ecology/botany in the schools, at least a year in high school along with math, English, social studies, etc. If we did, far fewer environmental probs in our society. My mother told me when she was a little girl, they had botany class in her school along with 'reading and writing'. She knew all the plants...and therefore, had an intimate knowledge of "who was being wiped out" when a piece of land was razed in the small New York town she lived in. It does cause more pain when you know who is dying...Re: Latin names, sometimes I would like to turn it off; when I go some place new, the Jepson 'flora in my head' shuts down which is actually kind of nice...but then I have to learn the flora wherever I am again to get a sense of place. I am never anywhere until I know the plants.
Thanks Mary.
VA
Virginia wrote: "I can't even begin to summarize all the discussions I have had over the the past few years regarding what Eco-fiction is. I have been told by Amazon/other book companies that it does not exist as a..."Virginia wrote: "I can't even begin to summarize all the discussions I have had over the the past few years regarding what Eco-fiction is. I have been told by Amazon/other book companies that it does not exist as a..."
Hello Everyone and thanks to Patricia for moderating this group and to Virginia for this discussion albeit I'm chiming in a little late.
What is eco-fi?
I think a definition of eco-fi should be that the environment is significant in either the setting, the motivation and goal of at least one of the characters, or it provides one of the plot conflicts - even a minor one. At least one of these elements or all of them should be apparent.
The environment is not likely going to be the plot driver, unless you're writing another Day After Tomorrow. Genres such as romance, mystery, adventure and drama can all have a subplot that addresses and environmental issue which will still get the message out while making the story more entertaining.
I know this is a very old topic, but today I caught on Twitter a discussion of "what is eco-fiction". From the time in this topic when I originally said that modern media wasn't recognizing the genre, that has changed quite a bit in the last couple years. I've updated the web page at https://dragonfly.eco/eco-fiction/ (by the way, also updated the entire site, though eco-fiction.com still directs to the new site and will indefinitely). In an attempt to include more and more depth to the field, I wanted to see what various news articles were saying about eco-fiction in the modern era, and I began to find all the media links I could that do discuss the genre, and I was frankly surprised at how many do--and some include bigger media such as NYT, New Yorker, etc., many of them really in the past year or two. I also added some academic study links and realized that a lot of professors are including eco-fiction in their syllabi.
This isn't only an old genre from the 1970s. It's evolving and becoming more recognizable today. I still don't think that it's a genre that most publishers recognize, but many do and if you search Barnes & Noble and Amazon, it'll show up as a category.
Eco-fiction is probably not also ever going to be some popular buzzword or anything, but most of the articles I read on it seem more in-depth and interesting anyway. Just a positive note :)
Thank you, Mary, for your support and exploration of this subject. It seems natural, even inevitable, that eco-fiction will grow as literature takes on the major problems of our world as we find it today. I want to suggest that the genre of eco-fiction includes the adventure, politics, and action of characters trying to make change and struggle against the powerful coalition of forces allied with the fossil fuel industry. This struggle has become a global conflict affecting all of us, and our children's future. What relevant role models, what myths and stories can give people a meaningful picture of this agonizing territory? What are the stakes involved, and how can characters deal with them?
As with all genres, eco-fiction covers a broad range of styles and subjects. I have been reading a lot of it and find that I have to drill down to find the types of books that I really enjoy. I am so glad you are defining it and I always engage journalists and publishers in the discussion whenever I can. I just flat out ask them to include it as a category.I also give a lot of talks about "How fiction can help save the climate" and "How to tell fact from fiction". It all helps define the value of eco-fiction.
Ned Tillman The Big Melt
John wrote: "Thank you, Mary, for your support and exploration of this subject. It seems natural, even inevitable, that eco-fiction will grow as literature takes on the major problems of our world as we find it..."I agree about fossil fuel subjects within this literature, and in fact have a section about poets and novelists writing about fossil fuels (in the spotlight on climate change authors). I'm also reading a novel set in Niger and will spotlight its author soon--similar topic on oil. I'm also writing my own novel about a pipeline spill set in the Appalachia mountains. It's a subject that's definitely out there!
Enjoying this discussion. I agree with comments that eco-fiction will grow and can only get bigger as more challenges present themselves.Question for Ned: How does one connect with readers who have an interest in eco-fiction? I thought that would be my primary niche when Mercedes Wore Black came out in 2014-15. I did an author's talk at a Sierra Club meeting in Florida (where the action takes place) and did the usual round of bookstores, etc.; wrote newspaper op-eds and generated book reviews in newspapers, but never really successfully reached my potential market.
