No Voice Unheard Newsletter

Please take a moment to see what we've been up to over the last year...

A Special Offer for Shelters and Rescue Organizations from No Voice Unheard

Dear Friend,

No Voice Unheard is pleased to announce that our book, One at a Time: A Week in an American Animal Shelter, is now in its fifth printing!

If you’re not familiar with the book, One at a Time brings the homeless animal tragedy vividly to life via a true account of seven days in a typical U.S. animal shelter. With compelling photos and moving vignettes, it chronicles the stories of 75 animals who passed through a northern California shelter during one week. Their gripping stories include excerpts from actual shelter records; the words of shelter workers, volunteers, and visitors; and the final conclusion of each animal's journey through the shelter system.

We are former animal shelter workers who are deeply committed to educating the public about the homeless animal issue.  We formed our non-profit organization, No Voice Unheard, to publish One at a Time after commercial publishers told us the book was too “realistic” to be marketable. Despite their predictions, the book has won awards and received tremendous praise, and we regularly hear from readers who have been moved to adopt from a shelter, and even volunteer, as a result of reading this book.


Hundreds of shelters and rescue groups use One at a Time in their own community outreach and education efforts, by …

• Selling it as a fundraiser or including it in their merchandise line.
• Giving it as a "thank you" gift to donors, volunteers, or staff members.
• Giving copies to local elected officials, policy makers, and community leaders, to help explain the challenges of their work, or as part of campaigns to get ordiances passed
• Using it as an orientation tool for new Board of Directors members or volunteers.
• Giving it to their local newspaper to review, creating an opportunity to talk to the reporter about their work and the animals in their care.
• Using it in humane education presentations and pet parenting classes.
• Reviewing or covering it in an article in their newsletter, using the article as an opportunity to teach about the homeless animal issue.
• Putting a copy in their lobby for the public to look at while waiting.
• Including a copy of the book with adoptions.
• Giving it as a door prize at events, or using it in a silent auction fundraiser.
• Placing copies in local libraries; keeping copies in the shelter library.

One at a Time: A Week in an American Animal Shelter would also make a great holiday educational gift for supporters, donors, and volunteers.

We offer a 50% discount off the cover price of to all non-profits, rescues, animal control, and educational organizations, making your cost $8.47 per copy.
Please contact us for shipping rates or more information,
at info@novoiceunheard.org or 831-440-9574.
 

We send you our deepest thanks for the work you do for the animals, and hope that One at a Time can help you in that work.

Marilee Geyer & Diane Leigh, co-authors
 

Show them why you’re veg!

Facing another season of holiday meals with non-veg friends, co-workers, and family?
Show them why you’re veg!

 

Our beautiful book, Ninety-Five: Meeting America’s Farmed Animals in Stories and Photographs, is filled with stunning photographs and fascinating stories of rescued farmed animals. It’s very inviting, presenting information about farmed animals in a non-threatening, easy-to-look-at format, and would make a great holiday gift to show people why you’ve chosen to go veg.

We offer a special package for gift-giving:
5 copies of the book at a very discounted price ($60).
Get a copy for your coffee table at home, one as a gift, and one for your office at work.
Click here for more info on our Giving Package.
Or you can order one copy for just $14.95.
If you are a sanctuary or non-profit, contact us about our non-profit discounts.

One of the things we wanted to do with this book is make it useful and accessible to show vegetarians and non-vegetarians the personalities of farmed animals. We also wanted to create a celebration of their lives and document their joys, quirks, sorrows, friendships and more. While the book has moments that are heart-wrenching, there are just as many moments of humor and joy. It is a book that can be shared with children, non-veg relatives, co-workers, and more. We believe this book has the power to change how people view farmed animals -- in fact, we've heard from new vegetarians who said this book was the reason they made the switch.

As a non-profit, our advertising and outreach budget is small. We very much want to get the faces and stories of these incredible animals in front of as many people as possible and rely on our readers to help us take our books out into the world. We’re looking for creative ways to reach out. If you are able to help us advocate for farmed animals, whether is it by forwarding this email, buying a copy of the book for your local library, mentioning it to your Facebook friends, or posting a review at an online retailer, we appreciate any and all help. Instead of waiting for Black Friday or Cyber Monday to do your holiday shopping, consider supporting a non-profit, independent publisher and spread the message of compassion and respect for all animals.

