An Earth Day Celebration (or a View from the Kitchen Sink)

A sunburst of forsythia billows in the breeze. A rabbit hops along and stops to twitch her nose before darting into the yellow ruffled cave. A cardinal, so red that he glows, perches on top of the cave, adding heat to the flowered flame. He looks at you, then looks away, then looks at you again before leaping into the air with outstretched wings. Your heart leaps along with him. He adds color wherever he goes.

For Earth Day, remember to breathe everything in and listen. The Earth is quieter now. It’s easier to listen. We all share this home. We includes all the lives that make this planet everything it is. All the lives that keep us alive. All the lives that contribute their songs.

While celebrating, consider giving to an environmental organization that’s working to make this planet a better, healthier place to be. Here are a few top-rated favorites:

Audubon Society

Oceana

Ocean Conservancy

Environmental Defense Fund

Happy Earth Day to all!

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Sheila Hurst is the author of Ocean Echoes, an award-winning novel about a marine biologist who gives up on love to study jellyfish. A percentage from the sale of this book will go toward nonprofit organizations working to protect the world’s oceans for future generations.

Celebrating Ocean Victories on World Oceans Day

We tend to think of ourselves as separate from nature. We’re not. We’re part of this Earth. We came from the ocean and we’re made of the ocean. The ocean is in our blood. And we won’t be able to live without a healthy ocean.

Despite all the negative ocean headlines, there’s still hope. One of the reasons I love nonprofit groups like Oceana and the Ocean Conservancy is that they work with politicians, lawyers, and businesses from all over the world to create real environmental change.

To celebrate World Oceans Day, here are a few major victories that have happened so far this year:

Belize Bans Offshore Oil Drilling, Protecting the Largest Barrier Reef in the Americas

January 2018: Belize made history when it signed into law a moratorium on offshore oil exploration and drilling in the entirety of Belizean waters, which contain the second largest barrier reef system in the world. The Belize Barrier Reef is home to nearly 1,400 species and is critical to the livelihood of more than half of Belize’s population due to its central role in tourism and fishing.

Chile Protects Juan Fernandez Islands and Wildlife Found Nowhere Else on Earth

February 2018: Chilean President Michelle Bachelet protected 262,000 square kilometers of ocean surrounding the Juan Fernandez Islands. These islands are home to wildlife found nowhere else on the planet. As a result of this announcement and other closures, 25 percent of Chile’s ocean is now protected as no-take marine parks.

Seafloor Habitats Protected from Destructive Bottom Trawling off U.S. Pacific Coast

April 2018: The Pacific Fishery Management Council acted to protect more than 140,000 square miles of seafloor from bottom trawling, a destructive fishing practice in which heavy fishing gear is dragged across the seabed. This action will protect a unique variety of coral gardens, sponge beds, rocky reefs, and deep-sea ecosystems that provide nurseries, food and shelter for many species. This victory for ocean diversity will more than double the area of protected seafloor in U.S. waters off California, Oregon, and Washington. Once the new measures are implemented, more than 90 percent of the U.S. West Coast’s Exclusive Economic Zone will be protected from bottom trawling.

Keep hoping, keep dreaming, and keep acting for the ocean

We are all truly connected, which means that everything we do makes a difference. Whether we leave a piece of plastic on the beach or decide to pick it up, whether we use fertilizers and insecticides or organic gardening methods, it all makes a difference. If you’re interested in ocean conservation, find out what you can do through Oceana and the Ocean Conservancy. When individual voices join together, we can turn negative news into positive change.

Sweet Thursday

John Steinbeck is one of my all-time favorite authors. While Sweet Thursday is completely different from a novel like The Grapes of Wrath, it contains the magic, joy, humanity, and wisdom that he infuses into his novels so well.

I love the way Steinbeck shows community life, especially in Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday. It doesn’t matter that the characters are down on their luck because they all know each other and look out for each other. Sweet Thursday made me want to live in a boiler or at the Palace Flophouse. It made me want to seek these characters out and go to a Hooptedoodle to celebrate life and friendship.

Sweet Thursday was first published in 1954. Doc comes back from World War II and attempts to resume his life at his Cannery Row laboratory. Mack and the boys at the Palace Flophouse notice that he’s not quite the same after the war and they try to cheer him up.

There are so many hilarious and insightful scenes in this novel. One part that made me laugh was when Doc went out on a date and talked about octopi the whole time. The story goes on to say, “the subject of her eyes, her feelings, her skin, her thoughts, did not come up.”

