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

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  • The Sun Bird

    1–2 minutes

    I sat by the water, among the ducks and the geese. The stream, milky and deep, sifted into the river. I watched the reflections of newly unfurled cottonwood trees get caught in its currents. As I turned my head, an osprey poured forth from the sun, its wings a mask, patterned and finely painted. Twice her

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  • The Robin’s Reflection

    1–2 minutes

    The robin flies into the window because glass does not shine like water; and there is another bird there, flat and strange and shimmering. This is the robin’s land of damp creeksides and there’s the nest among the maple towers, so he sings a song, beautiful and weaved of trills, and the sun moves along with his notes, until at

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  • Spring Is An Ever-Moving Process

    1–2 minutes

    We live among constant change, and we only notice it when we’ve been away. After two weeks abroad, I return home to find that the first crescents of spring have, well—blossomed. The osoberry, the first bush to sleep and to awake, is draped in full regalia. The creekside is speckled through with waterleaf, one of

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  • My Second Novel

    1–2 minutes

    Two weeks from now, on March 15th, my second novel will officially be released. LISTEN focuses on the confluence between music and nature. It’s a story about love: the love between two young people, and the love they discover for the natual world. Above all, this is a story about reconnecting with the earth. The

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Learn more about Francesca Varela's novels