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Farmlandia
From Origami Poems Project
Click on the cover to print out your own little poetry books. Free!
In 2 tiny chapbooks, this series of 6 poems illustrates the dramatic changes in farming practices from the 1800s to today. Set in Florida, Farmlandia shows us what life was like on the same farm at different times: in 1830, 1888, the 1900s, 2000, 2020, and what it could be like in the not too distant future. If we learn to respect the land, our food and the environment we live in will provide for us again.
NEW: Farmlandia is now a full-length verse novel from the Indian press Cyberwit.
Available on Amazon.
Bull Sugar: A Not-So-Sweet Novel
from
Dixi Books
February 2022
New eco-fiction from FNR Foundation
The owners of the US sugar companies are some of the world's richest people. They've made their billions on the backs of the world's poorest people. In addition to human rights violations and corruption, Big Sugar has made significant contributions to environmental destruction and global ill health.
In the US today, sugar cane fields take up thousands of acres of Florida land. The waste and runoff from the cane fields are the source of serious pollution. Drinking water in the state is contaminated, fish and aquatic life die, wildlife and sea grass are threatened. Florida residents and the tourist industry suffer from repeated contamination of area beaches, lakes, and waterways.
Bull Sugar fictionalizes true events to show the kind of insidious social injustice exhibited by Big Sugar, and to illustrate the ongoing damage caused to the environment and people of Florida. The negative effects are experienced elsewhere in the world as well.
While at work as a journalist for a newspaper, twenty-one year-old Alyson Soule receives a phone call from an emergency room nurse. Her forty-one-year-old mother has overdosed again. Alyson goes home to her small Florida hometown to help. This time, however, she is determined to uncover the triggers for her mother's self-destructive behavior. Her discoveries lead her to the truth about her mother, Big Sugar, and her own identity.
References and resources are included, as well as factual information on the sugar industry.
Available on Amazon.
A Garden of Top of the World
from
Dixi Books
January 2019
"This is the way the world is fed."
The year is 2066 and life in Greenland is much warmer, more crowded, and lacking in fresh food. Sixteen-year-old Jonnie lives in the Relocation city of Shamed. Hundred-story high rise buildings house extended families from American coastal cities relocated after the Sixth Sea Rise. Work and school are conducted from overcrowded apartments, and homeless people camp out in the streets.
Jonnie's parents run a high-tech call center where numerous family members work day and night. She shares a bedroom with her much older nieces. For quiet and privacy, Jonnie retreats to the empty rooftop.
Red is a homeless man who takes up temporary residence in a pigeon coop on the roof. After Red talks about the seeds in the birds' droppings, Jonnie gets interested. The family business has just been awarded a lucrative contract from Monarcho, the international conglomerate that holds patents to much of the world's seeds. Jonnie knows little about how food grows because meals come in packages ordered online and delivered by drone. Dishes are manufactured in the home using 3D printers.
Armed with a new understanding of old-fashioned garden-grown food, Jonnie is determined to create her own garden on the roof of her high rise. With Red as her guide, she meets a former cryosphere scientist, a botanist with an urban indoor garden, and Drew and Darr, twins her own age who live in the next building and want to help out.
Jonnie's search for who she is and what she might be able to offer the world is one that will resonate with readers of all ages. The information she learns about healthy food, sustainable agriculture, and urban gardens may inspire readers.
A cautionary tale with depth and humor, A GARDEN ON TOP OF THE WORLD is environmental fiction for ages 12 and up. Includes resources on gardening, urban gardens, heirloom seeds, and organic foods.
Available on Amazon.
Mottainai: A Journey in Search of the Zero Waste Life
from
Dixi Books
October 2019
"Mottainai feels like sacrifice at first. Then it feels like the only way to live."
Mottainai means waste. Popular with the Japanese for generations, mottainai (pronounced moe-tie-nye) is the Buddhist term for essence. One can say mottainai and mean "waste nothing." Or, if something appears wasteful, one might remark, "mottainai."
A kind of modern day fairy tale, MOTTAINAI: A JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF THE ZERO WASTE LIFE is the story of a young man who has everything and feels nothing but frustration. Until he meets an unusual stranger and learns about a program to teach us how little we really need—and why living differently is important for each of us, and for the planet.
A typical American Millennial, Greer Grassi stumbles on a grassroots movement to change the world. More interested in material accumulation and boosting his bank account, he puts his lifestyle of comfort on hold after he falls for a charming activist. To woo the girl, he takes a job at her nonprofit organization and embarks on the wacky but required training program in rural Japan. There, he lives off the grid with a cranky guru who talks trash and drinks too much. Yet, mottainai is the journey that will change the young man's outlook—and his life.
An ancient Japanese philosophy popularized worldwide by the late African activist Wangari Maathai, mottainai is both an individual consciousness and a global movement toward zero waste. To support this important worldview, MOTTAINAI: A JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF THE ZERO WASTE LIFE provides an entertaining story, an allegory about what it takes for us to change our comfortable, wasteful lifestyle in order to save our beautiful, beleaguered planet.
Includes tips for cutting back on waste.
Available on Amazon.
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All material copyright © 2016, Food and Nutrition Resources Foundation, Inc.