Mercedes Wore Black
Great info on your website Mary. Like many readers here, I am also a writer. In the past I've shied away from calling some of my work eco-fiction because it seemed not to be a recognized category. Now I feel totally confident in describing it as such (although there is still no box to check for it. ;) ).
Eva wrote: "Great info on your website Mary. Like many readers here, I am also a writer. In the past I've shied away from calling some of my work eco-fiction because it seemed not to be a recognized category. ..."Hi Eva. I understand! I have the same reservations. We have to reach a wide audience, and readers just like to read good stories and might be afraid that such fiction will be too preachy, but that makes it all the more challenging--telling good stories that will include the physical landscape around us rather than ignoring it. I guess I use the term from the perspective of study/exploration rather than a marketing genre, however.
Understood. Unfortunately, one is required to categorize one's story, so it becomes a choice between too broad (general or mainstream fiction or that questionable "upmarket women's fiction") and potentially too narrow (and scaring of the reader, as you mention).
Andrea wrote: "Enjoying this discussion. I agree with comments that eco-fiction will grow and can only get bigger as more challenges present themselves.Question for Ned: How does one connect with readers who h..."
Hi Eva - It is very tough to reach readers interested in eco-fiction. I have given dozens of talks to Env groups. But so many of them are single issue activists and may not be interested in reading. I have had success getting interviews on the leading websites/blogs. I have not penetrated the leading Env mags yet - they seem to focus on non-fiction. I believe that my main target is the general public - Need to market your book as a great story that everyone would want to read. My best reviews come from the general public, not from environmentalists. I do get sales from folks who liked my other books - even though they are non-fiction pieces. The new book is fiction. Good luck to you and let me know what works for you.The Big Melt
Andrea wrote: "Enjoying this discussion. I agree with comments that eco-fiction will grow and can only get bigger as more challenges present themselves.Question for Ned: How does one connect with readers who h..."
I think this is the real challenge. What is the channel that exposes more people to eco-fiction. I have tried science, English and political science teachers/professors. I have also tried older adults and environmental journals and societies. All were receptive but no obvious channels. Need more eco fiction awards. My latest book The Big Melt was shortlisted for two book awards. Wish there were more. #SavingThePlaces. Ned Tillman
Eco Fiction can be put in the Sci-Fi genre, but usually has a more naturalistic theme to it, for example a Sci-Fi might be about stopping an alien invasion, while an Eco Fiction could be about saving a certain population of animals.
Here's Jeff VanderMeer kind of busting genres (which he does) when talking about his latest novel Dead Astronauts. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/wednesday-...I've interviewed him before, and while he identifies with how ecofiction, weird fiction, and science fiction tie together, he seems to admire the author impulse of realism and naturalism in all these genres.
Just before finding the term eco-fiction, I found visionary-fiction. As a writer we HAVE TO know what genre to tell agents and publishers we are writing. Neither of the above are hot on most of their to do lists. To be honest, I could pick a dozen genres to describe my work. That isn't a help either. Visionary->eco-fiction is my best estimate. Why? Because visionary means you should leave the reader enlightened and eco because that is the subject you are conveying. So, for me eco-fiction is a sub genre of visionary-fiction. Have I stopped worrying about what my genre is? Probably. I write stories not labels.
Mark
Virginia wrote: "Fantasy in it? No.Full science based--in known physical reality--yes.
Why, what do you think?"
Interesting: no fantasy. I am curious what you would make of my book Virginia. Do you really want me to exclude the sugar that coats the medicine?
What if Harry Potter became an environmentalist, everyone would read it. PS that is NOT what my book is:-)
Mark
hi there! in response to the question about whether it can involve fantasy, I do think it can. NK Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy is a fantasy world and it is considered ecofiction by many. Even if we are reading a fantasy novel, we still draw parallels automatically to our own world, and often the distance that reading fantasy gives you allows you to have a more open mind about some of the messages in the book. I would love to see more ecofiction fantasy!
Yes, I used fantasy in my setting set right here, right now—2019 actually, I'm not clairvoyant. Without spoilers: if you strip the mythological element away, the solution to climate change the story provides us will work. We know what has to be done, the question is how do you get some action?
