How Do You Move a Giraffe?

-



It's been awhile since I've written a post on giraffes. A friend shared a Time magazine article with me the other day that tracked the shipment of a 4 foot tall stuffed giraffe toy. (I shared it on my Facebook Author page if you want to check it out.)

Although the article tracks the complications from Covid for shipping a toy from China to its destination, it got me thinking about one of the biggest efforts the Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCG) takes to save giraffes. Namely, translocation of giraffes from one place to another in hopes of encouraging population growth in areas that either have no giraffes or very few.

Called Operation Twiga, this effort takes some of the most critically endangered giraffes and moves them to safer places. This project has been quite successful, and I'm astounded at the extent of effort, dedication, and teamwork required to make it so. Below are links to two short videos chronicling these efforts:

If you took the time to watch these videos, you saw the inherent dangers these teams face willingly and with joyful hearts once the giraffes are released again into the wild.  GCF can not perform these critical efforts to save giraffes without funding. If you're concerned about living in a world without giraffes in the wild, please consider donating to their worthy programs.

Want to know more about GCF? I sat down over Zoom with Stephanie Fennessy last March to discuss what GCF does. Check it out here. We talked a little about my books, too, because her son has read them.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Skin Tone: Describing Your Characters

-
Image
When you write about character's of different races, how do you describe their skin tone? If you've never thought about this, then consider this question: How do the authors you read described persons of color? A few months ago, I attended a webinar about writing diverse characters. The guest was Eliana West of Writers for Diversity . The information she shared felt fresh and valuable, especially related to describing a character's skin tone. I get really tired of seeing African-descended characters described in terms of the goods that drove, and still drive the slave trade--coffee, chocolate, brown sugar. There's some weird psychosocial baggage attached to that.    -- N. K. Jemisin As this quote from author, N. K . Jemisin , indicates, historically, writers have described people of color using food-related descriptors. Many people of color find this offensive. This surprised me, at first, but she has a point, especially when you view it through the quote above. My fir...
Read more

Character Development: Using the Johari Window

-
Image
In my last post, Character Development: the Johari Window , I introduced the Johari Window as a tool for developing your characters. It's important that your character not know everything about their situation. These unknowns can lead to an intriguing story and create possibilities for conflict within the story. How do you use the Johari Window? In this post, I thought I'd provide a simple example of the Johari Window with a character most people know:  Harry Potter. Below, I have filled out the Johari Window as it might appear within the first few pages of book 1, Harry Potter and The Sorceror's Stone . The Johari Window based on Harry Potter and The Sorceror's Stone Three of the quadrants in this window reveal what Harry doesn't know about who he truly is and what happened to his parents. I could add a lot to the quadrants representing what he doesn't know, but I hope this gives you an idea on how a Johari Window might be used. What do you d...
Read more

He Said, She Said, Who Said? Punctuating Dialogue

-
Image
Courtesy of Morguefile.com I've been focusing my posts on workshops and panels I taught or participated on at the Imaginarium Convention. Although this serves as a poor substitute for the real thing, I can share some highlights. This week, we're going to explore dialogue punctuation. The first thing writers need to learn is how to properly punctuate dialogue. I've discovered, over the years, that many don't know how. Notice in the first example below, the dialogue starts at the beginning of the sentence, and the speaking tag (he said, she said, Paul said, etc.) follows it.  A few points to notice: The first letter of the quotation is capitalized. What the person says is a sentence, so it must be capitalized. A comma comes directly after the quote and INSIDE the quotation marks. You can, also, have a question mark or exclamation point here. There is a space AFTER the closing quotation mark followed by the speaking tag and a period at the end of the sentence. In the next ...
Read more