Oh, isn’t it wonderful? …the garden and the orchard and the brook and the woods, the whole big dear world.
~ Anne Shirley / L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
This is Anne of Green Places. Like my literary mascot, with whom I share a name, hair color, and tendency to rhapsodize, I'm in love with the world.
As a reader and traveler, I'm hungry for the stories that weave people with their places. As a plant ecologist and amateur naturalist, I especially seek out leafy places. As a poet, I'm enthralled with language. Here is where I'm attempting to alchemize all of this.
What’s in the newsletter?
There are currently roughly three modes to my Substack:
Essays and photography from the places where I live and travel, sent out on first and third Sundays or Mondays. These are currently centered on Grenoble, France, where I'm working as an ecologist, and the surrounding French Alps.
More science-focused essays about concepts from ecology or biology, inspired by my own research or the ecology of my surroundings. Posted more or less alternately with place-based essays on first and third Sundays/Mondays, but don’t count on a pattern, or a hard boundary between the two.
My Detail Diary, short lyric meditations on sensory details from my surroundings (mostly nature). I post these daily on Substack Notes and recap them in my newsletter on the weekends that I don't post an essay.
You may also see wanderings into literature, music, and my adventures (struggles) in learning French. To anything that seems off topic, I say, everything is embedded in a place, and everything is ultimately veined with green.
Why subscribe?
Long story short, if you’d like to receive email broadcasts of my forays in the physical and written world, with loving attention to detail and special access to the French Alps, subscribe!
Anne of Green Places does not currently have a paywall of any kind, but if you feel moved to support me monetarily in my writerly endeavours, the way is open to become a paid subscriber. You might get a small literary thank you gift…
And/or, share Anne of Green Places with someone you think would enjoy coming along. It truly means a lot to me!
Where to start reading?
Some thoughts upon my arrival in France:
Adventures in the Alps:
Plus a dose of French language and endeavoring:
Ecology highlights:
An introduction to my Detail Diary (see the full archive on the Detail Diary tab):
And finally, before I started Anne of Green Places, I wrote for several years about living in Cambridge, England, at The Cambridge Placebook. If you like Anne of Green Places, you’ll like its predecessor! I’ve crossposted a few:
