Here's Your Chance to Tell It Like It Is

Blog readers:

We are looking for original content from writers and non-writers on the subject of personal experiences with green choices.

It's for our book, from Fulcrum Publishing, 2007, tentatively titled How Americans' Spending Habits Shape Our World by Sally and Sara Kate Kneidel.

Like our last book, Veggie Revolution, this book will be rich with "community voices," your voices - brief quotes or short essays from actual experience. If you try to use your bike or ride the bus instead of driving, we'd like to hear what that's like for you, good or bad.

The writing does not have to be perfect. A casual, conversational tone is often more effective. If you have comments that are journalistic or op-ed, that could work as well. Most pieces we use are 200-1000 words. Longer or shorter submissions may be considered if especially interesting or unusual.

Your green experiences do not have to be exemplary to make good reading. In fact, imperfect efforts are sometimes more interesting. As Kermit says, It's not easy bein' green.

Some topics we hope to read:

On transportation:

any experience you have with hybrid cars, cars using biodiesel or greasel, mass transportation, walking or biking, communities designed to minimize travel to work and shopping

On green housing:

any experience you have with energy-efficient construction, green building materials, living off the grid, living in a passive solar house, a straw bale house, a rammed earth house, earth bag house or other earthen construction, a recycled house (an older house relocated to a new lot), a home that shares walls and green space with neighbors, close to work

On green fabrics and clothing:

organic cotton or wool, hemp, bamboo, recycled or vintage clothing, etc.

On the trade in pets taken from nature:

tropical birds, reptiles, amphibians, etc., both exotic and local

On green diet choices:

local, seasonal, vegetarian, vegan, pastured, organic, etc.

On green vacation choices:

places you might volunteer to do environmental work, involving less fossil fuel for travel

On green career or volunteer choices, especially ones that you have chosen or considered:

On deforestation by giant lumber companies for the paper industry, especially if you have worked in a chip mill or have personal experience with this

On problems and solutions related to world population growth, especially in terms of land use, fuel, energy

On globalization and sweatshops, especially if you have visited one

On the problems associated with huge corporations like Wal-Mart, International Paper, Smithfield, Tyson, etc.

The deadline is June (prefer early June). We can use your first name, first and last name, or you may pen anonymously. It's up to you.

Please send submissions to treeduck@earthlink.net. Send also a statement, in the email, saying that you (write your name and date) give us permission to use the piece in the book, specifically in How Americans' Spending Habits Shape Our World by Sally and Sara Kate Kneidel, from Fulcrum in 2007.

To help us distinguish submissions from junk mail, please put “book submission” in the email’s subject line. Feel free to query first. Although we may not be able to use all items submitted we will do our best to consider everyone’s experiences as part of the overall project. We’ll also post any omitted submissions on our blog, http://veggierevolution.blogspot.com.

Thanks!

Sally Kneidel