With this summer’s 40th anniversary of when I worked as a student in a chicken slaughterhouse, the big news to report is that my book is scheduled for publication by Lantern Books in October. It is called GROWL. Life Lessons, Hard Truths, and Bold Strategies from an Animal Advocate.

Now, I hear you say, I thought it was called ANIMAL DHARMA? Well, it was. But things change. Including this book and its focus. GROWL has ended up as a more secular book than it started out. Which helps to explain the name change. Anyway, I have retained the name ANIMAL DHARMA and plan to return later to the project exploring animals and Buddhism.

GROWL explores what it means to care deeply about animals. It is a memoir weaving together a personal narrative of growing awareness of our complex relations with animals with my professional involvement as a leader of the animal rights movement in the UK and US. In 1973 I was a student spending the summer working in a chicken slaughterhouse. Three years later, I was a vegan campaigning against factory farming. This is a journey of personal empowerment and professional development. I recall the development of the modern animal rights movement. I present a psychological profile of people who love and respect animals. Leaving others to describe the cruel treatment of animals, I focus instead on understanding and solutions. I propose four key values in animal rights.

• Compassion is our motivation for helping animals
• Truth represents our ethical relations with animals
• Nonviolence is the value in the relations we have with animals
• Justice is our commitment to all animals

The writing and editing of GROWL took an extraordinary amount of time. It is a book that I could not write until now. This meant that I had to reassign my time from writing posts for this blog and its companion, the Grumpy Vegan, to focussing instead on GROWL. My editor at Lantern Books, Wendy Lee, has been tremendously helpful. But there is still a lot to do between now and its publication in October. Between now and then, my time is focussed on GROWL and much less so to maintaining this blog and Grumpy Vegan. Thank you for your patience!

One unexpected outcome from this present, temporary state of affairs is that it has led me to question how I should best use my time. Posting frequent blogs with a momentary nature or writing books with hopefully an enduring quality is a dilemma I am presently considering. Each has important and unique roles to play. Ideally, there should be a balance but that’s not always possible with limited time and resources. One thing is certain, though, I want to write books. I have interesting topics I want to examine and unique, even contentious, things to say about them! But I have to take each book in its turn. Writing and producing books requires a great deal of time.

Having recently sworn off ever writing another book while I was grappling with GROWL, may I be the first to tell you that my next book is underway! But this time I have decided not to discuss its focus with anyone! Well, at least for the time being.