Telling Toads
Celebrate the wonder of Toads with a
story,
a poem or a personal anecdote
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| sing a song of Toadiness! * |
Have you a tale you could tell? A poem that could hop its
way onto these pages? A new story that should be spoken? This is an invitation
to celebrate the amphibians of the world, from the Frog in your pond to the
Toad who creeps through the woodland, from the sheer excitement of a wriggle of
tadpoles to the glory of a toad’s golden eyes. Join me for a celebration of
Toads through words.
In this, the Froglife Year of the Toad,
here at Creeping Toad, I am inviting people to add their own creative ideas to
a collection of Toad (and frog and tree frog,) stories and poems. Initially, we will aim to encourage people to
share these beyond the blog where they will appear, to read them aloud, to tell
stories, declaim poems by ponds and generally celebrate Toads and their cousins.
Amphibians are in danger. Of all the vertebrate groups,
amphibians seem to be in the most perilous of situations as populations across
the world dwindle before pollution and habitat loss and the ravages of
infections they have no defence against. Froglife is a UK based charity that
sets out to promote amphibian conservation through active habitat management
and wider education. While, Froglife is UK-based, the issues facing amphibians
are global and I hope that by sharing our stories and poems we might add a
little more momentum to a wider awareness of the wonders of the amphibian
worlds. The decision to launch a Year of the Toad campaign grew out of the
research presented in a Froglife paper: http://www.froglife.org/2016/10/06/goodbye-mr-toad/
while the wonderful (and not always sad) book In Search of Lost Frogs by Robin
Moore is a great way of connecting to the issues confronting individual species
across the Earth. Robin’s book is reviewed on this blog, here
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| this tiny person is a Leptopelis from Malawi - from a very old slide! |
I am not going to go into the conservation issues here. The
Froglife website is a good starting point for UK folks and I am sure you can
find local sites in other countries. Here, I would like to invite and challenge
my friends in the storytelling, natural history writing and poetry worlds – and
just about anyone who feels inspired - to drop their words into this Toad-pool.
There are no prizes, probably no money, but I invite us all just to share our
creativity because it is a good thing to do. Not because it is weak or feeble
or over-privileged but because sharing rewards by its own action and if telling
someone else’s story, reciting someone else’s poem can help excite a listener
to look a little more closely at the frogs in the field, then we’ll be doing a
good job.
What we’re looking for
We’re looking for poems or short stories about frog and
toads. These might be personal anecdotes, reports of your own adventures, retelling
of ancient myths, or pieces catching what you find is the essence of toad-life.
We don’t want scientific papers – but the personal experience of that study
might give us rich words to share
No of words: to
keep this under some sort of control: maximum number of words is 500
Other practical stuff
Nature of work:
if your work is racist, sexist, or discriminates on the grounds of species, religion
or gender identity, or comes across as simply offensive, we will reject it
The work must be your
own original work: if it has been published before, at this stage that is
OK as long as we have your permission to put it on a blog. If we build to
publication we’ll need to revisit this. We will, meanwhile acknowledge the
original publication if you include the details! In submitting your work, you
accept that it might be published online and that this is acceptable to you. If
the possibility of publication with remuneration develops, we will come back to
you
Editorial control:
I am the editor of the Toadwords collection and while I will refer to other
writers for opinions, I will hold editorial control
Submissions language:
English please! Unless there is someone out there who might want to run a
parallel Spanish or other language version
What will happen
1. First responses: initally, we’ll see what sort of response we
get. First submissions will be published on my Creeping Toad blog. If
submissions build up in numbers, we’ll set up a separate Toadwords blog or
website. LINK TO TOADBLOG
2. Growing numbers: If numbers and quality of
work merits it, we’ll look at producing an online resource for people to tap
into. Perhaps as a downloadable pdf. If there would be charge for this, we will
contact authors about royalties and permissions
3. As work comes in, selected pieces will also appear on the
Froglife website and might feature in issues of the newsletter Natterchat
Submissions
As word or plain-text attachments please to:
toadwords@btinternet.com
Froglife: and
just so no-one can say they don’t know, yes I am not at all impartial. I like
Froglife. I am one of their Trustee’s and think the whole Year of the Toad
initiative is a good one for rattling a few cages (or splashing in a few ponds)
and I have no qualms at all about saying that I think they/we are an excellent
organisation
Newts, salamanders and caecilians: and no, we’re not
ignoring the rest of the amphibian order, but as The Year of the Toad
concentrates on Toads, this project has a tail-less emphasis. If you are
inspired by salamanders, motivated by newts or just excessively excited by the
caecilian muse, send it in!
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