Thanks for supporting us and the animals!
Diane, Marilee, Windi, and Davida
No Voice Unheard

Aubrey and Garnet (United Poultry Concerns)

Eat, Think, Write: Vegan Authors Discuss Their Inspiration Panel at Baltimore Book Fest

The following is what Davida Gypsy Breier, No Voice Unheard board member, spoke about at the "Eat, Think, Write: Vegan Authors Discuss Their Inspiration Panel" at Baltimore Book Fest.

When I was a child I moved from urban Miami to rural Minnesota. We rented a farmhouse on a working pig farm. At 8, I understood the rudimentary concepts of animal welfare and as piglets were born that summer I helped the farmer give them worm medicine and vaccines. Naively, I wanted to care for and help them. I remembered one weak piglet that came inside the house overnight. I routinely saved and fed them our vegetable scraps. I knew which ones were friendly and which of the males were just too big for someone my size. They were a lot like my dogs and occasionally when they got out, the pigs and dogs would romp around. And then one day in the early fall I came home and many of the pigs were gone. I asked about what happened and was told the truth.

At 8, this translated to never eating anything that I understood came from a pig. These were the nascent stirrings of a belief structure that would take me almost 20 years to fully understand. In high school I declared myself vegetarian without having a firm grasp of the concept. In college I finally understood vegetarianism, but made uninformed excuses for eggs and dairy until my first day working at The Vegetarian Resource Group. The flimsy belief structure I had taken shelter under was gently questioned and I couldn’t defend it. I became vegan that day and never looked back. That was 12 years ago.

At that time, and the years following, I devoted a lot of my efforts to written and verbal outreach. I spent my days answering questions from concerned parents, people perplexed by the mysteries of tofu, and combative reporters. I eventually learned that impassioned beliefs need not be strident and that living by example was often just as powerful.


Years passed and I changed jobs a few times. I was still living as a vegan, but my activist role was limited to smaller circles. In 2006, I was working for book distributor of independent presses and one day a book landed on my desk from a non-profit publisher based in California. The book, One at a Time, was the best and most honest portrait of shelter work that I had ever seen. I contacted the publishers immediately and told them how much I loved the book, that I did rescue work, and that I wanted very much to work with them. Eventually they said yes, and in that instant my future changed.


While I enjoyed working with the publishers I represented, there was something about this book and I did everything I could for it. A year later the publisher released a book by Derrick Jensen, Thought to Exist in the Wild, about zoos. Then in late 2007 they approached me with ideas about their third book, which was to be photos and essays about farmed animals and promoting veganism. They didn’t realize I had worked at a non-profit devoted to vegan education, that I was in fact vegan, and had previously worked as a commercial photographer. I so wanted to be part of the project. That phone call was a pivotal moment in my life and for the book. Suddenly they had someone on the east coast who was willing and able to travel and take photos and I was being offered the opportunity to work on the kind of book that I had always dreamed of.


That spring I found myself rolling around on the ground to reach eye level with the residents at United Poultry Concerns, on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, and Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary, near Washington, DC. I would also make it to Peaceful Prairie in Colorado and The Key West Wildlife Center. I shot thousands of photos. After using words for so long, I found myself drawn to telling stories and revealing personalities with images. The mission of the book was to show people what we see in these animals, how they are unique individuals. To show them for themselves and that was my goal every time I got behind the lens.

Despite working for their protection for 20 years, I really had little experience with farmed animals. I held theories and pre-conceptions, but on my second and third trips to United Poultry Concerns I came to understand the sheer numbers of distinct personalities that greeted me when I walked into the yard. I also found that I LOVED taking photos of chickens. They are also the most abused of all farmed animals, with 9 billion killed a year in the US for food, and of all the animals I photographed for this project, they, in my eyes, are also the most expressive. I met hens who I could see bore the emotional scars of their years in darkened confinement, hens who you could just tell were gossiping, and roosters who knew how beautiful they were and how much my camera did indeed love them. The eyes of these birds could in the briefest flicker show irritation, affection, curiosity, fear, vanity, hostility, shyness, boredom, pain, pleasure, hunger, surprise, and joy.

I had the opportunity to photograph a group of 13 hens as they were transported from Rhode Island to the safety of United Poultry Concerns. They were scared, featherless in spots, and just bedraggled looking. A few months later I went down to UPC and I saw the same hens. The transformation was astonishing. The delight they took in simply being able to dust bathe was evident and being able to partake in small watermelons brought by a visitor just put them into joy overdrive.


