About

The Festival of the Trees is a monthly blog carnival devoted to all things arboreal. Like other blog carnivals, it’s a periodical collection of links to blog posts and other online sites, hosted each month on a different blog (not including this one). As BlogCarnival.com explains,

There are many kinds of blogs, and they contain articles on many kinds of topics. Blog Carnivals typically collect together links pointing to blog articles on a particular topic. A Blog Carnival is like a magazine. It has a title, a topic, editors, contributors, and an audience. Editions of the carnival typically come out on a regular basis (e.g. every monday, or on the first of the month [that's us!]). Each edition is a special blog article that consists of links to all the contributions that have been submitted, often with the editor’s opinions or remarks.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

  1. Write something about trees and post it to your blog or website. If you’re not a writer, how about a tree-related video on YouTube, or a well-captioned photo gallery on Flickr or Picasa?
  2. Copy the permalink for whatever it is you want to share. usually the title of a blog post will also be the permalink, but sometimes it might be hidden in the post footer, disguised as a time stamp or even a hash mark. We mention this in case you happen across a great tree-related item on an unfamiliar site and decide to send it along (much appreciated, by the way).

    Paste the link into an email to the host for the upcoming festival, which you can always find near the top of the right sidebar here. It’s a good idea to include “Festival of the Trees” in the subject line. Alternatively, you can use the contact form here on the site, and we’ll forward it for you.

    You can send as many links as you like, from your own site or from others, as long as they seem related to the theme of the festival (see below). All decisions about what to include and how to arrange it are up to the monthly hosts.

  3. When the festival comes out, almost always on the first day of the following month, go visit and click on the other links, leaving comments on the blog posts you find interesting. People will hopefully visit your entry and do the same. Discover new blogs, learn new stuff about trees and forests, and meet new people who share your interest in trees and nature!
  4. Be sure to return the link-love by blogging about the new festival edition and/or linking to it on Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, or wherever else you hang out online.
  5. Consider volunteering to host and edit a future edition of the Festival of the Trees.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR

For the purposes of the Festival, we’re defining trees as any woody plants that regularly exceed three meters in height, though exceptions might be made to accommodate things like banana “trees” or bonsai. We are interested in trees in the concrete rather than in the abstract. News stories from the mainstream press about tree-related research or conservation issues may be included to help round out an issue, but shouldn’t dominate. The emphasis should be on personal perspectives and original content; we don’t want to link to pieces that are 90% or more recycled from other authors or artists.

The Festival of the Trees seeks:

  • original photos or artwork featuring trees
  • original essays, stories or poems about trees
  • audio and video of trees
  • news items about trees (especially the interesting and the off-beat)
  • philosophical and religious perspectives on trees and forests
  • scientific and conservation-minded perspectives on trees and forests
  • kids’ drawings of trees
  • dreams about trees
  • trees’ dreams about us
  • people who hug trees
  • people who make things out of trees
  • big trees
  • small trees
  • weird or unusual trees
  • sexy trees
  • tree houses
  • animals that live in, pollinate, or otherwise depend on trees
  • lichens, fungi or bacteria that parasitize or live in mutualistic relationships with trees

If you’re uncertain about whether a given item qualifies for inclusion, go ahead and send it in anyway. In case of a rejection, you may or may not hear back from the editor, depending on how much time s/he has. Remember that this is an all-volunteer effort.

For more information about the Festival, you can use the contact form, or email us individually or in combination. Dave: bontasaurus (at) yahoo (dot) com, Pablo: paul (at) roundrockjournal (dot) com, and Jade: trees (at) brainripples (dot) com.