|  | |  | | This beautiful book is out today from Melville House | Unrooted by Erin Zimmerman | Erin Zimmerman’s Unrooted is out from Melville House today. She’s a fierce, committed botanist and an incredibly hard worker. But for a myriad of reasons, she’s no longer working in an academic space. In this book, she talks about the species we’ll never know; the people who can become pregnant who want to contribute in this field, but will never get the chance; and the natural consequences of moving forward without all of them. She’s found solace in botanical illustration as well, and she’s included beautiful drawings with each chapter. (This was educational for me too, as it is, frankly, one of the few times as an editor I’ve suggested adding or subtracting chapters that would affect the final illustration count.)
“It’s a very sobering feeling to touch the leaves of a tree that doesn’t exist anymore.” In her recent op-ed about Duke University’s decision to close its herbarium, Dr. Erin Zimmerman writes, “The naming and description of new plant species – a key part of the work facilitated by herbaria – is the essential first step in moving to protect a species from extinction. If it isn’t known, it can’t be protected in any official capacity. “
The book states this so plainly—if there’s no word for it, we can’t protect it—but I’ll admit it wasn’t something I’d thought of in quite that way before. Unrooted is, in Erin’s words, a “call to action for readers” who want to “contribute meaningfully to a global problem.” Erin emphasizes the power of citizen science—yes, you can volunteer to help to log specimens that are behind in the queue.
“Marvelous,” crows the starred review for Publishers Weekly. “Zimmerman writes rapturously of her work (focusing closely on a specific specimen ‘felt spiritual, like time spent in quiet worship before a vast and intricate cosmos’) and argues that botany, despite its waning popularity, is crucial in combating the effects of climate change because it aims to understand and catalog changes in biodiversity. She also writes of the hostility she faced from superiors when she became pregnant, which drove her to abandon her research career for one in science reporting and medical ghostwriting. Intriguingly, she compares the ‘impoverishment of genetic potential’ that results from plant extinction to the exodus of new mothers like her from the sciences. Throughout, Zimmerman’s enthusiasm and expertise make the science accessible even to those without a background in the subject. The results are as edifying as they are galvanizing.”
Thanks again to Melville House, especially Valerie Merians and Mike Lindgren, for the chance to be a small part of this book. Unrooted was acquired there by Athena Bryan and represented by Jessica Papin of Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. You can learn more about Erin’s work and see her extraordinary illustrations in her newsletter, “A Feast for the Curious.”
|  | In-person events |  | | Congratulations to the 2024 winners of the Whiting Awards! And thank you to host Natalie Diaz, and to Courtney Hodell, Katy Einerson, Adina Applebaum, and all at the Whiting Foundation who made this such a special evening.
You can take a minute to read more about the winners here. All of the fiction writers are publishing collections of short stories, which feels exceptional.
Creative nonfiction writers, yours is the only Whiting category that you can apply for. It’s $40,000 to help you finish your project. If you have a book under contract right now, you or your publisher should apply for those funds by April 23. |  | Yoon Choi reads at McNally Jackson during a rainstorm | On Thursday night, many of the same folks from the night before gather together on folding chairs, clustered upstairs at McNally Jackson Seaport while book critic Parul Sehgal begins to introduce the 2024 award winners. Soon Yoon Choi has said my favorite thing a writer can say in their introduction, that they are about to share new work for the first time. In this kind of space, it feels like a sign of the support the writer has felt from the organization, their friends and supporters, and the larger community—or at least speaks to their own boldness. Her reading is set against the dramatic thunderstorm sounds behind us and a warm, dry, bright bookstore around us.
In the bathroom line, the student ahead of me jokes that it’s not a good line to be in. But the comment backfires and gets us all talking—the woman behind me tells me about her imminent move to the Middle East, and her work with plants. She guesses I’m there for the reading and asks if I have any book recommendations. “You might be the perfect person for one that comes out this Tuesday—” I hear myself saying. | Online events |  | For The Library of Congress, Poet Laureate Ada Limón hosted four writers who appeared in the new collection You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World to appear onstage for its launch: Paul Tran, Analicia Sotelo, Jake Skeets, and Molly McCully Brown. In a winning twist, Limón asked each reader to select another poem from the collection to read onstage.