Those moments are why I felt Ninety-Five: Meeting America’s Farmed Animals was so important. If I could convey that moment of joy, perhaps other people would understand their part in taking the joy away, and perhaps, just perhaps, they too will find that their flimsy belief structures need an overhaul.

Vegan Author Panel at Baltimore Book Fest

From Ellen DeGeneres to John Salley, vegans are all over the media. This year has seen a number of new books pertaining to veganism hit bestseller lists. Recent articles cite that veganism is a huge trend in publishing, for restaurants, and with food manufacturers. Furthermore, it is now widely accepted that a plant-based diet can not only reduce, but reverse, health issues. Lastly, poll results and ballot measures show that the majority of Americans oppose animal cruelty. Despite all of this, myths and misperceptions abound about veganism and vegans.

Please join five vegan authors for the CityLit sponsored panel “Eat, Think, Write: Vegan Authors Discuss Their Inspiration” at the Baltimore Book Fest on Saturday September 25, 2010 at 6:30pm. The CityLit Stage is located on the south side of the Mt. Vernon Place circle at the foot of the Washington Monument. They will be discussing cooking, lifestyle issues, health benefits, philosophies of animal rights, and the personalities of farmed animals. They might even tell you where they get their protein.

Speakers include Jonathan Balcombe, Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals; Tracye McQuirter, By Any Greens Necessary: A Revolutionary Guide for Black Women Who Want to Eat Great, Get Healthy, Lose Weight, and Look Phat; Ben Shaberman, Vegan Monologues; Corinne Bowen, Editor-in-Chief, crazysexylife.com; and Davida Gypsy Breier, Ninety-Five: Meeting America’s Farmed Animals in Stories and Photographs.


 A popular speaker, Jonathan Balcombe, PhD, has given invited presentations on six continents. He is the author of Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals (Palgrave, 2010), Pleasurable Kingdom: Animals and the Nature of Feeling Good (Macmillan, 2006), and The Exultant Ark: A Pictorial Tour of Animal Pleasure (University of California Press, forthcoming March 2011).

 A speaker, author, and 20-year vegan, Tracye McQuirter, M.P.H., is passionate about helping people achieve extraordinary health through better food choices. Tracye recently released By Any Greens Necessary, her long-awaited first book. Tracye has been featured in dozens of media, including The Washington Post, Essence, Ebony, Fox 5, NBC 4, The Tavis Smiley Show, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Afro, and Heart and Soul.

 Ben Shaberman's essays and commentaries have been carried by a variety of media including: The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, National Public Radio, VegNews, and Vegetarian Times. His collection of humorous and reflective essays, The Vegan Monologues, was published by Apprentice House.

 Corinne Bowen is the Editor-in-Chief of Crazysexylife.com's online magazine (founded by author and filmmaker Kris Carr), which receives thousands of visitors each day. Her work has appeared in Baltimore SmartWoman Magazine and VegNews Magazine.

 Davida Gypsy Breier is a board member for the non-profit publisher, No Voice Unheard and is a contributing writer and photographer to their book Ninety-Five: Meeting America's Farmed Animals in Stories and Photographs. She is also responsible for Wild Leek Photography, a project that helps support animal rescues and sanctuaries via photography.


Contact Davida Gypsy Breier for more details: davida@leekinginc.com.

Great Day at DC VegFest!

DC VegFest - Come see us!

Come on out and see us at DC VegFest! We'll have special event pricing on all three books - it is never to early to think about buying gifts!

The DC VegFest is a FREE outdoor festival celebrating the very best of everything vegetarian in and around the nation's capital. It is conveniently located at George Washington University on the University Yard, just 4 blocks from the Foggy Bottom/GWU Metro station on the orange and blue lines.
2000 block of H St., NW
Washington, D.C. 20052


http://dcvegfest.com/

NVU at Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary

http://www.animalsanctuary.org/

NVU At TAFA

A Place to Live (from Peaceful Prairie)

 "He shows up every morning, this small, slight, inky-eyed child. You can see him teetering across the prairie on his absurdly long legs, toiling across tough, tangled, thistly terrain on his pale hooves, struggling to cross the field that separates the neighboring farm from the sanctuary -- a nub of a child, pushing forth on his spindly bug legs, in his tiny bug body, with infinite bug determination -- so scanty against the hulking earth, so tender under the bleak sky, so unprepared for the demands of the journey, yet so determined to undertake it. Nothing deters him until he reaches his destination: a thorny scrap of scorched dirt on the sanctuary border where the fence wires are slightly bent, stretched and loosened. There, he stops with a sigh in his body, with a hitch in his shoulders, as if tossing an invisible burden."
Keep reading: 
http://peacefulprairie.blogspot.com/2010/06/place-to-live.html

Stickers now available to order

We now have stickers available to order on our website.

