Ekostories

Six Degrees of Interconnection, Orion Magazine

by Isaac Yuen

I’m pleased to have another short essay, “6 Degrees of Interconnection”, published in the latest Orion. Despite the title of the piece, I promise it is 100% Kevin Bacon free. Here’s a description on the rest of the issue: “In this issue, Robin Wall Kimmerer explores how language can affirm our kinship with the natural world, and John Landretti considers where the line lies...

June 19, 2017

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Personal
What Matters, River Teeth Journal

by Isaac Yuen

Recently, I had the honour to contribute a short-short to “Beautiful Things”, the online section of River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative. River Teeth is one of the most well-known creative nonfiction publications around, and in my opinion has the most inspired name. On its origin: “…there are hard, cross-grained whorls of human experience that remain inexplicably lodged in us, long after the...

May 19, 2017

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Personal
Ekostories and Ekphrasis

by Isaac Yuen

It’s been more than five years since I started Ekostories. In the About section, I wrote that I originally chose the “Eko” prefix because it was a derivation from the Greek word “oikos”, meaning home or household, which was the root word for ecology, meaning the study of home or household. Over the years I have learned through happy coincidence that the name and...

May 16, 2017

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Art, Personal
Italo Calvino’s Marcovaldo: Seasons in the City

by Isaac Yuen

Bedridden with the flu on a recent writing retreat, I had resigned myself to focus on recovery rather than to get any writing done. I had not expected, between the coughing fits and the fever chills, to find new inspiration from a familiar source. But there it was, sitting eye-level on the third shelf of a corner bookcase at a stranger’s vacation rental, all...

February 1, 2017

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Featured Ekostories, Fiction, Literature, Short Stories
Rhythm, Hippocampus Magazine

by Isaac Yuen

I’m pleased to have a flash piece published in the January issue of Hippocampus, an online magazine dedicated to entertain, educate, and engage writers and readers of creative nonfiction. Rhythm is a 750-word meditation on the “zone” one can attain while playing a sport or writing a story, along with the fleeting joy that ensues from tapping into the flow. There is a part...

January 18, 2017

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Personal
Art, Animal, Essence: The Drawings of Charley Harper

by Isaac Yuen

I don’t remember exactly when I stopped drawing. I don’t mean the occasional doodles I do now; I mean before, when drawing was like daily bread, a childhood mainstay. I mean the classes, the contests, the urge to recreate images I saw in books, from movies, outside, everywhere. It was definitely before middle school, before that one time in English class where we had...

December 23, 2016

Art
Mind of a Clam: Driftfish, A Marine Life Anthology

by Isaac Yuen

In light of International Remembrance Day for Lost Species, I’m proud to be a contributor of Driftfish, a new marine life themed anthology put out by Zoomorphic, a UK magazine and micropublisher dedicated to writing that deepens our connection with wildlife and the more-than-human world: “From the hundreds of submissions that we were privileged to read from poets and prose writers from all over the...

November 30, 2016

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Personal, Short Stories
Me and Gravity, Orion Magazine

by Isaac Yuen

I am honoured to be a contributor in the latest double-issue of Orion, a fantastic magazine that explores ideas around nature, culture, and place. If that tagline sounds familiar to Ekostories, it’s because Orion was one of my chief inspirations for taking up the pen (keyboard?) years ago and remains one of the few publications I relish reading from beginning to end. I’m thrilled to...

November 6, 2016

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Personal
Finding Place through Art and Science: The Field Journals of Lyn Baldwin

by Isaac Yuen

This piece was featured as an Editor’s Pick on Discover WordPress June 30,2016. I began my first field journal in Belize, during my time there for biology field school. Each evening after night walks I would jot down a list of the day’s seen species under the fluorescent hum of generator lights. Flipping through the spiral-bound notebook now a decade later, I wish I...

June 23, 2016

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Art, Featured Ekostories
Zoomorphic Magazine, A Tapir’s Tale

by Isaac Yuen

I‘m pleased to announce that Zoomorphic Magazine has published one of my personal essays titled “A Tapir’s Tale”. From scientists and conservationists with research to share to nature writers with stories to tell, Zoomorphic is a great read for anyone interested in writing that “deepens our connection with wildlife and the more-than-human world”. “A Tapir’s Tale” begins with a childhood animal book and delves...

