Daisy Got A Book Deal!
OK, I got a book deal. And Daisy stars in it!
The book came to me while I was driving last August, I started the book proposal in September, freaked out and ignored it in October, finished it in November, and sent it to my agent the week after Thanksgiving. She loved it and wanted to wait until after the holidays to send it to editors, so that happened the first week of January, an imprint of Penguin RandomHouse won the rights in a sealed-bid auction the first week of February, and we signed the contract last week, which means I finally get to share the news…. insert one-footed cartwheel here!
The working title (which means it could change) is MEDITATIONS WITH COWS and it will be out Fall 2020. Here’s the blurb:
MEDITATIONS WITH COWS traverses Stockton’s deeply intimate relationships with cattle via raw and visceral stories of the work and wonder of ranch life in modern America. MEDITATIONS WITH COWS is an immersive journey into understanding and honoring these strong, intuitive, and generous animals. Throughout the book, Stockton critiques the inhumane and environmentally destructive factory farm and feedlot system, and shares sustainable alternatives for ethical omnivores that prioritize the humane treatment of animals and responsible stewardship of the Earth. Stockton is the author of the bestselling The Daily Coyote: A Story of Love, Survival, and Trust in the Wilds of Wyoming along with two popular blogs.
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This book is the culmination of the last ten years of my life and all I’ve learned from Daisy, et al.; all the beloved bovines with whom I’ve shared my life. I pray (on an hourly, tear-stained, stress-hunched basis while clutching Bird by Bird like a bible) that I will do them justice with this book.
And I’m sending another all-encompassing, from-the-bottom-of-my-heart thank you to everyone who supported The Daily Coyote: Ten Years in Photographs in 2017. Creating that book was a transformative experience for me; I exorcised some demons and remembered how deeply in love I am with books. It made me want to create another one. And here we go…….
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If you want to be sure to get updates on the new book, you can sign up for THIS mailing list. You’ll get very few emails from me over the course of this year, but I have some special secret stuff planned as we get closer to publication. Might as well sign up now so you don’t have to remember to do it later! Just click HERE.
Farcical Metatarsal
I broke my foot last week. I broke my foot in the most absurd possible way: I was barefoot, having recently gotten out of the bath, sitting at my computer, working. Upstairs, Mike was cooking a pork chop that smelled so good I wanted to smell it up close. My right foot was kind of asleep but I thought when I stood up it would re-activate. I took one step out of my chair and my foot didn’t realize it existed and just smooshed under me into the cement floor and down I went. I fell on top of my foot and the torque of my fall fractured the fifth metatarsal bone. (I asked the ER doc if this is a sign of osteoporosis and he said, nope, purely physics and quite common.)
So now I’m hobbling around in a boot splint. I should be mostly fine by the time calving season starts. In the meantime, I’m working on a huge new project that does not require the use of my feet, which I am so excited to share with you SOON!
Into The Void
This year has been intense….. beginning with Daisy’s miscarriage on January 2 and plowing full steam ahead from then on. I am officially burned out. A silver lining to my burnout: I am finally capable of recognizing and acknowledging it! On a hike earlier this month, I couldn’t stop crying and I was like, “OK, Shreve, where is this coming from?” And the answer that came is that I feel like I’ve become the secretary of my life…… and not living it anymore.
So. I’m giving my secretarial self the month of January off. I’m so excited, I’m freakin’ giddy. I’m excited for time and space and to work on some new projects I’ve not been able to germinate as a secretary. What this means:
The Shop will close January 1. In the meantime, all jewelry (with the exception of Fred’s) is 18% off for the remainder of 2018 ~ use code 18for18 during checkout to get the discount.
During the month of January, my email auto-responder will explain how any issues with previous orders or Daily Coyote subscriptions will be addressed (and they will be addressed), so if you have issues, don’t hesitate to email – next steps will appear. I will attend to all other email and re-open the shop in February.
Daily Coyote subscriptions will continue to go out as always, because the continuity is important to all of us, and it honestly doesn’t feel like work, and my web guru has automated all the tedious parts. Charlie’s blog will also be updated as usual throughout January.
I have a rabbit hole for you, before I go.
Last week, I came upon this Kickstarter: Pistachio Wars: Killing California for a Snack Food. I watched the trailer, my jaw hit my desk, I watched it again, I backed the Kickstarter, I showed it to Mike, I tweeted about it, and I swore off pistachios (which I love) FOREVER.
