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

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  • Coastal Forest

    1–2 minutes

    There are times when the forest seems to exhale clouds, when fog rests so heavily on the tree-tops that the space between them vanishes, and the whole of the forest becomes a white-frothed ocean. There are times, as well, when sunlight finds its way to the ferns and fawn lilies, to the dense, secret streams

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  • A December Hummingbird

    1–2 minutes

    December always begins with a string of clear, cold days. This was one of them. I walked home from the bus stop, head down, pace quick, headphones in my ears. The air churned around me, crisp and ancient, and bled of sun. I kept my hands in my pockets. My breath felt hot against the

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  • Walking at Night

    1–2 minutes

    Above the concrete sky, and the rest of the whimsy, we could’ve been real. But you looked down and laughed, and wasn’t I cute? So I pointed for you, to the flat place in the sky where it all caves in, and I guided your hand like a bug on water all legs and skittish

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  • The Beauty and Peril of Connection

    1–2 minutes

    I sat awake, propped up on my elbows at two in the morning, and I scrolled through my phone. I hoped that, somehow, the repetitiveness of social media would help me fall back asleep. Instagram. Facebook. Twitter. Videos. Advertisements. Pictures. All just a blur. But, then, something caught my eye — a photo of two

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Learn more about Francesca Varela's novels