April 18, 2016

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Personal

Italo Calvino’s Marcovaldo: Seasons in the City

Bedridden with the flu on a recent writing retreat, I had resigned myself to focus on recovery rather than to get any writing done. I had not expected, between the coughing fits and the fever chills, to find new inspiration from a familiar source. But there it was, sitting eye-level on the third shelf of a corner bookcase at a stranger’s vacation rental, all 128 pages of glory: Italo Calvino’s Marcovaldo, translated by William Weaver. My experience with Calvino is uneven. On more than one occasion, my awe of the Italian author’s way with words outpaced my ability to keep up with the quickness of his intellect. I gave up halfway through The Castle of Cross Destinies because my mind could no longer hold the labyrinth of interconnected narratives together, and while I admired and strove to emulate the stylings of his Cosmicomics, many of those journeys across time, space, and imagination remains beyond my comprehension. Yet when Calvino’s work connects, he leaves an impression upon me unlike any other author. Even as I have...

Finding Place through Art and Science: The Field Journals of Lyn Baldwin

by Isaac Yuen

This piece was featured as an Editor’s Pick on Discover WordPress June 30,2016. I began my first field journal in Belize, during my time there for biology field school. Each evening after night walks I would jot down a list of the day’s seen species under the fluorescent hum of generator lights. Flipping through the spiral-bound notebook now a decade later, I wish I hadn’t been so rigid in my musings, so clinical in my descriptions of those treasurable weeks in a new place. Now and then memories surface – hiking up trails in Cockscomb Basin Jaguar Preserve; huddling close to campfires pitched by the Sibun River after a day of canoeing; swaying in a hammock and looking out at the sunset while listening to someone strumming the guitar. These happenings now slip through my mesh of English and Latin names, scrawled neat on ruled lines. I wish I did a better job at capturing moments. I wish I could go back. *** Maybe regret is why I so admire those skilled at conveying...

The Drop That Contained the Sea, by Christopher Tin

by Isaac Yuen

Recently while sorting through my soundtrack collection, I came across an old and beloved piece of music. Titled “Baba Yetu“, it was the feature song for Civilization 4, an entry in a popular strategy game series that came out in 2004. While humming the tune and falling into the timesink that is Wikipedia, I learned that the song is a Swahili translation of the Lord’s Prayer, that it was the only videogame song in history to win a Grammy, and that the composer Christopher Tin‘s latest creation was a classical crossover album around the theme of water called “The Drop That Contained the Sea“. “The message [of the album] is that, essentially, in the coming century water, and water management, is going to be the most important global issue to all people and across all countries,” Tin says, “Between melting Antarctic ice sheets and rising ocean levels and droughts and increased devastation from hurricanes and so forth, water is literally going to shape the way we draw our maps.” – Christopher Tin, Public Radio International Needless...

Of Myths and Metaphors: Star Trek TNG’s Darmok

by Isaac Yuen

Several weeks past, I attended a workshop on the use of storytelling for effective social engagement. Sitting at my table was a doctoral student interested in better ways to communicate concepts of ecological economics to the public. As we chatted about the various metaphors embedded within conventional economics, particularly around growth and development, I started thinking about stories that focus on the challenge of communication and the power of metaphor. Searching my mind for examples, I found myself returning once more to the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation for inspiration, this time to an episode titled Darmok.

Pollan’s Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education, Part 2

by Isaac Yuen

Welcome to part two of the analysis on Michael Pollan’s Second Nature: a Gardener’s Education. In this entry, I’ll focus on my two favourite chapters of the book: Planting a Tree and The Idea of a Garden. The Meaning of a Tree In Planting a Tree, Pollan explores the fascinating and ever-changing cultural significance of a tree. Once again, his reflections come out of his horticultural adventures; the chapter chronicles his thoughts as he decides on the right tree for his yard. The act of tree planting prompts Pollan to delve deep into American history to explore the meanings people have come to attach to the tree: The Divine Tree: Native Americans saw and treated trees as divine spirits, only to be cut down in need. The Tree of Evil: Puritans despised them as symbols for pantheism, danger, and darkness. The Tree as a Weed: New England subsistence farmers regarded them as obstacles to settlement. To them, the clear-cut landscape was viewed as a sign of progress and civilization. The Tree as a Commodity:...

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Six Degrees of Interconnection, Orion Magazine

What Matters, River Teeth Journal

Ekostories and Ekphrasis

Italo Calvino’s Marcovaldo: Seasons in the City

Rhythm, Hippocampus Magazine

Art, Animal, Essence: The Drawings of Charley Harper

Mind of a Clam: Driftfish, A Marine Life Anthology

Me and Gravity, Orion Magazine

Finding Place through Art and Science: The Field Journals of Lyn Baldwin

Zoomorphic Magazine, A Tapir’s Tale