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

BLOG

  • The Cold Light of Mars

    1–2 minutes

    I look out the window just past dusk, and I see a point of light close to the horizon, just above the hill, poised to sink down into it the way the sun falls into the ocean. I head outside and don’t even bother to put on my shoes, stepping gingerly over the maple helicopters

    Read more…

  • Two Moments

    1–2 minutes

    You’re at the park near your house, walking your dog, and you stop for a moment to look up, to feel the pulse of the firs as they flicker orange in the light. Playing behind them, in tandem, almost as if a filter screen has been transposed over it, you see just as clearly a

    Read more…

  • The Fallen Fir

    1–2 minutes

    It’s the kind of fog that you can feel as you walk through it, all the droplets hanging static, not enough of them to wet your hair, but enough of them that they pelt your face like grains of sand, each waterdrop present and tangible, as though the air itself is made from mist, and

    Read more…

  • First View of the River

    1–2 minutes

    If you walk up the hill, ducking beneath the hazelnut tree, its branches looped and willow-like, and you continue past the elderberry bush, the one with the bead-like berries that only the birds eat, you’ll find the part of the forest where the dirt is bare, where the ivy doesn’t grow, and you’ll continue on,

    Read more…

Learn more about Francesca Varela's novels