Ekostories

Second Best is Best, Gulf Coast Online

by Isaac Yuen

I’m particularly excited to announce that a new essay published online over at Gulf Coast, a journal co-founded by one of my favourite writers, Donald Barthelme. “Second Best is Best” is one in a collection I’m working on where I try to cram as many creatures and entities into a single piece of prose as possible and still have it be semi-coherent. Inspired by...

February 15, 2021

Comment 1

Entries, Non-fiction, Publication
Tiny Molecules: One Summer, by Iceland

by Isaac Yuen

One more piece of news to cap off the year: I’m delighted to have found a home for a new story in the winter issue of Tiny Molecules, an online quarterly literary magazine of small fiction. “One Summer, in Iceland” features the titular island of fire and ice as protagonist, or so it seems: “Yesterday for the first time this spring the rains died...

December 21, 2020

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Fiction, Publication, Short Stories
Flash Fiction Magazine: Last Light

by Isaac Yuen

I have a new piece of flash fiction (stories that are less than 1,000 words) over at Flash Fiction Magazine. “Last Light” uses the concept of lightspeed as a means to convey the time and distance necessary for healing: It’s been a thousand days since the sun died. Our star. My heart. It takes last light eight minutes to kiss the brow of the...

December 12, 2020

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Fiction, Publication, Short Stories
Place and Memory: Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities

by Isaac Yuen

I’m not sure how to describe Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. It isn’t traditional fiction on a structural level, having no story arc or a defined ending. Nor is it conventional fantasy, doing away with the worlds it creates almost as soon as it forms them. Even the broadest definitions of historical fiction and magical realism don’t quite fit, as Calvino blends real and imagined details...

June 21, 2015

Comments 8

Literature
The Dispossessed: Anarres the Promise Kept

by Isaac Yuen

“We have nothing but our freedom. We have nothing to give you but your own freedom. We have no law but the single principle of mutual aid between individuals. We have no government but the single principle of free association. We have no states, no nations, no presidents, no premiers, no chiefs, no generals, no bosses, no bankers, no landlords, no wages, no charity,...

July 31, 2014

Comments 5

Literature
The Dispossessed: Urras and Hope Betrayed

by Isaac Yuen

“Shevek, a brilliant physicist, decides to take action. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have isolated his planets of anarchists from the rest of the civilized universe… Shevek must make the unprecedented journey to the utopian mother planet, Urras, to challenge the complex structures of life and living, and ignite the fires of...

July 18, 2014

Comments 4

Literature
Change, Choice, Connection: Cloud Atlas

by Isaac Yuen

“Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.” – Sonmi 451 Thus sums up the core premise of Cloud Atlas, one of the more polarizing movies in recent memory and my personal favourite film for 2012. Spanning six stories over five centuries, many...

October 18, 2013

Comments 22

Movies
Tao Today: A Sage’s Take on Modern Society, Part 2

by Isaac Yuen

In response to the predicament of his times, Lao Tzu ruminated on the essence of human nature and asked: What can be done to stop the injustice, violence, and greed that inevitably corrupts the core of civilization? According to Welch, the old sage came to the conclusion that a radical operation must be performed on human nature before these systemic issues could be resolved:...

April 27, 2013

Comments 10

Non-fiction
Tao Today: A Sage’s Take on Modern Society, Part 1

by Isaac Yuen

If you follow Ekostories on a regular basis, you would know that one of my chief influences is author Ursula K. Le Guin. It was through her work that I first became intrigued by Taoism as a philosophy. Growing up in Hong Kong, my first encounters with Daoism came from ancient tales of whiskery old hermits who sought immortality and strangely robed priests who...

April 18, 2013

Comments 11

Non-fiction
Escape to Happiness and Insanity: Gilliam’s Brazil

by Isaac Yuen

Brazil is a mess of a movie in the best possible way. Terry Gilliam’s creation is wildly original and incredibly chaotic, blending elements of comedy and drama into an unforgettable piece of cinema. Visually extravagant and thematically dense, Brazil rewards observant and repeat viewers with a barrage of imagery and subtext ripe for speculation and analysis. A story with almost too much to say, I...

February 8, 2013

Comments 6

Movies

"...That mesh of leaves and twigs of fork and froth, minute and endless, with the sky glimpsed only in sudden specks and splinters, perhaps it was only there so that my brother could pass through it with his tomtit’s thread, was embroidered on nothing, like this thread of ink which I have let run on for page after page, swarming with cancellations, corrections, doodles, blots and gaps, bursting at times into clear big berries, coagulating at others into piles of tiny starry seeds, then twisting away, forking off, surrounding buds of phrases with frameworks of leaves and clouds, then interweaving again, and so running on and on and on until it splutters and bursts into a last senseless cluster of words, ideas, dreams, and so ends."
Italo Calvino, Baron in the Trees