And then I wanted to learn more, and I found this podcast, which, warning to the tender-eared, has two obstreperous hosts and includes a fair amount of swearing, but, once you fast-forward eleven minutes to get past the ads, it is jam-packed with info, including (but not limited to) a billionaire threatening to sue bees for trespassing, that same billionaire nabbing a multi-million-dollar taxpayer-funded aquifer for his own private use for zero dollars, and, guess who! same guy! irrigating his commercial crops with fracking waste water (and those very crops are waiting for you in your local grocery store). If you are eating anything that comes from California, you might want to listen to this. The podcast notes link to lots of articles, HERE, (Ep. 356…Water Monsters) if you prefer to read.
Moral of the story: KNOW YOUR FARMER! Whenever and wherever possible.
See you in the Year of the Pig!
2019 Charlie Calendars!
The 2019 Charlie Calendar is here!
This is the 12th annual (WOW!!) Charlie calendar and my favorite one yet.
Click HERE to see bigger pictures and to order yours (after you vote, of course)!
Current Mood
linocut by @plainandtalll
October has been the most delightful summer this year. Apart from a sudden but brief mid-month blizzard, the weather has been the kind of summer weather I fantasize about. Sunny and 75. I spent days sprawled on the deck reading The Monkey Wrench Gang, and I couldn’t stop wondering, as I was reading, if this book would have ever gotten published today if it hadn’t been published in the mid-1970s. First and foremost, it’s appallingly racist. Annoyingly sexist, but appallingly racist (and the racism is so irrelevant, so superfluous, I kept coming out of the story to wonder like, can’t they edit this shit out???). I’m pretty sure a book so blatantly racist against Native Americans would not get published by a major house today, yay for minor progresses.
The part I wonder about is the plot – a group of random vigilante misfits who use chainsaws, corn syrup, and homemade bombs to fight back against the rape of our planet by industry and government. A blurb on the back of the book from The National Observer (a major newspaper at the time) raves, “It’ll make you want to go out and blow up a dam.” Would a book that inspires the general public to go out and blow up dams and strip mines be published today? I kind of don’t think so. Not when the powers that be deploy militarized police and violence and surveillance like that waged against the peaceful protectors at Standing Rock two years ago (not to mention the continued racism Native Americans face in fact if not in fiction) and the local and federal government support for and protection of corporate interests regardless of environmental impact.
I’m trying to think of current popular literature (fiction or memoir) that is openly critical of the anthropocene and I can’t. Can you? If so, leave titles in the comments, please. As for The Monkey Wrench Gang, apart from the racism and the sexism and the constant drinking-and-driving (again, OMG!), the book is immensely readable – the writing style is like Tom Robbins and Wallace Stegner had a love child – and the thesis still holds true: how do we save this planet from ourselves? It’s worth a few sunny afternoons or fireside evenings, should winter ever arrive…
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My email inbox is a disaster I don’t know how to fix. My queue goes back to June. Is this the new normal? I know I’m not alone in this, otherwise “inbox zero” wouldn’t be an ubiquitous goal. How did we get here????
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You know I love the Longform podcast. Here’s another great episode, which happened to be recorded the day after Dr. Ford’s testimony: Rebecca Traister. So much to love during this interview; this bit gave me hope and drive when I really needed a little hope and drive:
“Events like this past week remind you that you can act and you can care and you can put everything out there and you can still lose. Horribly. Degradingly. Humiliatingly. And it can make you feel crazy with fury that will feel futile. And that’s hard, that’s a hard thing to sign up for… What’s gonna happen next continues to be up to us, and continues to depend on us being willing to do that hard thing and risk heartbreak and defeat and degradation and hopelessness… like, what else is there to do? The vision of the better future is dependent on those of us who can envision it, committing to continuing to work toward it, acknowledging that maybe we’re not going see it in our lifetimes. But you know what? The people we most admire from the past, they didn’t see it in their lifetimes either. But they still did the work that got us to here.”
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I was cleaning out my laptop and came across a pile of screenshots I’ve collected over the years. Some good ones:
When you see the entire world as your body, you’ll see everything around you for what it actually is. [@un1fied]
I say bless you when people burp.
When you walk into a supermarket you have the illusion of many choices, but most products are just rearrangements of corn.
Patience is not simply the ability to wait, it’s how we behave while we’re waiting. [Joyce Meyer]
Archbishop Helder Camara famously said, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” [@theathomasin]
TOLINKA // Translation: flapping ears of a coyote; coyote’s long ears flapping [Miwok language]
Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen. [Robert Bresson]
A cool form of rebellion: being as chill and generous and present as you can be with everyone you encounter. [@hologramrainbow]
( quotes are attributed wherever possible, you know how it is with screenshots )
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The 2019 Charlie Calendar should be ready for you next week! Check back here for all the pics.
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Daisy is doing GREAT! I’m happy every day because she’s doing great.
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