White desk with pink notebook, roses, keyboard, and gold paperclips that Francesca Varela uses to write environmental fiction

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  • Which Wild PNW Plants Bloom In Early Spring?

    339 words

    Yesterday was the first official day of spring here in the northern hemisphere, but the plants have been telling us that spring is here for a while now. Read on to find out which wild plants have already started blooming in Pacific Northwest forests! 🕓 Time to read: Indian Plum Oemleria cerasiformisRose FamilyNative to PNW…

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  • Through Time

    212 words

    These are the scatterings of the wind—hemlock needles, and fallen branches, and hive-shaped cones, all blanketed in snow. Our steps are strange and lumbering, and, above us, the sky is heavy. It’s rain—the kind of rain that seeps out from tree branches and hillsides, the kind of rain that is somehow, in itself, green. Down…

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  • How To Find The Winter Constellations

    659 words

    Finding Orion – The Hunter Orion is one of the most prominent constellations in the winter sky, and it’s bright enough to be seen in even the most light-polluted cities. The easiest way to find Orion is by looking for its belt—three bright stars in a diagonal line, cutting through the middle of the constellation…

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  • Night Sea

    158 words

    The cedar tree holds up the night, its branches the dark blue of early dawn in those pre-pink momentswhere it is neither night or day,and behind it the mountain sleeps in shadowlike some deep-sea giant peeking through gold curtains of silt and seaweed, the wind carving against it, onto the backs of birds and whales…

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Learn more about Francesca Varela's novels