In December of 2018 Guy and I decided to begin republishing his books and our Ms. Ladybug and Mr. Honeybee book. The original publishers had gone belly up and disappeared, we had never received a dime in royalties for our bug book, and Guy had not see royalties in years for any of his books. 
It was time to seize our power back. 

For me, it was time to brush up on my Photoshop skills, and dive headlong into the frigid waters of the world of book publishing and all of what that means. I can tell you what it means: if you ever used your microwave by just pressing the 2 or 3 to automatically cook food, this was a parallel to my decades use of Microsoft Word.  Just type words and boom, you have a letter.  Now, however, I had to learn special formatting techniques, font styles depending on the paragraph, and how to insert page numbers and NOT insert page numbers.  You're probably like me, you've read thousands of books over your life but never really looked at one, how it was laid out, numbered with roman numerals and THEN arabic numbers, and alternating odd with even pages, and on and on.  Endless rules, and when you get them right, you have a beautiful creation to show for it.  When you don't?  Well, let's not go there, why ruin a lovely day?

We decided to first republish a slightly revised version of our Ladybug/Honeybee book, where I added a few more illustrations and embellishments.  We are very proud to announce that The Revised Second Edition is now available in Kindle and paperback, as well as audio, through Amazon all under the Woodthrush imprint. And we are finally seeing some royalties.  That said, here's a warning to those who think they will write the great American novel and get rich, you most likely will not.  You most likely will make some gas money, if you're really lucky and clever and your book is somewhat interesting.  But there is truth that self-publishing is the way to control your royalties, as few as you may get. 

Our next rescue was Going Dark, a longtime favorite of readers, practically unavailable on Amazon and priced ridiculously high when it was listed.  Who would pay $800 for a paperback? Even if it was written by Guy McPherson, our favorite doomist cult superhero? 
Here is the before and the after.  You tell me which looks best. 

That is the Tucson skyline in the new version, a photo that I took from Sentinel Peak at sunset.

​Shortly after republishing Going Dark, Guy completed his newest book, Only Love Remains: Dancing at the Edge of Extinction.  I had to work hard and fast to get it finished in paperback form and then in hardback form. Working with Bookbaby, we launched the hardback version in a week! We have already shipped several copies to Alaska and California in anticipation of Guy's upcoming speaking tour in April. 

The back photo of Guy on a peak was taken by our dear friend Hanka Stratmann in the region of Meteora, Greece.  Hanka has been traveling the world, taking incredible photos of the exotic countries she is visiting while there is still time and sharing them with us. 

Greetings fellow fragile humans! 
This is the first blog here at the Wood Thrush website, as well as my first blog post of the new year.  
2014 came with a bang across the globe.  Storms, floods, arctic weather in Southerly regions, and general confusion as to what to wear the next day, a parka or swim trunks.  The photos and videos from around the globe are truly stunning and awe inspiring.   As well as terrifying.  My heart and wishes for safety go out to everyone struggling right now.  

We are in the full hurricane of Climate Change now and it's only going to get trickier and scarier. 
Which is why we need to come closer to each other, rather than farther.  Drawing lines across our likes and dislikes, beliefs and non-beliefs, ideologies and fundamentalisms, or colors and religions will only propel us further into chaos and misery. And into the night alone, defenseless and heartbroken once more. 

There is no need for that.  We are social creatures and we need to re-embrace our socialness, our deep longing to connect emotionally as well as physically. Our tender hearts and delicate bodies attest to our fragility and need for connection.  We die without connection.  We are snuggle bunnies that just want to play, laugh and love and have been denied this human need by culturally manufactured mores. We have paid a dear price for that loss, not only in the desperation and depression rampant in the world, but in the environmental devastation that removes forever 200 species every day. 

Ultimately we humans are fragile beings, we break easily, inside and out, and yet we pretend we can tough out the loneliness, the hardships, the brutal suffering in so many corners of the world and in our own towns.  Being tough and brutal has become an ideal, and yet we forget being tough creates a callousness that dehumanizes us.  A close and dear friend yesterday described herself as a coward to me.  I reminded her that it takes courage to admit fear and we are all afraid and there is nothing to be ashamed of in admitting fear. 
All the heroes of the past were fearful as they engaged in their trials.  Facing one's fear and embracing it is not cowardice.   Even running away to live to fight another day is not cowardice.  It's human and precious.   As well as smart. 

What is cowardice is creating extinction for 200 of Earth's creatures every day out of sheer greed or plain malice. 
Cowardice is stripping people of their human right to live lives of beauty and self actualization. 
Cowardice is murder for profit. 
We all live at the mercy of cowards and our fear is not cowardice, it's awareness of a lousy situation. 

The purpose of Wood Thrush productions is to document the struggle of people living under the cowards' boots,  to tell the story of people trying to make a world of love and beauty once more, people trying to educate and lift others out of their struggle to survive and up into a life of self actualization.  
This is the goal of Wood Thrush as we embark on a new year of struggle, hope, love and self actualization in a collapsing world. 

May your New Year bring you love, beauty and self actualization. 

Pauline