Lord Dunsany's Re-Wilding: An Update

A year and a half ago, I noted the current Lord Dunsany, Randal Plunkett (the 21st Baron Dunsany), and his efforts at rewilding a portion of the Dunsany Estate. (The link is here.)  I found a few video updates recently about the continuing process. A short, six-minute one, "Lord of the Wild: Rewilding Dunsany Estate", can be found here.  A longer (22+ minutes) and more in-depth video, "Does Rewilding Work: Measuring Carbon and Biodiversity Gains at Dunsany Castle", can be found here. As an additional enticement to the rewilding study, I can recommend the many views of Dunsany Castle and the surrounding Estate.  Here the 18th Baron Dunsany wrote many masterpieces of fantasy literature.

Horribly low pay is pushing out my fellow authors – and yes, that really does matter

 This article by Joanne Harris is all too true.  The full article is here.  A few choice excerpts follow:

People are being paid less than half a living wage for their creative labour. The ALCS points to this as evidence of a global trend of the “devaluing of creative labour”. I agree – we see it everywhere: in the calls to work for nothing, in the initiatives to offer unfettered free access to creative work, in mass subscription models designed to serve corporations at the expense of creators.

Writing as a profession is becoming inaccessible and unsustainable for too many.

A Susan Cooper Interview

While it's nice to see a new (short) interview with Susan Cooper, it's a bit sad to see the interviewer focus mostly on the books she published fifty years or more ago, give or take.  Of course those are her classic and award-winning books, but still....  Here is the link at the School Library Journal.  The line from Tolkien she quotes comes from Note G in "On Fairy-stories":  “Fantasy does not blur the sharp outlines of the real world; for it depends on them”