Author Claire Datnow

I invite you to embark on a journey to explore Eco fiction as a writer.  When I began my Eco Fiction Adventure series, I did not expected it to be so challenging yet so rewarding. Your journey will reveal a genre that offers inspiration and a clear purpose to authors. It provides a unique avenue for writers to delve into critical ecological issues through the power of storytelling and intertwines imagination with science and advocacy that inspires hope and action.

  I started with  “The Lone Tree: An Eco Adventure,” more than two decades ago— and more recently Cli-fi (Climate fiction) trilogy—for upper elementary and MG.  Along the way I encountered inspiring students, wondrous endangered animals, and  outstanding scientist-conservationist dedicated to saving them.  

Eco-fiction, in essence, is fiction that revolves around ecological themes and environmental issues. What sets Eco-fiction apart is its deep connection to the natural world and its exploration of humanity’s relationship to it. 

Eco-fiction also includes “cli-fi” (climate offers the writer a chance to choose from a wide range of narratives styles—from realism, magic realism, to dystopian visions of a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by climate change or utopian tales of harmony between humans and nature.

What are the rewards of writing Eco-Fiction and Cli-Fi or Climate Fiction? Through vivid imagery and thought-provoking narratives, this genre helps readers gain insight into the impact of human activity on our planet and inspire them take action to protect and live in harmony with the natural world. 

As writers, we have a wonderful opportunity to use the power of storytelling to spark conversations, evoke empathy, and inspire change. By weaving environmental themes into our work, we can contribute to a broader dialogue about the urgent need for ecological stewardship and collective action. In a world grappling with unprecedented environmental challenges, Eco-fiction inspires hope and a call to action. Through our words and imaginations, we have the gift to tell narrative that envisions the future on this planet by building a more sustainable and just world.

As writers, let us embrace the transformative potential of Eco-fiction and harness the power of storytelling to educate and to inspire positive change. Together, we can build a brighter, greener tomorrow—one page at a time! Remember, the pen is indeed mightier than the sword, and in our hands, it becomes a beacon of hope for a planet.

Resources for Eco-Fiction Writers

For authors interested in exploring eco-fiction, there is a wealth of resources available to guide and inspire your creative journey:

Claire Datnow: mediamint.net and  https://wiki.creativecommons.org/images/3/39/How_to_Become_an_Eco_Detective.pdf

clairedatnow.com books and blogs on environmental fiction and climate fiction. 

Dragonfly.eco: This online hub is dedicated to eco-fiction and offers a resources, including book recommendations, author interviews, and articles exploring the intersection of literature and the environment.

The Cli-Fi Report: Stay up to date with the latest news and developments in the world of eco-fiction through the Cli-Fi Report, a comprehensive online publication covering everything from new book releases to academic research on climate fiction. #clifi

Eco-Lit Books: Discover a curated selection of eco-fiction titles and environmental literature recommendations on Eco-Lit Books. Whether you’re looking for dystopian thrillers or lyrical nature writing, this website has something for every eco-conscious reader.

The Nature of Cities: This online platform brings together writers, artists, and activists to explore urban ecology and imagine sustainable futures for cities. Writers interested in eco-fiction set in urban environments will find a wealth of inspiration and community here

Explore these resources to deepen your understanding of eco-fiction and connect with a community of like-minded writers passionate about exploring environmental themes through literature!

Eco-Fiction: Crafting Nature-Inspired Narratives (Claire Datnows #2)

Dive into the exciting realm of eco-fiction; Discover how contemporary writers craft narratives that reflect our connection with nature, addressing pressing issues like climate change and biodiversity loss. Unlock the techniques authors employ to weave environmental themes into gripping tales. Craft your own eco-inspired work, aiming to spark critical reflections on our role in the natural world. Learn how our stories contribute to the dialogue on our planet's future

Links to Claire Datnow Books:

clairedatnow.com

mediamint.net

Links to Additional Resources and to Articles by Claire Datnow:

The Art and Craft of Climate fiction by Claire Datnow—published in Climate Fiction Writers League:

Climate Change Fiction: Multicultural, Diverse, Global, and with Animals, Too! a guest blog by author Claire Datnow published Teen Librarian ToolBox

The Winds of Change: Children’s Environmental Climate Fiction published in the Alabama Writers Cooperative and in Dragonfly.

