Some publication news: I’m super honoured to have a piece of creative nonfiction up at the latest issue of The Willowherb Review, a fantastic UK-based publication focused on providing a platform for nature writing from writers of colour.

Some of you might recall that I also had another piece titled El Lugar de Los Sueños in Willowherb last year. Instead of another personal meditation, I wanted to embrace a completely opposite style. Whimsy fuels this slightly manic and ridiculous piece’s attempt to jam as many creatures into a single work (29 at last count). The conceit around names and naming is an attempt to honour those we share this planet with, those who have since passed, and those still in the process of discovering themselves through living. Here’s an excerpt:

“…In the wild reaches even less care is taken in the naming process. This is more understandable given that there are so many mushrooms and so many weevils, and everything adjacent to groups or branching from clades deserves a station within life’s grand catalogue. Blurry-eyed taxonomists and phylogeneticists may be too mossy-brained to conjure up yet another description after being tasked to come up with 1.3 million of them, often in both common and Latin scientific. Under such pressure some have resorted to the celebrity method but in reverse, so that the world is now blessed with the beauty of the Kate Winslet beetle, which may never sink beneath the waves, but will yet still go under if its Costa Rican treetop habitats are converted to pasture. Then there is the Bono Joshua Tree trapdoor spider, who has most likely never heard its U2 counterpart sing, but definitely scuttles beneath the famous desert national park, where unpaved streets go unnamed.”

Yes, You Can Leave the Hospital Without Naming Your Baby

I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it. Until next time!

Photo credit: Anton from Wikimedia Commons