Geetha Iyer

Do reach out if you have questions on any of the above! End 🧵

If creative nonfiction is not your jam, ISLE also accepts fiction, poetry, and scholarly articles. Check out their submission criteria as well. And follow @asle-us.bsky.social for more on the study of literature and the environment.

Instructions to Authors Types of Submissions Accepted Scholarly Articles We welcome scholarly article manuscripts of 6,500-8,500 words, formatted according to the MLA Handbook, 9th E

The general instructions page will be updated to reflect the details above, and the submissions portal and other details can be found here: academic.oup.com/isle/pages/G...

We do not accept simultaneous submissions but we guarantee a fast response (within one month) so your work is not held up indefinitely. Please limit your submissions to once a year. At this time, ISLE is a non-paying journal run by an all-volunteer staff.

We do not accept work that is composed with LLMs (AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or Midjourney). Current LLMs are labor- and carbon-exploitative to a degree that cannot justify their ethical use in a journal that focuses on literature and the environment...

Submission length for prose: 2,000-4,000 words (one full-length essay or a series of shorter pieces) in Word .doc or .docx format. Submission length for graphic narratives: 1-4 pages (one full-length piece or a series of 1-page pieces) in .pdf format...

Creative nonfiction is a capacious genre and we encourage risky and imaginative prose, including experimental forms such as flash nonfiction, lyric essays, collage, prose poetry, speculative nonfiction, science writing, and graphic narratives...

Nature, ecology, and the environment are broadly defined and may include explorations of wild lands, the wildland-urban interface, urban ecosystems, agricultural systems, aquatic systems, natural resource mis/management, biodiversity, climate change, and more...

Sociocultural narratives may include explorations of identity (such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability, class, or geopolitical affiliation); social and cultural histories; narratives of social justice, activism, and anti-colonial and decolonial movements...

People are a part of nature. People also disproportionately influence natural systems. ISLE invites creative nonfiction that juxtaposes sociocultural narratives against nature, ecology, and the environment...

Logo for the journal ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, featuring a black line drawing of a wizened cypress-like tree against a neutral background.

🧵Open submissions call! I recently took on a new position as Associate Editor of Creative Nonfiction at ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. If you have work that intersects people+nature in some significant way, I want to see it! Read on for submissions criteria...

Much like a bumblebee, this insect is covered in yellow hairs. Furry yellow legs, yellow face with black eyes, domed yellow thorax, abdomen banded in yellow and unfurry black. How to tell it is a fly and not a bee? One large set of brown wings, one set of halteres (little yellow nubs under the main wings, used for steering), antennae are short and more like horns than the rounded tipped antennae of bees, and the mouthparts come to a point, meant to pierce their prey to suck out their blood. The eyes are rounder and more beady looking than bee eyes. Robberflies hunt by sight. They are also called assassin flies, because they are spectacular predators. This one is giving me intense side eye from the tarmac after evading my camera for so long.

Me to 5yo: Please walk faster, I want to get home. Also me: 5yo, hold my bag, and the umbrella, and the raincoat, I have to chase down this insect and confirm it is not a bee. 15 minutes later... Look at this beauty. Bumblebee robberfly, not currently assassinating anything smaller than a raisin.

My new mode of interacting with Bsky--if it's not a poem or a picture of an invertebrate within three newsfeed posts, I'm outta here. Lucky me:

Ancient poetry unveils history of critically endangered finless porpoises, scientists say | CNN Scientists studied more than 700 ancient Chinese poems that mention the Yangtze finless porpoise to determine its population history, according to a new study.

Also, here's the sci comm version of the research paper linked at the top of the thread: www.cnn.com/2025/05/14/s...

... computers should not be translating poetry. A native-language poet should. I am content to know that there are porpoises swimming in those Excel sheets and there are researchers who want to boost real porpoise numbers in the Yangtze. Anyway, it's summer and I want to write dolphin poems now.

I downloaded the paper and the supplementary files. The raw data is in Chinese, which I can't read. I used Google Lens for a glimpse ("Wild birds fly to the wilderness, porpoises are in the new spring waves. My life's faith is one chapter, and it is spread a hundred times."). I stopped because...