Additional Resources::

Weaving In Climate Change: A Cheat Sheet

"Climate Change Education” Infuse art, writing, and experiential learning into your climate science education with teachers and informal educators.

Claire Datnow

Mediamint.net
Clairedatnow.com

The Adventures of The Sizzling Six series 
The Climate Fiction Trilogy Series, The Four Elements

This is a free Zoom workshop for AWC members.

Click this link now and fill out a short form to register.

Read more about presenter and author Emma Fox at her website.

The Writing Center at Athens State University will host a writing summit June 17-18, 2024. Alabama Poet Laureate Ashley M. Jones will deliver the keynote address. Come experience workshops, panels, roundtables, some rectangular tables, and an open mic session. Surround yourself with other writers and enjoy workshops on all types of writing—creative, academic, and professional. Learn about publishing fiction, poetry, short stories, and more.

Information is on the three (3) fabulous flyers shown below. If images are not accessible to you, the event will be at 300 N. Beaty Street, Athens, AL 35601. The flyers have a QR code you can scan to register. The Writing Center email is writing.center@athens.edu.

And now, by popular demand, a link to the registration form.

Register ASAP to get in on the lunch provided for the first 100 registrants—you’ll be glad you did!

Author Don Keith

Whenever I have the honor of presenting at a writers’ conference or meet with a group of would-be authors, I almost always get asked two questions. They are: “What do you do when you have ‘writer’s block?’” and, “How can I finish this novel I’ve been writing since Reagan was president?”

If you look at my bio, you will quickly see I am not afflicted by either problem. I’ve been fortunate to complete and have published more than forty books, fiction and non-fiction. I have self-published a half dozen and published by houses ranging from the smallest to some of the largest in the world. The works include bestsellers, flops, many that have been in print for more than two decades now, several that won major awards, and two that were adapted for the screen. Obviously, I’m not familiar with that writer’s block syndrome that infects so many authors. Nor do I squander an inordinate amount of time beginning to think about getting around to considering commencing to start and/or complete a book. I simply believe there are too many stories that need to be told for me to goof around and not get them all sewed up and delivered to people who might enjoy or be entertained, inspired, or informed by reading them.

You might say that’s all well and good, but you are not me. We are all different. You need someone to tell you how to get off the dime and finish that book. And then start the next one. And the next one after that. And let me be clear that if you write just because you enjoy the process and really have little desire or drive to be published and read by a lot of people, then this advice is not necessarily for you.

I believe in many instances, and whether it is intentional or not, writers spin their wheels because of a fear that if the book is finished and people—relatives, friends, fellow writers, potential agents or publishers—have a chance to read it, they might call their baby ugly. Fear of rejection. Bad reviews. Even jealous negativity from writers they know. They have decided nobody can hurt their feelings if the book remains “unfinished” behind a password on the computer. All I can say is, “Get tough!” You will get turned down by agents and publishers and hit square in the chops by negative reviews. Bet on it! Though I average more than 90% 4- and 5-star Amazon reviews on every book I have released, there have been a few who happily slapped a one-star put-down on my literary masterpiece. Want to know a secret? Sometimes they are right, and it helps me do an even better job on the next one. Sometimes they are so far out in left field—“Amazon delivered the book two days later than promised so I give it a single star!”—that I can happily ignore it. Besides, when 90% of purchasers are favorable toward the book, the very few who react negatively, in my very biased opinion, are the ones who are woefully out of step. Not the rest of the parade, the folks who are positive in their opinions. At any rate, please do not allow anticipated negativity to keep you from completing your book. Or from starting the next one.