Then there’s Hazel, known as the densest of all the characters living at the flophouse. Fauna reads his horoscope one day and tells him that he’s going to become President of the United States. Hazel doesn’t want to be President, but he reluctantly tries to take on the responsibility.

One of my favorite characters was Jingleballicks, a scientist friend of Doc’s who suddenly appears in his laboratory. He loves to rant and rave and argue with Doc. When he first appears, Doc accuses him of being seen outside on his hands and knees, pulling a worm out of the ground with his teeth. That’s probably one of the most unique ways of introducing a character that I’ve ever noticed.

I loved everything Jingleballicks said while ranting and raving, like this:

“Man has solved his problems. Predators he has removed from the earth; heat and cold he has turned aside; communicable disease he has practically eliminated. The old live on, the young do not die…It is a cosmic joke. Preoccupation with survival has set the stage for extinction.”

It’s amazing that this was published in 1954. The novel mentions that doing away with fishing limits during the war devastated the area’s fishing industry, while adding, “it was done for patriotic reasons but that didn’t bring the fish back.” You’d never think a story like this would contain such environmental messages.

Mostly though, this novel is a celebration of community life and friendship. The day of Sweet Thursday, the day everyone anticipates, is perfectly described in all kinds of ways. Here are a few:

“There is no doubt that forces were in motion on that Thursday in Cannery Row. Some of the causes and directions have been in process for generations. There are always some people who claim they felt it coming. Those who remember say it felt like earthquake weather.”

“Old people sit looking off into the distance and remember inaccurately that the days of their youth were all like that.”

“Miss Graves, who sings the lead in the butterfly pageant in Pacific Grove, saw her first leprechaun up in back of the reservoir – but you can’t tell everything that happened every place on that Sweet Thursday.”

Of course, I’m not going to say what happens on Sweet Thursday. You’ll have to read the book to find out. Happy weekend – I hope you’ll find a Hooptedoodle out there somewhere!

A huge thank you to Patsy from Patsy’s Creative Corner and BJ at My Book-a-logue for the latest reviews of Ocean Echoes. You can find beautiful paintings and drawings at Patsy’s Creative Corner and excellent book reviews at My Book-a-logue. The latest ocean life paintings by Patsy were inspired by Ocean Echoes. That means so much to me. Please visit and follow if you’re not familiar with them already.

Thank you to everyone for reading Ocean Echoes. It’s so nice to know that the book has touched a few lives out there – that makes it all worthwhile.

Ocean Echoes by Sheila Hurst

A huge thank you to BJ at My Book-a-logue for such a wonderful, thoughtful review! Please visit and follow My Book-a-logue for excellent reviews and book discussions.

Books Across the Miles

My mom, my brother, and I have been in a book club for a few years now. We live miles apart, but we still meet whenever we can to share our love of books.

My brother lives in Michigan and my mom lives about an hour away so we share our thoughts on each book through email. We take turns suggesting the next read. The only rule is that it should be a book that none of us have read yet. Because of this book club, I’ve read some pretty strange stories that I probably never would have read under normal conditions. To give you an idea of the strangeness, here are a few recent ones:

Mort: A Novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett

The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak

News of the World by Paulette Jiles

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman

Breakthrough by Michael Grumley

Anansi Brothers by Neil Gaiman

The Atomic Weight of Love by Elizabeth J. Church

My brother loves science fiction and he’s introduced us to some great ones from that genre, but we might throw in a classic or historical fiction every once in a while.

We try to follow the same guidelines as a Goodreads book club by talking about each book as we’re reading it. To make sure there are no spoilers, the book title and the last chapter read are added to the email’s subject line. If the others haven’t gotten to that chapter yet, they don’t have to read that message until they do.

A bonus is that my mom and brother are funny. Here’s an example of a comment on one of the books we read:

“I struggled with it a bit at first. I think it was due to the excessive use of commas, with random thoughts interjected, which can make you wonder what the hell that sentence was about, like a stack of pancakes with butter dribbling down the side, or the way a stranger looks at you.”

With our electronic book club, we can meet and laugh at each other at any time. Then when we get to see each other in real life, we’ll talk some more about the books we’ve read together.

Happy World Book Day! The first person to figure out which book (from the list above) the quote is describing wins a copy of Ocean Echoes.

Are you in an electronic book club? Do you have any suggestions for our next book club read?

Cape Cod Scenes, Reading Adventures, and Neighborhood Turkeys

“Live in the sunshine. Swim in the sea. Drink in the wild air.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Summer rushed on by in a whoosh of heat and humidity. We try to capture it in pictures, to somehow hold the light, but it still dissolves into the past with a chill. Now that we can feel that chill in the air, here are a few scenes to warm us by.

