It's an important balance: on-strike actors & writers NEED alternate ways to make money so they can stay on strike as long as necessary... and yet NO SCABS!
I'm not gonna cross the picket line, so it's important to know where it is &how to help my fellow striking artists.
If you've been thinking of making #audiobooks WITH HUMAN NARRATORS...now's a good time.
"The greatest enemy of good climate fiction is the depression of climate science; too much 'doom-and-gloom' will make readers apathetic and bring about the same dark future you are trying to prevent... there has been a rise in creative work to counter the darker tones of dystopian literature. It’s called Solarpunk: a version of cli-fi with better, fairer societies using the disruption of climate change to create positive outcomes."
If you've been thinking of trying your hand at some hopeful #ClimateFiction, the Imagine 2200 contest is once again open to submissions! Having my story, Seven Sisters, place in this contest was a thrill but it just got better after that, connecting with the great people at Grist and the other storytellers.
And I get a little giddy every time I see the cover art for Seven Sisters in their promo material!
Every year, Grist runs a climate fiction short story contest, Imagine 2200. Writers are invited to imagine a future in which solutions to the climate crisis flourish, and our world is a better place. Here are all the finalists, including the winning story, which is about a beekeeper who develops a warning system for floods and in doing so, finds community.
I’m surprised and thrilled that my essay “Horror and Hope in Climate Fiction” has won this year’s #UtopiaAward for nonfiction! Thank you so much to everyone who voted for it! I owe a special debt to authors @dk_mok & @octaviacade, whose stories I analyzed in this essay, as well as Strange Horizons editor @jolantruchng.
I will NOT be giving thanks to the neighbor’s cat, though this would have been a very different essay without them.
"I don't tell stories about how the climate is changing; I tell stories about how we have to change. I don't (only) talk about the damage we're doing to the biosphere; I build stories around fixing it. We don't just have the ability to destroy the planet (and ourselves); we have the chance to save the world." — me, rehearsing in my head what I'll say to the students writing #climatefiction
My audacious plan to release a free #solarpunk story every week has run into a snag... but these four stories are STILL FREE! So grab them while they are! Or preorder the collection which releases next week on Earth Day!
It makes me happy that there are academics studying hopeful climate storytelling. (I'm setting up an interview for my participation in the second study of this type)
Six weeks left to submit your story to IMAGINE 2200!
Climate fiction needs your voice. Grist’s Imagine 2200 climate fiction contest celebrates diverse visions of a hopeful climate future, and it’s open for submissions right now until June 24, 2024!
I am trying to read more climate fiction and solar punk this year, so I welcome recommendations. So far I've read Cory Doctorow's The Lost Cause and Annalee Newitz's Terraformers.
On my list to read is:
Kim Stanley Robinson -The Ministry For The Future and
Omar El Akkad - American War
How about a vision of a future worth fighting for? How about a realistic take on the world we're living in but with a pathway out of the mess?
Someday, they'll decide you're ready for such things. Probably not until readers create another breakaway success like KSR's Ministry for the Future or Becky Chambers' Monk & Robot.
After three long years of struggling with the book and analyzing it I finally put my thoughts into a coherent blogpost. I never expected the Ministry to be #solarpunk , but I hoped that it will paint a future to look forward to.
My two latest (very short) #solarpunk stories are FREE!
THE DAY WE STOPPED BURNING
A sister in the far future, when we no longer burn things for fuel, finds a forbidden thing that would make the perfect gift.
I CAME HOME FROM SAVING THE RAINFOREST
A very short story about the cost of cutting down a tree.
Don't forget to preorder the collection — it releases this Monday, April 22nd, Earth Day!
SHORT SOLARPUNK STORY: Humanity has left the cities to live in the "greenbelt," but a young woman’s curiosity brings her back to the bot-patrolled streets where human beings used to live... until she gets caught.
Happy one-year birthday to ANOTHER LIFE, my #solarpunk novella about reincarnation! @StelliformPress brought this to life one year ago today. Many thanks to everyone who has bought, read, or reviewed it!
A Spanish translation is coming soon from Crononauta, and a Catalan translation from SF Fábula. 🥳
New FREE Short Story: TOWER GIRLS 🌈🌱#solarpunk
(Halfway to Better 2)
A cute technician keeps breaking things in her too-shiny lab, then calling a fixer in for repairs. Zita’s a certified member of the International Guild of Repair Workers, Local 772, and she’s certain this hot girl is breaking her toys on purpose. But why? Something very sexy but very weird is going on…