This blog will downshift after its 10th birthday on Wednesday – but I will still be happy to publish guest blogs at weekends when I will also continue with a few blog posts of my own and book reviews for the next six months, until 21 October, when I’ll decide whether this blog has a future or only a past.
Over the last decade there have been over 400 guest posts published here. Thank you to all contributors! Just a few of the guest blogs are gathered together here – these are mostly for contributors who have written a string of guest blogs rather than one-offs but I’ll be adding to this list over the summer. Ian Carter has contributed two series of guest blogs here, one on wild food (see here) and another on A Break from Humanity (as well as some book reviews, other guest blogs and many comments).
What is the function of guest blogs? For the author it provides a relatively straightforward way of publishing their views, and I am proud of the fact that this blog has, over the years, encouraged many young voices to speak up, many unknown voices to become more familiar and has, quite simply, been of some help to a significant few embarking on a writing career. For you the reader, I am sure that a different voice is a refreshing change of subject, style and opinion. For me, guest blogs have made life more interesting though the saving in time and work is minimal – the loading up of text, images and the checking of weblinks, and then moderating comments, is pretty much the same as in writing a blog myself. But I have seen the publishing of guest blogs as a useful service to writers and readers alike.
Here is a selection of guest blogs to demonstrate a bit of the variety – they aren’t my favourites (though some of them are actually), they aren’t the ‘best’, but they are a varied selection, and do dip into the comments on them (some are priceless):
- from Mr White, 30 April 2011
- A Pigeon Fancier by Gary Burgess, 23 February 2012
- Response by Magnus Linklater, 28 August 2012
- Is the future in safe hands? by Findlay Wilde, 11 December 2012
- What life is this? by Colin Rees, 18 June 2014
- the Sunken Garden by filbert cobb, 25 September 2014
- Spurn Developments by John Lawton, 18 November 2015
- Guest blog by RSPB Chair of Council, Prof Steve Ormerod, 24 May 2016
- Nature Club update by E Truss (Senior Prefect) as imagined by Jonathan Wallace, 4 July 2016
- Conservation 21 by Ian Carter, 22 November 2017
- Driven Grouse Shooting on Borrowed Time by RSPB chair Kevin Cox, 22 January 2018
- An End to Peak Pessimism by Alex Lees, 20 February 2018
- Winds of Change by Derek Gow, 4 February 2019
- UK Guardians of Animal Welfare by Alick Simmons, 5 March 2019
I’m still prepared to published guest posts here on any subjects related to nature conservation and nature. Guest blogs will appear on Saturdays and Sundays – please submit any offerings by 10am on a Friday – or at least contact me in advance if that is unlikely to be possible. Here are the guidelines – click here.
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the Sunken Garden by filbert cobb, 25 September 2014 links to https://markavery.info/2018/02/20/guest-blog-end-peak-pessimism-alex-lees/
tuwit – thank you, corrected
Thanks. It was worth reading.
Comment 817. The guest blogs are indeed brilliant, fascinating perspectives that you might have not encountered otherwise, and when someone with a radically different background states something that happens to coincide with the impressions you’ve gained from a position of relatively lesser experience that’s valuable. I frequently copy and paste links to guest blogs (as well as M.Avery posts of course) from the archives here when I want to make a point with someone on social media. Ben MacDonald’s assassination of grouse moor (un)economics is an utter classic, and there’s another guest blog similarly rubbishing the claim grouse moors are good for pollinators because honey bees can like them. Both do a demolition job on grouse moors, that I can’t see the opposition credibly challenge.
Guest blogs have also had to be deemed worthy by someone other than their author to appear here, and this blog is definitely a well respected one so getting your guest blog on it automatically gives it a credibility it otherwise might not have. It’s a definite confidence builder too and I can understand how it’s helped people take their writing further. There are certainly a lot of topics I want to write about and a possible six month time limit will hopefully motivate me to stop dithering and get on with it, but I hope this facility continues indefinitely for other peoples’ and conservation’s sake too as long as it’s a pleasure rather than a chore to the editor.