Cape Cod can get pretty overcrowded in the summer so instead of reading on the beach, this is my usual warm weather reading spot:

That way, I can look up from my books and watch the squirrels, chipmunks, hummingbirds, and neighborhood turkeys while trying not to think about all the yard work that I should be doing.

I’ve made a dent in my summer reading list while adding a few from my book club. The ones that I didn’t get to over the summer will have to become cozy autumn reads. Of the ones that I did read, I highly recommend Swimming Lessons and The Art of Chasing Normal.

A huge thank you to Millie Thom, D. Catalini, and William McCaskie for the latest reviews of Ocean Echoes. I really appreciate it whenever anyone takes the time to add a review. Millie Thom writes exciting Viking/Saxon adventures set in the mid ninth century. Check out her books here. Her blog includes modern day adventures while seeking out those special places where history can be felt and imagined.

It’s about time to announce the winner of a signed copy of Ocean Echoes. And the winner is…BJ. I’ll get that right out to you.

I’m sorry I haven’t been around for a while. Every time I tried to make it back, life had a way of getting in the way. I’ve missed everyone and will look forward to catching up with you!

What was your favorite summer/autumn read? Do you have any neighborhood turkeys?

Summer Reading and a Giveaway

It’s finally summer on this part of the planet and that means it’s about time for some reading in the sunshine. For those in the Southern Hemisphere, I hope you’ll find a cozy fireside nook to snuggle into for some winter reading.

Here are the books I’ve been looking forward to reading for a while, so they’ll become my Summer (or Fall) reads. (Click on any picture for a description):

                                 

Thank you to Book Club Mom, Milka, Carrie Rubin, Christy Birmingham, Ally Bean, and Goodreads friends for recommending some of these.

And a huge thank you to Kate Johnston for her review of Ocean Echoes. Kate is a freelance writer and environmental crusader. We share a love of writing, nature, the ocean, and probably hundreds of other things. Her blog, 4 AM Writer, is filled with advice for writers at all stages in their careers. If you haven’t visited her yet, please make sure to stop by and check out her books in the last row above.

Goodreads Giveaway: To celebrate the summer, there’s a Goodreads Giveaway going on now for signed copies of Ocean Echoes. Feel free to enter if you live in the U.S., U.K., or Canada. The Goodreads giveaway ends on July 21. For blogging friends, if you leave a comment here by the end of July you’ll be in the running for another signed copy. There’s also a Kindle Countdown Deal for more summer celebrations – Ocean Echoes will be half price at only $1.99 starting today until July 20.

Have you read any of the above books? Do you recommend any others for summer reading? What will you be reading at the beach or by the fire? 

Happy World Oceans Day

The ocean does so much for us. It gave us life and continues to give us life. To celebrate the ocean, here are a few ocean facts:

The ocean covers nearly 71 percent of the Earth’s surface.

About 95 percent of the ocean remains unexplored.

Roughly half of the oxygen we breathe is produced by the ocean.

The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on Earth. It can be seen from the Moon.

Fish supply the greatest percentage of the world’s protein consumed by humans.

Populations of large fish such as tuna, cod, swordfish, and marlin have declined by as much as 90 percent in the past century.

Plastic waste kills up to one million sea birds and 100,000 marine mammals each year.

The ocean could contain more plastics than fish by 2050.

It’s estimated that more than 90 percent of marine species are directly or indirectly dependent on coral reefs.

Nearly 60 percent of the world’s remaining reefs are at significant risk of being lost in the next three decades. The major causes of coral reef decline are coastal development, sedimentation, destructive fishing practices, pollution, tourism, and climate change.

Global bycatch — unintended destruction caused by the use of non-selective fishing gear such as trawl nets, longlines and gillnets — amounts to 20 million tons a year. The annual global bycatch mortality of small whales, dolphins, and porpoises alone is estimated to be more than 300,000 individuals.

The world’s oceans absorb about 25 percent of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere each year. That uptake is growing as carbon dioxide levels rise. Because of this, the ocean is growing acidic at a pace that’s 100 times faster than at any time in the last 20 million years.

(Compiled from NOAA, The Thomson Reuters Foundation, savethesea.org, Oceana, and The Christian Science Monitor.)

The ocean does so much for us. Here are a few things you can do for the ocean:

Ten Things You Can Do to Save Our Ocean (from UN Development) – We see these lists all the time and they’re usually the same – this one isn’t.

