Judges have announced the finalists for the 2017 ASLE Book Awards. The ASLE book awards in the areas of ecocriticism and environmental creative writing recognize excellence in the field.

Winners will be announced in early June, and the official presentation will be at the Twelfth ASLE Biennial Conference, to be held at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI, from June 20-24, 2017. Eligible submissions were books published by ASLE and affiliate members since the last awards cycle (2015-2016).  Congratulations to our short-listed authors:

By Mika Kennedy, PhD candidate in English, University of Michigan

As are so many stories of the environment (and those who study it), this one is about tributaries, and the rivers they build.

In 2015, my colleague Mary Renda and I and our graduate workshop, The Border Collective, put together a panel for ASLE’s 2015 Biennial Conference in Moscow, Idaho. We hadn’t even touched back down in Michigan before we pitched each other a wild idea: What if we hosted an off-year symposium specifically geared ...

From Sunday, June 25 to Friday, June 30, 2017, Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire will host the second annual Exeter Environmental Literature Institute—the only institute of its kind dedicated solely to secondary school environmental humanities teachers. The week-long conference, offered in collaboration with ASLE, is designed to build and sustain a community of secondary teachers working in the environmental humanities.

The event is an extraordinary opportunity for teachers to deepen students’ experience in their courses in ways that will nurture the next generation ...

*This article and statement were updated Feb. 15 to reflect the signatures collected from ASLE members who also wished to sign this statement

The leadership of ASLE has composed a statement in support of the water protectors at Standing Rock.  This statement is not a policy or position statement voted on by the membership of ASLE, and the officers are signing as individuals who are affiliated with ASLE.  ASLE members who have signed on are also signing as individuals.

Native American tribes, led by the ...

Approximately 50 people gathered from June 8-11, 2016 at Western New Mexico University, Silver City, NM, for the ASLE off-year symposium “The Heart of the Gila: Wilderness and Water in the West.” Silver City is located in southwestern New Mexico at 6,000 feet elevation, and it is the gateway to the Gila National Wilderness Area, the United States’ first wilderness area.

A letter to participants from the WMNU president spoke to the issues at hand: “Water is the most crucial element of life. How ...