Screenshot of a supplementary figure from the research paper. The caption reads: "Figure S2. The depiction demonstrated how Qianlong’s poems and travels provide records of the Yangtze finless porpoise. (A) An illustration of Qianlong Emperor traveling along the Yangtze River; (B) Original Chinese text and English translation of Qianlong's poem referencing the Yangtze finless porpoise (Only translated the content in the red box)." The illustration (A) shows curlicued waves in the foreground, with two porpoises breaching in front of a royal river boat with two dragon figureheads. The background features karst landscape, gentle water, and a few buildings fading into the distance. Chinese script is overlaid in the top right. Next to the print of the original Chinese text (B) is a translation in English that reads: "Touring Jiao Mountain, Qianglong" followed by the text I quote in my skeet.

Deep-dove into the supplementary data to find this gem: "Emerald woods embrace the cliffs' bold line, painting the sky's hue where river and reflection twine. | Porpoises chased moonlight on silvered tides, as dragons summoned storm-clouds loom in sight."

In a confluence of interests--this paper looked at classical Chinese poetry to infer range contraction of the critically endangered Yangtze finless porpoise. Poetry as natural history notes, love this.

I knew this folio on queer epistolaries was going to knock me out and I was right and I have grading to do but all I want to do is keep reading >>

The undercrown of a date palm tree that has been trimmed of many layers of fronds. Perched on the front stumps are a half dozen rosy faced lovebirds and two pigeons, one of which is headfirst inside a hole in between the cut fronds.

The same pigeons from another angle. One of the pigeons is head and chest deep into a hole. The other pigeon is looking, perhaps at me, bemused.

Is this a gila woodpecker clinging to a tree trunk? Dusty head and chest, black and white barred wings, back, and tail, long, sharp, black beak, and a little orange on its forehead (not visible in this profile photo).

Six rosy faced lovebirds, two entirely within hollows in between stumps of cut date frond, the others perching on the stumps. Date fronds grow in this stepwise spiralling pattern and the birds look like they are ascending a very gnarly wooden spiral staircase.

Ok, bear with the shaky-cam (it is my signature special effect as an overenthusiast), but would you take a look at this blessed date palm? Rosy-faced lovebirds, common pigeons, and gila woodpeckers (I think?) all nesting in the same date palm tree crown. Phoenix, AZ.

Quoted from Victoria de Rijke's "Children and Animals' Scribble," in The Untimely Art of Scribble. All I wanted to do four years ago was write about my kid learning to draw and now I'm eight research papers into the cognitive and literary underpinnings of kids' doodles. A little bit extra, I admit.

A toddler (my kid four years ago) photographed from above sitting on a tile floor with red and yellow paint in a tray and a sketchbook with red, yellow, and murky orange dashes of paint running across the pages. The sole of the toddler's left foot is painted red. There's a line of red paint on the toddler's right knee. The toddler's right hand is holding a brush and motion-blurred. More body painting will ensue.

🧵"It is characteristic of the scribble to resist being anything and to be part of the move; on the move, just as the scribbler is [...] The line takes time and is time as a temporal trace, thus the scribbler [...] and the scribble [...] are forms of growth and return [remaining] unfinished, always."

NEA GRANT TERMINATION TRACKER

List of NEA grant recipients no longer receiving funding. You don't have to care. You just have to know. @electricliterature.com @onestorymag.bsky.social @zyzzyvamag.bsky.social @redhenpress.bsky.social @mcsweeneys.net etc
docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
#writingcommunity

Or, if you prefer a smaller bookshop:

Thank you!

So thrilled to see Steven Universe in that list. Healing tears and shields and being brave enough to listen to others--the perfect superhero.

Excited to come across this paragraph by @alexanderchee.bsky.social in the newsletter I just read by dear friend and luminescent @jiminhanwriter.bsky.social. I needed this.

"Bad things are happening to language." Yes. Two weeks and I will be left alone again, with my own language, which has em dashes in all the places that comfort me.

Fascists abhor variation. I'm so angry for you.