Protect Dolphins and Marine Life from Seismic Blasting

Tell Congress to Stop New Offshore Drilling Agenda

Thank you to Coleen Patrick and Letizia at Reading Interrupted for the latest reviews of Ocean Echoes. It means so much to me that you’d take the time to do that. Reading Interrupted celebrates books and reading in amazing, unique ways and Coleen is a talented writer and illustrator. If you’re not already familiar with their blogs, please take a look and make sure to follow.

Happy World Oceans Day!

Kindle Countdown Deal to Celebrate Ocean Echoes Finalist Award

Just when I thought I’d give up on writing to become a goat herder, Ocean Echoes received finalist awards from the Next Generation Indie Book Awards in the general fiction and e-book categories!

I might still become a goat herder, but I’ll never consider giving up on writing again.

Thank you to everyone for cheering me on through years of revising and thank you for reading, reviewing, and supporting Ocean Echoes once it was finally published.

A huge thank you to these wonderful authors for taking the time to read and review it: Carrie Rubin, Britt Skrabanek, Kourtney Heintz, Jill Weatherholt, Charissa Stastny. And thank you so much to book reviewer Mary Jo Malo for such a kind and thoughtful review. If you don’t follow them through the blog, Twitter, or Goodreads, you’re missing out on a lot of humor, advice, and inspiration. I highly recommend their books.  

A Kindle Countdown Deal starts today: Ocean Echoes will be 99 cents for a few days, then the price will go up a bit depending on the day. The Kindle Countdown Deal will end on May 18 when the price goes back up to $3.99. For Amazon UK, the Kindle Countdown Deal will go from tomorrow, May 12 – May 17. Ocean Echoes is also free to Kindle Unlimited members.

Remember – never give up!

(Photo courtesy of Top Design Magazine)

 

 

 

The Outermost House Treasure Hunt

“The world today is sick to its thin blood for lack of elemental things, for fire before the hands, for water welling from the earth, for air, for the dear earth itself underfoot. In my world of beach and dunes these elemental presences lived and had their being, and under their arch there moved an incomparable pageant of nature and the year.” – Henry Beston

One of my favorite books is The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod by Henry Beston. I love imagining the stretches of beach and marshlands that Beston called home, seeing all the changes from season to season, hearing of wild places far from civilization.

For a while now, I’ve wanted to visit the site of the Outermost House but wasn’t sure exactly where it was located. There hasn’t been anything there since a massive storm, the Blizzard of ’78, destroyed the wooden shack and carried bits of it off into the ocean. Still, I wanted to go there to experience some of the beauty to be found, to sit near the site and soak in the poetry of the place.

The site is about two miles from the Eastham Life Saving Station (white building above). Thanks to the Cape Cod National Seashore, I figured the area would look pretty much the same as when Beston stayed there in the 1920s. The Outermost House is credited with being one of the motivating forces behind the creation of the National Seashore, preserving 40 miles along the Atlantic coast.

While flipping through a book on Cape Cod hikes, I saw a map that showed the exact site of the Outermost House as an X on the beach. It looked like a treasure map. I knew then that I had to find it.

We set out from the life saving station. It seemed like the X marking the treasure would be easy to find. According to the map, the site would be on a beach and directly across a marsh from an observation pavilion.

We trudged through the sand, looking for the pavilion. But before we could stand across from it, an inlet opened up in front of us, a wide, deep inlet complete with waves that stretched from the ocean into the marsh. The inlet blocked our way to the treasure.

We stared across the channel to a beach that looked more like an island. The inlet hadn’t been there when Beston lived there. It wasn’t even on the map showing the hike, but it made the Outermost House site inaccessible.

Large rocks on the island beach moved. Then we saw heads bobbing through the inlet waves. Seals swam and played, oblivious to us and our quest for treasure. We realized that seals completely covered the beach and the area where the Outermost House once stood.

So we didn’t make it to the treasure. Or did we? As we walked away, we knew that the treasure is in knowing there are still places like this, places where seals can play, inaccessible places where nature can flourish. We were glad then that we couldn’t get to the site and that only seals could visit.

Have you read The Outermost House or anything that’s made you want to go on a treasure hunt?

Jellyfish and a Giveaway

I’m not giving away jellyfish, but there is a Goodreads giveaway going on now for signed paperback copies of Ocean Echoes. If you live in the U.S., click here to enter.

Ocean Echoes is about a marine biologist who gives up on love to study jellyfish at a Cape Cod research facility.

Here are a few jellyfish details to celebrate the giveaway:

Jellyfish have roamed the world’s oceans for at least 500 million years. They were here before dinosaurs and long before humans.

More people are killed or injured each year by jellyfish than by sharks.

Jellyfish are 95 percent water and they live without a heart or a brain.