As I admitted, I do not understand writer’s block. Sure, there are times when the muse on my shoulder is not quite so chatty, and it is something of a struggle to get something…anything…written. All I can say is to persevere. Write something. Anything. Now, if you still write on a legal pad with a ballpoint pen, or, like historical author Shelby Foote, use a feather quill dipped into an ink well (because, as he said, every word requires thought and precision) then it is not quite so easy to write, review, and revise. But with computer and word processor, you can always rewrite, tighten, fix, and make better anything you might type while forcing yourself to create something. Or as sometimes happens with me, I go back and read it and decide what I wrote when I was struggling to get anything committed to manuscript actually turned out to be pretty good.

Of course, there could be a reason why it seems you are casting literary seed on infertile ground. In the case of a novel, it could be that your story is not yet fully developed in your head. Maybe you get the reader lost in more backstory than is necessary, or you have far more detail than you need to tell the story, or you cover the same ground repeatedly just to make sure the reader gets what you are trying to say. Or you spend inordinate time and effort preparing to construct your yarn, outlining the story or writing detailed biographies of all the characters so you can allow yourself to “know them.” Or maybe because you do not outline or jot down a short biography for each character when it really could help keep you on track. Or you suddenly realize that the book’s structure is all sideways and you have no idea how to set it upright. Admittedly, a foundational problem is going to be tougher to push through. But if the story is worth telling and the people who populate it are worth getting to know, then I believe the best way to get back on track is to write right on through that wall of procrastination. At least for me, there have been many times when I plotted myself right into a corner. But in most cases—not always since there is a flock of wounded ducks on my computer in a folder labeled “Worthy Attempts,” fits-and-starts that I still want to try to resuscitate someday—I decided I would never get the story told if I did not find a way to make it work. Not force it to work. Find the solution for whatever goof-up had left me stranded. There is always one, of course. Maybe more than one. At least there is in real life, and the best stories reflect real life, right?

A final reason, I think, that writers cannot finish a project, or they have trouble moving forward when their creativity skedaddles, is that they are too busy WRITING to actually write. Yes, WRITING in all-caps. They forget that they should simply be telling a compelling story involving believable and fascinating characters. Maybe allow all that writing craft you’ve heard and read about—and that gets kicked around at conferences and whenever two or more authors gather—to take a back seat for at least the first couple of drafts. To be even more clear, I am talking about avoiding WRITING PRETTY at the expense of getting the story told! So many writers are convinced that they must turn out the most spectacular prose ever committed to a hard drive. Otherwise, literary agents, writing teachers, publishers, critics, and—worst of all—readers who slapped $19.95 onto their credit cards to take home or download your tome will think less of you because there were not enough clever and perfectly applied adverbs, adjectives, metaphors, similes, imagery, or foreshadowing.

All I can say is don’t worry so much about WRITING at the expense of finishing the project! Tell the story. Yes, find different and creative ways to say familiar things. But don’t go tripping all over yourself to come up with the absolutely perfect description of a sunset or a murder. Don’t get sidetracked by trying to be poetic or multi-syllabic, showing out to impress your writer friends or your sophomore-year English teacher with how brilliantly you employ all those literary devices.

Tell the story. Tell it as if you were sitting around on the deck with friends, sharing margaritas, chips and salsa. “Here’s what happened and how it happened and who it happened to.” Get it down, then go back and see if you can come up with some creative ways of polishing the narrative and making it shine like new money. Try to do it without getting tripped up by all that pretty writing, of course.

And keep writing. The rest of us want to be moved by that tale that, deep inside, you know you were born to share.

So, quit procrastinating, pass the salsa, and tell us all about the person over at the place that did that thing he or she did and was forever changed by the experience.

---

Award-winning and best-selling author Don Keith is a graduate of the University of Alabama. As a broadcast journalist, he won awards from the Associated Press and United Press International for news writing and reporting and received Troy University’s Hector Award for innovation in broadcast journalism. As an on-the-air broadcaster, Don was twice named Billboard Magazine "Radio Personality of the Year."  His debut novel, The Forever Season, received the Alabama Library Association’s "Fiction of the Year" award. He has since published more than forty books, fiction and non-fiction, including several national bestsellers. One was the basis for the hit motion picture Hunter Killer, starring Gerard Butler and Gary Oldman. His biography of acclaimed African American artist Steve Skipper became the theatrical documentary feature Colors of Character.