New Scientific Analysis Debunks Zoos’ Education Claims

From In Defense of Animals -

San Rafael, Calif. – A new scientific critique questions claims by zoos and aquariums to be educating the public, finding that a key study conducted by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) is fatally flawed in its conclusions. IDA is calling on zoos and aquariums to stop misleading the public and admit they have no evidence that zoos have a positive educational impact.

“There is no compelling evidence to date that zoos and aquariums promote attitude changes, education or interest in conservation in their visitors, despite claims to the contrary,” stated lead author Dr. Lori Marino, a neuroscientist at Emory University and expert in dolphin and whale intelligence.

Keep reading: http://www.idanews.org/ida-breaking-news/new-scientific-analysis-debunks-zoos%E2%80%99-education-claims/

In Ninety-Five you'll meet Ralphie, Andy, and Elvis, once destined to be veal calves, and now adult gentle giants.

Ninety-Five - 1st Runner Up, Culture Category for the Eric Hoffer Award!

 Ninety-Five has won first runner up in the culture category for the Eric Hoffer Award!

The full list is here: http://www.hofferaward.com/HAbookwinners.html#culture


Here is the The US Review of Books: The Eric Hoffer Award:

Rather than write a book exposing modern agricultural practices and promoting animal rights, the editor of a book about farm animals, oddly titled Ninety-Five, explains that he simply decided to introduce readers to farm animals. Ninety-Five  consists of a number of portraits of a variety of rescued farm animals-among them, Gilly the hen, Sophie the pig, and Justice the steer-all beautifully written and accompanied by vibrant photographs. The stories of the animals surprise with their revelations of their personalities, relationships and emotions, yet never come across as sentimental. The book's title is a reference to the average number of animals that are saved each year through one person's vegan diet. After reading Ninety-Five, perhaps you will reconsider your eating habits. [http://www.theusreview.com/USRhoffer.html#culture]

Check out our early-order specials, good until June 1st, here.

Ninety-Five NOW AVAILABLE!

Today is the day! Ninety-Five releases today!

We were out at Towsontown Fest today signing copies. You can stop by the Ukazoo Books tent at the Fest through Sunday afternoon and purchase a copy or visit the store at 730 Dulaney Valley Rd. Towson, MD 21204 (http://www.ukazoo.com)

 

Order direct from No Voice Unheard and save $5 on one copy, add another of our titles for just $10 more,
or order 5 copies of Ninety-Five for just $60.
Order now: http://novoiceunheard.org/order_individual.html

Great review of Ninety-Five from Our Hen House:

Livestock. That word is the closest most people get to thinking or talking about live farmed animals. This convenient euphemism makes it easy to imagine all animal agriculture as a vague and vast ocean of faceless, identical beasts. It is perfectly acceptable for many people to eat “chicken” for dinner, but it feels somehow different to eat “a chicken” or “chickens” at suppertime. The animal agriculture industry has spent decades trying to commodify the animals we raise for food, and with alarming success: millions of people only acknowledge these beings when they are no longer animals, but “meat.”

Keep reading: http://www.ourhenhouse.com/2010/04/ninety-five-seeing-eye-to-eye-with-farmed-animals/

Special Pre-Order Offers for Ninety-Five!

Special pre-order offers for our newest release!

$5 off the cover price!
Ninety-Five: Meeting America’s Farmed Animals in Stories and Photographs = $14.95

Add one of our other titles for $10
Ninety-Five + One at a Time = $24.95
or
Ninety-Five + Thought to Exist in the Wild = $24.95

Add both of our other titles for $20
Ninety-Five + One at a Time & Thought to Exist in the Wild = $34.95

http://novoiceunheard.org/order_individual.html

Ninety-Five: Coming Soon!

After a couple of years of hard work, Ninety-Five will be released in just a few weeks! We'll be posting some special offers for supporters soon.