Eco-fiction/Eco-lit is a super genre that encompasses nature-oriented (non-human) or environment-oriented (human impacts on nature) works [with a ;-) to Mary]. Basically, it is an umbrella term that indicates a story involves natural world environment processes as a presence, and human interest (if present) is not the only legitimate interest. The applicability of the designation can be as subtle as in The Lord of the Rings (think iconic battles of industrialization vs. nature, and lush vs. denuded settings), as non-fiction informative as Silent Spring (why I prefer eco-lit as a designation), as starkly realistic thrilleresque as The Water Knife, as fanciful horrific as Eden, as literary as The Overstory, and as classic as The Grapes of Wrath (man-made climate disaster before we knew what to call it).Sadly, it's not a label that is often prominently applied by the lucre worshiping book marketers, as they derive more immediate profits from labels and blurbs that suggest head-between-our-legs, undead, shoot-em-up, and what-have-you content. Even here though, there is a connection if one considers what hubristic, genetically manipulated, hormone controlled beings we are :-)
Mark wrote: "Just before finding the term eco-fiction, I found visionary-fiction. As a writer we HAVE TO know what genre to tell agents and publishers we are writing. Neither of the above are hot on most of the..."Being the author of a Cli-Fi novel and two pieces of Eco-lit, I hav found it to be important to classify them under major genres as well as these sub genres. Ned Tillman
Ned wrote: "Mark wrote: "Just before finding the term eco-fiction, I found visionary-fiction. As a writer we HAVE TO know what genre to tell agents and publishers we are writing. Neither of the above are hot o..."Good to know. Thanks Ned!
L.G. wrote: "Eco-fiction/Eco-lit is a super genre that encompasses nature-oriented (non-human) or environment-oriented (human impacts on nature) works [with a ;-) to Mary]. Basically, it is an umbrella term tha..."Hi Lee, long time no see. :DI guess maybe you and others might be interested to see survey results I will be posting on Sunday. I was just thinking about this thread because there's really some interesting findings in the survey that probably will call for more evaluation at some point. I can tease a little and say that Barbara Kingsolver (Virginia will appreciate a realist, literary planet Earth type of gal), was most liked as an author, had an impactful character--Dellarobia--and wrote some popular novels among this crowd of survey participants. But for those who don't like sci-fi or fantasy, sorry, but Lord of the Rings I think was the most popular novel of all time, the series anyway, and it got kudos as a big influence on ecofiction as a genre.
I also tried to get a feel for social impact on readers, and I think it's interesting how readers do like advocacy and morality in eco-fiction, but they absolutely hate being advocated or preached to (I feel the same way). The number one turn-off in reading any sort of eco-fiction are things like not enough diversity in point of view (i.e white rich characters), polemics, didacticism, self-righteousness, judgment from the author, etc. I thought that viewpoint might be helpful to us authors. More on Sunday at Dragonfly.eco.
Mary, Just had a moment to skim your survey results. What an undertaking--thank you.
Virginia wrote: "I can't even begin to summarize all the discussions I have had over the the past few years regarding what Eco-fiction is. I have been told by Amazon/other book companies that it does not exist as a..." What is Environmental Fiction? Environmental fiction, also called eco-fiction, is populated by characters who interact with the environment. Environmental fiction needs to explicitly assess humanity’s impact on the natural world. This is the overall Theme. Whatever ecological scenario you may choose to write about it is going to have: far-reaching consequences, both social and political, which will impact on your characters in a variety of ways. For example, they may live in a region being devastated by climate change, natural disasters, populated by climate refugees. There may be food shortages. Examples: The Adventures of The Sizzling—Hurricanes, oils spills, firestorms, manmade habitat destruction, and pollution. * Eco fiction can, and should be, as diverse as our natural world. These topics are complex and the impacts of the climate emergency effect all kinds of communities and families in different ways. -Emily Stochlhl, in Book Riot
Claire wrote: "Virginia wrote: "I can't even begin to summarize all the discussions I have had over the the past few years regarding wSI agree fully with Virginia's definition. One could spend a lifetime reading all the wonderful works that fit it. My present nominees include what in my mind are the four best, some or all of which will become classics. My Nominees: E.O.Wilson's - Ants, Barbara Kingsolver's - Flight Behavior, Brian Doyle's - Martin Marten and Mink River. About eight years ago I searched this term on Goodreads and at that time found only what I was not looking for and was clearly simple science fiction (actually fantasy as virginia pointed out) Researching the same term today, I am thrilled to find this string. Hooray for the contributors and the poll!
Eco-fiction
Books mentioned in this topic
The Big Melt (other topics)Mercedes Wore Black (other topics)
The Big Melt (other topics)
Clockwork Angel; Clockwork Prince; Clockwork Princess (other topics)
The Clan of the Cave Bear (other topics)
More...
Agreed Alberta. Eco-fiction --everyone says it's ill defined then when you try to define it...??? Let's define it. It's fiction that is based around the planet earth in a realistic/scientific way, as I mention above. It does not include science fiction, or "made" up components regarding the earth. It endeavors to include native flora and fauna and thereby educate and it's OK if it also has the audacity to advocate for the protection of our earth. Lord, we have come a long way from Ed Abbey. It's depressing.