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

BLOG

  • Listen

    1–2 minutes

    I wrote this book when I was living in a college dorm-room. That was my sophomore year, so I guess I was 19 and 20? I finished it by summer break, then set it aside to prepare for the release of my first novel, Call of the Sun Child, which came out in March 2014. And now, nearly

    Read more…

  • As All Fields Are Vulnerable

    1–2 minutes

    What I want to know is, when will it be enough? When will the fields be safe? The sun caught in the grasses, and the deer, silent in the dry fall wind, following shadows to the yellow oak tree, everything still mysterious at mid-afternoon, And the throat-soaked crow songs, like every moment is heavy with the abruptness of

    Read more…

  • Osprey – A Short Story, Part 3 (Finale)

    6–9 minutes

    The next day Alexis told her parents. “It’s an osprey, I think,” she said at breakfast. “I looked it up online. They’re the only predatory bird that only eats fish.” She led them upstairs, out on the balcony, where they all stood hip-to-hip. “Look at that,” her mother said. The babies were alone again. “Aren’t

    Read more…

  • Osprey – A Short Story, Part 2

    6–9 minutes

    Behind their house was a sprawling wetland. In the winter its green water came up to Alexis’s knees, but in the summer she walked through it in shorts and rubber boots and only got her ankles wet. Sometimes in her head she called it The Swamp Barrens, but that was only because her freshman roommate

    Read more…

Learn more about Francesca Varela's novels