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

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  • The Night Sky

    1–2 minutes

    I dreamed of the night sky. This is strange, because I don’t think it’s ever happened before. When I was little, about four or five, I had a nightmare that the sun disappeared. But, since then, my dreams have avoided the sky’s sunlit and starlit glare. Last night I dreamed of Arcturus, the brightest star in

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  • Waterfall – A Poem

    1–2 minutes

      Where, wind, do you come from?From the curve of waterfalls?From the chill of low, wet valleys?Do the rocks know? The boulders below the stream, and moss-heavy on the shore? Wind and breeze, do you come from the moon,from tree branches at dusk,or do you come from ferns that toss and rustle and climbup the rocky chests of waterfalls? 

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  • The Wilderness Experience – A Short Story

    5–8 minutes

    Anna dropped to her stomach and peered over the hill. She scooted forward, her forearms itchy from the grass. Some guy about her age—college age—stood in the meadow below, near the water, pulling silver packets of food from an enormous, dusty backpack. He glanced her way and she lowered her chin, desperate not to be

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  • The Meadow

    2–3 minutes

    Every time I visit the meadow, something is different. The grass is cut, or they’ve trimmed the wild laurel bushes whose bark is smooth like tamarinds. A few winters ago the ivy-choked tree fell, its body colliding with trailing blackberry, buttercups, and clovers. I don’t even know what species it was. I didn’t teach myself to identify the trees

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Learn more about Francesca Varela's novels