Don lives in Indian Springs Village, Alabama, with his wife, Charlene. His email address is don@donkeith.com and his web site is www.donkeith.com.

On Sunday, November 12, over a dozen AWC members enjoyed a fascinating online workshop led by three poets, each with a unique history (and connections to History) and voice. The moderators shared their methods and their work, and several attendees also shared their work, written on the spot. Sorry you missed it? Well, weep no more, for you can watch and listen to the video here.

This first part is a personal remembrance by Chris Jones: “When I walked into my first in-person AWC Conference this September, I noticed the young lady sitting at the check-in table and I will admit my first thought was, “Oh, someone dragged their granddaughter to the conference.” I quickly abandoned that thought as I observed the “granddaughter” was actively greeting and signing in members as they arrived. That night, as the crowd departed the open mic session at another venue, I noticed Rebecca and other young people rapidly folding and stacking chairs to reset the room, and I thought, “Ah, the young folks provide muscle.” Then I actually met Rebecca on the last day of the conference, when she came up and introduced herself and congratulated me on the poem I had read the night before. I thanked her and asked whether she was a student. She said she was pursuing an MFA and that, as a contest judge, she had actually helped select my poem. I later learned that she was a board member. I finally realized: this versatile girl did anything and everything for the AWC. There were other young people present, of course, but seeing Rebecca’s level of energy and active involvement reassured me about AWC’s future.”

In late October of this year, just a few weeks after the AWC conference, AWC board member Rebecca Davis-Brown died as the result of a traffic accident. Her family and friends and colleagues were of course devastated by this loss. Much has been written about Rebecca in the usual places where a life is summarized—obituaries, mainly. Those have their place, but the AWC wanted to also remember her here, in a place that is all about two of her great loves—writing, and writers.

Rebecca was one of those essential people in the arts—those who not only pursue art themselves, but who also seek to inspire others to create and perform. A published, award-winning author herself, she was also the co-creator and editor-in-chief of a literary journal that provided a way for K-12 students to write for publication. You can see the website for that journal here.

An accomplished stage performer, she also taught dance and choreographed many stage musicals.

Rebecca was a member of the AWC board from 2022-2023. Among her accomplishments was stepping into the role of social media manager during the social media chair’s maternity leave.

Rebecca leaves behind many friends at the AWC, who will never forget her and who will forever be inspired by the memory of her absolute dedication to the arts. You can see much more detail about Rebecca’s life on this tribute wall.

Rest in Peace, Rebecca.

The AWC is proud to present “‘History’ and ‘history’: writing poems about childhood in the context of cultural changes” with Dr. Ramona Hyman, Harry Moore, and Nancy Owen Nelson. The workshop is free for members and will take place on Sunday, November 12th, beginning at 1 PM. The workshop is expected to last for 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours.

Each of the presenters of this workshop has written poems in terms of both history—their own personal growing-up years—and History—confronting the larger issues of the day. Come hear them discuss their creative process with each other and with you.

The workshop will include a panel discussion, writing exercises, and discussion.

Dr. Ramona L. Hyman is a writer, professor, and speaker “whose words are powerful memories for us to walk in the 21st century,” says Sonia Sanchez. Dr. Hyman has served as a professor for over thirty-five years. Hyman is a graduate of Temple University (BA), Andrews University (MA), and earned her PhD from the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. Dr. Joyce Joyce says, as a writer and speaker, “Hyman challenges audiences to explore a poetic imagination grounded in a feel for the southern landscape, African- American literary and political history, Black spirituality, and a creative fusion of Black folk speech with a Euro-American poetic vernacular. Dr. Ramona L.  Hyman emerges as a strong . . .intellectual poetic voice.”  Dr. Hyman is the co-editor of African American Seventh-day Adventist Healers in a Multi-cultural Nation (Pacific Press) and two collections of poetry--I Am Black America and In the Sanctuary of ‘de South. She is the author of the children’s book Grandma Annie’s Poetry. In 2022, she was included in Resonate, a collection of essays by Seventh-day Adventist Women Scholars. She is also included in the anthology Restore (November 2023), paper proceedings from the 2022 Adventist Society for Religious Studies. Presently Hyman is working on a collection of essays-- “Montgomery 55 on My Mind: Lessons from the Boycott.”  She has been awarded grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.  In 2022, Dr. Hyman was appointed to serve as a Governor’s appointee for the Alabama State Council on the Arts by Governor Kay Ivey. 