Paul Tran delivered a beautiful reading of “Reasons to Live” by Ruth Awad, which was first published in The Atlantic, and is well worth your time to pause and listen to or read right this minute. The collection is out from Milkweed, edited by Ada Limón, who also thanked Bailey Hutchinson for her work on its behalf. | |  | Radical Book Buzz |  | Claire Kelley introduces the Radical Book Buzz event at Two Dollar Radio | Nearly eight thousand librarians were in Columbus, Ohio last week for the Public Library Association conference. And Claire Kelley, Director of Marketing for Seven Stories Press (and just generally one of the best people in the industry), teamed up with the Library Freedom Project, including Alison Macrina, to host a Radical Book Buzz event at Two Dollar Radio.
In the photo above, you can see the backs of heads that belong to editors from Coach House, Verso, Wave Books, Europa, Haymarket, and more. Editorial Director Alana Wilcox slipped me a copy of What I Know About You by Éric Chacour, translated by Pablo Strauss. In a cinematic moment, it slipped out of my tote bag after the Whiting, and the translator beside me turned out to be reading the same galley.
The best closing line of the night: “And if you don’t know Unf*ck Your Brain, unfuck your bookshelf,” said Elly Blue from Microcosm Publishing, introducing Dr. Faith G. Harper’s forthcoming book.
Allison Paller, Web Manager for Seven Stories Press, was generous enough to share Alex DiFrancesco’s upcoming memoir, Breaking The Curse. I loved their short story collection Transmutation—one of the sharpest I’ve read in recent years—and am looking forward to this. Also appreciated this: |  | Two short film recs (that coincidentally have God in the title) |  | Johnathan Fernandez recently made a short film adapted from Eloisa Amezcua’s “The God Poems.” You can watch the trailer for “I Left god” on his website. (Thanks for the tip, Max and Jessie.) |  | You probably know Angela Carter’s fiction but have not read nearly enough of her food reviews (pseudonym: Angela Stalker). The London Review of Books put out this fourteen-minute video about her food writing, titled “If God is a Snail,” which is a treat. | Recommended reading |  | Austin Kleon interviewed Mary Ruefle by mail (also mentioned: the upcoming Caspar David Friedrich show). Kleon thanks Catherine Bresner at Wave Books for making it possible; thanks also to The Ann Friedman Weekly for the link.
“Reviews are also where serious discussion of art takes place. Critics don’t always get things right — history is rife with examples of what turned out to be classics getting panned upon release, such as Igor Stravinsky’s ‘The Rite of Spring.’ They don’t always take artists seriously as people, either, though Pitchfork hardly pioneered that. (There is, for instance, Lester Bangs.) Still, an album review is the beginning of a culture-wide sifting that determines what art is worth preserving and passing down, and what is forgotten.” In The Verge, Deputy Editor Liz Lopatto considers what happened to Pitchfork.
Why does every famous woman have a book club now? Emily Gould writes for The Cut, “My working theory about all of this is straightforwardly cynical: Celebrities mostly use books to add another layer to their personae, carrying around status handbags shaped like piles of paper with pages. Their rationales may vary, but cultivating bookishness is as good a way as any to transition from one career phase to a more multidimensional one.”
The Novel Prize, “a biennial award for a book-length work of literary fiction written in English by published and unpublished writers around the world,” was recently launched by New Directions, Fitzcarraldo, and Giramondo. It is open from April 1 until June 1. Here’s Matthew Kelley in Vol. 1 Brooklyn examining what it takes to create a new prize.
Jacqueline Alnes, a Jonquil author who recently published The Fruit Cure with Melville House, interviewed Polly Atkin for Electric Literature. “We don’t know what we can deal with until we deal with it. Our capacity to expand and become expansive is something that I don’t think we really have a grasp on at all,” says Atkin. Her new book, Some of Us Just Fall: On Nature and Not Getting Better, is just out from Unnamed Press; her agent is Caro Clarke of Portobello Literary, and her US editor is Allison Miriam Woodnutt. | Small business shout-out |  | Rose Books is about to launch its third title, Fake Piñata by Ashleah Gonzales, distributed by Asterism. This interview from Otherppl is nine months old, but Chelsea Hodson’s talk with Brad Listi about starting an indie press is refreshingly straightforward and smart.
The press has a hotline that’s a kind of reimagined Dial-a-Poem, and Chelsea also launched an indie publishing database for people who want to make their own books. We love to see it! | | | | | |
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