Featured Ekostories

The Willowherb Review: El Lugar de Los Sueños

by Isaac Yuen

I’m pleased to have a new essay out in the latest issue of The Willowherb Review, a publication celebrating nature writing from emerging and established writers of colour: “Why ‘Willowherb’? Chamaenerion angustifolium, commonly known as rosebay willowherb or fireweed, is a plant that thrives on disturbed ground. Its seeds do well when transported to new and difficult terrain, so some—not us—may call it a weed.” About The Willowherb Review This issue explores the theme of habitation: What does it mean to inhabit a space? El Lugar de Los Sueños strives to weave natural history and personal meditation of one place, La Paz and the surrounding Gulf of California, into a coherent whole, mimicking the holistic stylings of The Log of the Sea of Cortez, the muse text that lies at the heart of the piece (and one I’ve explored before here on Ekostories). I was keen to revisit a location from a few years back, to retrace and revive the words of a beloved work, and also to form a new reality of a space...

August 26, 2020

Comments 2

Featured Ekostories, Non-fiction, Publication

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...

June 23, 2016

Comments 75

Art, Featured Ekostories

Nature and Music: The Work of John Luther Adams

by Isaac Yuen

I am probably one of the few who looks forward to my commute. Not because I get on far enough away to grab a seat on the train, or that my mind requires the extra hour of warm up to function properly; both are true, but more important is that the commute allows me to enter the world of radio podcasts. Daily I have time to listen to stories from CBC’s Ideas and Wiretap, and from This American Life and RadioLab. Steeped in narratives of art and science, psychology and philosophy, anthropology and history and everything in between, I find myself constantly awed by the power of voice and ambience to build imagery. I listen and feel inspired. A recent Radiolab episode tuned me into the Pulitzer-winning work of composer John Luther Adams. Excerpted from a longer interview on another program called Meet the Composers, hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich delve into Adams’ compositions – music that is more akin to a primal and elemental force. You can listen to the fascinating half-hour podcast HERE – I’ll...

October 23, 2014

Comments 2

Art, Featured Ekostories

A Boy and His Plants: The Curious Garden

by Isaac Yuen

There’s an art to writing for kids. Good children’s books aren’t simply dumbed down stories, written with smaller words and fitted with happy sappy endings. In reality, kids are quite discerning: Their faculties haven’t yet been dulled by the insecurities and neuroses accumulated during the process of growing up. They like what they like and are completely honest about it. It’s true that they happily consume works filled with tired clichés and moralistic messages, but lacking cynicism and regard for convention, they generally emerge none the worse for wear. The stories that stay with kids are ones that feel authentic and true, even if they can’t articulate why. These are stories that speak through the language of wonder, a native tongue we are all born knowing but can easily be forgotten through neglect and disuse. I think The Curious Garden by Peter Brown is a great children’s book. Inspired by the revitalization of the Highline railway on the west side of Manhattan, Brown fuses charming visuals with a narrative that is full of discovery and...

March 22, 2013

Comments 7

Art, Featured Ekostories

Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World

by Isaac Yuen

Several years ago, I spent a month volunteering at Koke’e State Park on Kauai, Hawaii. I was there to enlist in the “war against invasives”, learning to identify and remove plants that threatening to overtake Garden Isle’s native ecosystems. Armed with a machete, a foldup saw, and two squirt bottles of herbicide, a group of us proceeded to take out the primary offenders – fields of kahili ginger (Hedychium gardnerianum), groves of strawberry guava (Psidium cattleianum), and towering Australian tree ferns (Cyathea cooperi). The work itself was satisfying, but in the back of my mind there grew a sad realization that our collectives efforts made little difference in the big picture. Vast areas were already covered with dense stands of invasives and were beyond salvaging. We worked triage, investing our energies on areas where gingers and guavas had not yet gained a significant foothold. But I was forced to accept that the ohia lehua and koa dominated forests we worked so hard to protect will eventually be relegated to existence in small and intensely...

March 15, 2013

Comments 12

Featured Ekostories, Non-fiction

Food, Awareness, Action: The One Straw Revolution

by Isaac Yuen

Humanity’s relationship with food is elemental; our daily food choices serve as vivid reminders of our dependence upon the living world. In The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Nature History of Four Meals, author Michael Pollan writes, “daily, our eating turns nature into culture, transforming the body of the world into our bodies and minds” (p.10).I read The One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka not long after becoming aware of permaculture, a branch of ecological engineering that draws inspiration from natural ecosystems. His little green book forced me to reexamine my own assumptions on how I came to know the world around me. At times radical, counterintuitive, and unsettling, The One Straw Revolution is a fascinating account of one man’s physical, spiritual, and philosophical journey through life.

March 1, 2013

Comments 7

Featured Ekostories, Non-fiction

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Second Best is Best, Gulf Coast Online

Tiny Molecules: One Summer, by Iceland

Flash Fiction Magazine: Last Light

Place and Memory: Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities

The Dispossessed: Anarres the Promise Kept

Tao Today: A Sage’s Take on Modern Society, Part 2

Tao Today: A Sage’s Take on Modern Society, Part 1

Escape to Happiness and Insanity: Gilliam’s Brazil