Men leave their own mark on veganism (Boston Globe)

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/food/articles/2010/03/24/men_leave_their_own_mark_on_veganism/

"Perhaps the ultimate hegan is Rip Esselstyn, a veteran firefighter and triathlete in Austin, Texas. He helped the men in his department lower their cholesterol in 28 days by shunning animal protein and then turned his efforts into the best-selling “The Engine 2 Diet’’ (Wellness Central). Though not billed as a vegan diet per se, Esselstyn’s “plant-strong’’ lifestyle helps lower cholesterol by going meat-, egg-, and dairy-free, he says. “Sure there is a stigma attached to it, that it’s for yuppie, tree-hugging, emaciated weaklings,’’ he says. “That is far from the truth. I like to say that real men eat plants.'"

Why A Salad Costs More Than A Big Mac

http://www.alternet.org/story/146013/why_a_big_mac_costs_less_than_a_salad

TAFA Conference

Registration is now open for the Taking Action for Animals Conference - set to take place in Washington DC June 23-26.

http://www.humanesociety.org/about/events/tafa/

Farm Sanctuary's Hoedown May 1st and 2nd

Check out information about Farm Sanctuary's spring hoedown:
http://www.farmsanctuary.org/farm/calendar/ca_hoedown/index.html

A Rise in Rabbit Farning?

Two recent articles look at the rise in rabbit farming: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/03/rabbit-farms-video-the-ne_n_483985.html and http://www.spin.com/articles/watch-morrissey-fights-cruel-rabbit-farming

New Poultry Press online

http://www.upc-online.org/winter2010/

Inside This Issue

• Idaho School Arms Children with Knives to Kill Chickens
• Five Precious UPC Sanctuary Residents
• Choice Magazine Recommends Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs
• Freddaflower Memorial & Appreciation Fund
• Mr. Clucky: “A Fellow Spirit on the Earth”
• Coalition of Animal Sanctuaries Craft Policy Statement on Urban Chicken-Keeping
• Praise the Egg! New Musical by Mary Gage Premiers in State College, PA
• International Respect for Chickens Day May 4, 2010
• Vegan Recipe Corner: Wild Mushroom Strudel with Shallot Crème

Interview with Matt Ball of Vegan Outreach

http://www.veganoutreach.org/advocacy/Jan2010interview.html

Our main goal isn’t to reduce consumption, it is to lessen suffering. For many decades, groups and individuals thought they could trick people into making compassionate choices. But the “health argument” and various environmental arguments have led to many people switching from eating a few large animals to many smaller – and more intensively raised – animals like chickens. This has led to a great deal more suffering.
We focus on the animals because they matter. If we are going to reduce the animals’ suffering, we need people to recognize and consider their suffering. The ethical case for vegetarianism is simple, straightforward, and indisputable. A member recently spoke to a college class and reported:

My talk was was not what they expected. Many said the argument – reducing animal suffering – had no holes or flaws in it, essentially leaving them with no questions about why one should not eat animals. Many of the students decided to write about the issue, and are rethinking the way that they eat.

HSUS has come out with a vegan dog food

Not only is it vegan, but it is also made without corn and wheat for dogs with allergies. 
http://www.thehumanechoice.com/

Gene Baur Endorses Ninety-Five

Ninety-Five: Meeting America's Farmed Animals in Stories and Photographs just received this endorsement from Gene Baur:

 

"The animal agriculture industry has long treated farm animals like mere commodities, systematically abusing and killing roughly 10 billion each year in the U.S. But after meeting farm animals face to face, and opening themselves up to lessons the animals have to share, many people come to recognize that these beings feel joy, love, fear, pain, and sorrow just like we do. By bringing animal ambassadors forward through stunning portraits and inspiring stories, Ninety-Five offers opportunities for positive change and hope for a more compassionate future."

Praise for One at a Time

Jim Mason, author of Animal Factories and Unnatural Order, had this to say about One at a Time: A Week in an American Animal Shelter “Leigh and Geyer have written a wake-up call to us all and it takes courage and compassion to respond. Summon up yours and read this book.”

Advance Reader Copies of Ninety-Five

Advance copies of "Ninety-Five: Meeting America's Farmed Animals in Stories and Photographs" will soon be available. If you are a reviewer or organization with a store, please contact diane@novoiceunheard.org for a review copy.

Preview interior pages here.