Dr. Hyman can be contacted at ramona.hyman@yahoo.com.

Nancy Owen Nelson earned her BA from Birmingham-Southern and her MA and PhD from Auburn University. Her poems have been published in The South Dakota Review, Graffiti Rag, What Wildness is This: Women Write About the Southwest, The MacGuffin, A Cloud of Possibility, Oberon, and This/That/Lit online journal. Published books include her memoirs, Searching for Nannie B: Connecting Three Generations of Southern Women (2015) and Divine Aphasia: A Woman’s Search for Her Father (2021); her poetry chapbook, My Heart Wears No Colors (2018); and her poetry book, Portals: A Memoir in Verse (2019). In 2019, her poem “Africatown,” was awarded second place for free verse in the Alabama Writers Conclave competition.  Her latest book, Five Points South:  Poems from an Alabama Pilgrimage, is based on a road trip she took with her late husband, Roger, in 2019. Five Points South was awarded the Book of the Year, 2022, by the Alabama State Poetry Society.  In May, 2023, Nelson moved to Florence Alabama, where she is serving as editor of Seven Points Publishing Company.

Recipient of the 2014 Writers Exchange Award from Poets & Writers, Harry Moore is the author of the poetry collections Bearing the Farm Away (Kelsay Books, 2018) and Broken and Blended: Love’s Alchemy (Kelsay Books, 2021), along with four chapbooks: What He Would Call Them (Finishing Line Press, 2013); Time’s Fool: Love Poems (Mule on a Ferris Wheel Press, 2014); Retreat: A Way Forward (Finishing Line Press, 2017); and Beyond Paradise: The Unweeded Garden (Main Street Rag, 2020).

A third collection, We the People: Confessions of a Caucasian Southerner, is forthcoming from Broadstone Books.

His poems have appeared in Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Plainsongs, Xavier Review, Pudding Magazine, Slipstream, Main Street Rag, South Carolina Review, Blue Unicorn, Ponder Review, Anglican Theological Review, Pensive, and other journals.

Retired after teaching writing and literature for four decades in Alabama community colleges, he lives with his wife, Cassandra, in Decatur, Alabama, and serves as an assistant editor of POEM magazine. More at harryvmoore.com.

To register for this workshop, please complete the Google Form below. You will be sent login credentials before the event:

The 2023 conference celebrating AWC’s 100th year was a smashing success. Workshops, socializing, open mic, the awards banquet, the member bookstore—so much fun and writing crammed into a long weekend. Let’s build on that success in our 101st year.

Please plan to attend the AWC 2024 Conference in Orange Beach, Alabama, on September 6, 2024, through September 8, 2024.

More details will follow on the AWC website and in emails, but for now, please save the date!

AWC Members,

We are so excited about our upcoming conference, which will take place over the weekend of September 8-10, 2023 in Birmingham, Alabama.

If you haven’t registered yet, we ask that you please take the time to consider doing so. We have a great conference planned, with engaging sessions for writers working in various genres.

We’ve had a location change due to flooding at the O’Neal Library. Here is where our daily events will take place:

Friday - Birmingham Public Library - Central branch

Friday Night - Open Mic at Desert Island Supply Co. (5500 1st Ave N, Birmingham, AL 35212)

Saturday - Avenue D (3008 4th Ave. S.)

Sunday - UAB Spencer Honors House

We hope to see you this September in Birmingham!