A group of jellyfish can be called a swarm or a smack.

Jellyfish can sting when they’re no longer alive. In 2010, about 150 swimmers at a park in New Hampshire were stung by the 40-pound carcass of a lion’s mane jellyfish.

The giveaway ends March 8 – here’s another chance to enter (U.S. only for this one because I’m too cheap to pay for extreme postage these days).

What do you think of jellyfish? Do you think they’re beautiful, scary, or otherworldly?

Resolutions, Paperbacks, and a Thank You

This year I’ll try to keep it simple. These are really more like guidelines to remember than resolutions (except maybe for the first one).

Write More – Mostly, I need to get back into the routine of writing after revising for years. I’ll try writing a scene a day. Even as I’m writing this I know I won’t do it. Maybe I should just try to write every day instead.

Read More – I might do a Goodreads challenge for this, but I’d also like to try branching out into reading more poetry and short stories. With that in mind, I’ll start the new year off with Christy Birmingham’s Versions of the Self, a book of poetry that’s been getting great reviews lately.

Walk Along the Ocean – Sometimes I go for weeks or months without seeing the ocean, which is crazy because I live on a sandbar. Life and work too easily get in the way and so I’ll have to make sure to go to the ocean more often, even if it is freezing outside. Sometimes those are the best times to go there.

Give More – My favorite nonprofits are Oceana, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the Ocean Conservancy. Oceana and the Environmental Defense Fund will triple any donations and the Ocean Conservancy will double donations made by the end of the year.

Love More – A few years ago, Britt Skrabanek pledged to love more as a new year’s mantra. I thought that was a great idea and have been trying to do that too. The world will always need more love. This means loving not only those closest to us in the new year, but everyone we come in contact with.

Laugh More – I usually add this to my list of resolutions but it’s an easy one to forget. Last year I did at least go to a laughing yoga class with my mom and it really worked. If you haven’t been to a laughing yoga class, it could be something crazy to try in the new year. I promise you’ll laugh more than usual and feel good afterwards.

Ocean Echoes paperback and a thank you

The Ocean Echoes paperback is finally out! Thank you so much to everyone who supported, encouraged, commiserated, and laughed with me through all the years of writing and revising.

Wishing everyone a New Year filled with love and laughter!

Ocean Victories and a Thank You

These days we need to do everything we can to protect and restore the ocean. One of the reasons I love nonprofit groups like Oceana and the Ocean Conservancy is that they work with politicians, lawyers, and businesses from all over the world to create real environmental change. So for some good news, here are a few ocean victories that came about this year:

Deep-Sea Trawling Ban Protects 4.9 million km2 in European Oceans: Oceana in Europe campaigned with the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition to prohibit deep sea bottom trawling in northeast Atlantic waters. Bottom trawling is an invasive fishing practice that rakes the seafloor while catching unwanted ocean life and damaging coral. The European Parliament, Council and Commission reached an agreement that bans all trawling below 800 meters while halting bottom fishing activity below 400 meters if the presence of vulnerable marine ecosystems is demonstrated. These actions protect an area that’s larger than the European Union.

Offshore Drilling: The Obama administration removed Atlantic and Arctic Ocean areas from a five-year program (2017 to 2022) for oil and gas development on the Outer Continental Shelf. The decision protects Arctic wildlife found nowhere else on Earth, including polar bears, bearded seals, walruses, and bowhead whales.

Habitat Protection in the Strait of Sicily: Three Fisheries Restricted Areas were created in the Strait of Sicily, protecting 1,493 square km between Italy, Malta, and Tunisia from bottom trawling and preserving nursery areas for hake and deep-sea rose shrimp. The commission also prohibited commercial harvest of red coral. These decisions will help protect vulnerable habitats and allow fisheries in Mediterranean marine ecosystems to recover.

No matter how huge or tiny the victories, these days we need to keep fighting for the causes that are important to us. Because of that, a percentage from the sale of Ocean Echoes will go toward nonprofit organizations working to protect and restore the world’s oceans for future generations.

Thank you to Carrie Rubin, Britt Skrabanek, Charissa Stastny, and Review Tales for your reviews of Ocean Echoes. It means so much to me that you took the time to write a review. If you’re not familiar with their blogs (or their books), please check them out. I highly recommend their books.

Congratulations to Annika Perry for winning the recent drawing held at Jill Weatherholt’s blog for a free Ocean Echoes e-book. To anyone who didn’t win, if you’re a member of Kindle Unlimited you can download it for free until January 10. I’m hoping the paperback will be out next week.

Wishing everyone a holiday season filled with love and hugs