About

The Festival of the Trees is a monthly blog carnival devoted to all things arboreal. Like other blog carnivals, it’s a collection of links to blog posts and other sources, 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.

There is so much stuff in the blog-o-sphere, just finding interesting stuff is hard. If there is a carnival for a topic you are interested in, following that carnival is a great way to learn what bloggers are saying about that topic. If you are blogging on that topic, the carnival is the place to share your work with like-minded bloggers.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

To submit a link to the Festival of the Trees, please email the host/editor for the upcoming festival, as identified on the main page of this blog. Be sure to include “Festival of the Trees” in the subject line and the permanent link to the blog post or other item in the body of the email. Alternatively, you can use the submission form at BlogCarnival.com, which forwards emails to the host of the upcoming festival. 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.

We welcome volunteers to host and edit future editions of the Festival of the Trees. If you’re interested, see the Volunteer to Host page.

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, so while stories about a particular forest would be welcome, newsy pieces about forest issues probably wouldn’t be. The emphasis should be on 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. If your links are featured in an edition of the festival, please consider posting an announcement at your blog, as well as linking to this blog in your sidebar.

For more information about the Festival, contact Dave: bontasaurus (at) yahoo (dot) com, and/or Pablo: editor (at) roundrockjournal (dot) com.