Come on a weekend retreat to experiment with writing about climate change

Incredible as it may seem it's still possible for children to go through school and come out the other end and hardly be aware of the existence of climate change, because it is barely touched upon in the curriculum.

It seems like a pretty vital topic, then, for writers to choose to include in their stories – to bring the reality of this topic into a children's imaginations!

That's why, this March, I'm running a weekend retreat for writers at the Welsh writing centre Ty Newydd, set in the stunningly beautiful Lleyn Peninsula.

Helping me to do this will be the poet, dramatist, climate change campaigner and performer Emily Hinshelwood.

We will be challenging writers to think about ways to expose and write about the often hidden connection between our profligate use of fossil fuels and the loss of habitat, life and lifestyle – that many in the world are already experiencing.

In our everyday lives we often don't have the opportunity or space to consider the emotions that arise in us as a response to such a nebulous and all encompassing threat as catastrophic climate change.

This threat seems both remote and near, far away in time, and yet touching the every day weather and the behaviour of plants and wildlife around us even now – as if they are early warning sensors.

We don't know how to interpret these portents and the very uncertainty around climate change and the sheer size of the fact makes us feel powerless and afraid.

Some of us go into denial, some of us are paralysed with shock and some of us are galvanised into action.

In writing for children, they mustn't be made to feel frightened or scared into shock and powerlessness, they must be helped to feel that the future does contain hope and that it is possible to do something. But there is so much to know. Where can writers start?

There is already no shortage of novels for children with the theme of climate change. Three years ago I took part in a session at the Hay-on-Wye Literature Festival where, with the author of the Carbon Diaries, Saci Lloyd, we touched on some of them.

For our pains we were accused of poisoning children's minds by the right-wing press and online trolls!

I've written something about the history of writing and climate change here.

In another project I've been involved with, Weatherfronts, an anthology of writing about climate change, some writers have addressed the question with a story set at a domestic scale rather than apocalyptic science-fiction.

Darragh Martin wrote a hilarious story for young children about fighting off a nasty polluter called 'Thumbelina Jellyfizz and the Elephant in the Bathroom'.

And what about picturing a bright future where we have solved the problems of climate change but maybe we have other problems instead?

To build a bright future we first have to envision it. Children, with their unfettered imaginations, unconstrained by preconceptions, are well able to contribute their own ideas. Writers can stimulate them to do this.

So our weekend course will discuss the many facets of climate change and the ways in which its impact is felt both by participants on the course and people throughout the world.

We will experiment with a variety of different approaches and investigate ways of tapping our emotional reactions, of using research, imagining possible scenarios, and generating meaningful stories.

We will also be using the cycle of recovery from shock and grief because we think it is directly relevant here.

We have seen people move through these psychological stages:

1. shock & denial when they first hear about climate change; 
2. pain & guilt about the suffering that humanity has caused and is causing by the use of fossil fuels; 
3. anger and blame-laying; 
4. depression, powerlessness, reflection; 
5. an upward turn as one realises that life could still continue; 
6. reconstruction of one's life in a new way that is more sustainable, perhaps making connections with like-minded people; 
7. and finally acceptance and hope as they learn to deal with the new situation.

This almost sounds like a 'voyage and return' scenario or perhaps a 'conquering the monster' type of story, doesn't it?

It's going to be exciting to see what people come up with. Emily and I can't wait to see you there!

Find out more here: http://www.tynewydd.wales/course/writing-climate-change/

[I am the writer of Marvel's Captain Britain, the sci-fi YA novels Hybrids, Doc Chaos: The Chernobyl Effect and the cli-fi fantasy Stormteller. I also run a regular writing course, called 'Making Readers Care' that can be taken online. Contact me if interested.]

My talk on September 8 in London on climate fiction

I'm speaking about 'The rise of climate fiction: beyond dystopias and utopias' at this free event below:

Friday September 8th, 10-5.30pm: Fate, Luck and Fortune: Popular Narratives of Environmental Risk, a workshop exploring the nature and role of the concepts of fate, luck and fortune in different types of narratives. 

Speakers: Nick Alfrey (Nottingham University), Claire Craig (Royal Society), Karen Henwood (Cardiff University), James Lyons (Exeter University), Joe Smith (Open University), David Thorpe (author and journalist), and Jonathan Wolff (Oxford University). To find out more and to register to attend: https://goo.gl/BnPWDN 

The evening before there is also this: Thursday, September 7th, 6pm: Professor Jackson Lears (Rutgers) on “The Return of Animal Spirits: Toward A Vitalist Narrative Of Environmental Risk” A public lecture. To find out more and to register to attend: https://goo.gl/rjdrqF

    

They are free and will be held at: University of Liverpool in London (Seminar Room 9), 33 Finsbury Square, London, EC2A 1A.

New imaginative writing to mobilise action on climate change

An 8000 word story of mine about the future of Britain and Barcelona is included in a new e-book published this week by Cambria Publishing.

Weatherfronts: climate change and the stories we tell is an anthology of specially commissioned work by 12 writers and poets featuring their imaginative and very different responses to the topic of climate change.

The book will be launched this Sunday at the Llandeilo Litfest and on May 25 at the Hay Festival.

The question of how to mobilise public opinion to do something about climate change using imaginative fiction and poetry was behind two weekend-long events that resulted in the works contained within it.

These were attended by over 130 writers and 50 scientists at London’s Free Word Centre and resulted in two sets of commissions for 12 very varied writers. The idea was – to reach the parts of people’s brains that scientists and politicians cannot reach!

The project has seen writers’ and indeed all artists’ responses to the subject of climate change grow far more sophisticated and extend in range and scope.

Reading this collection one can see this progression, from the sometimes didactic to the much more considered examination of particular times, places and aspects, greater use of imagination, and even of humour, in writing for children.

Different writers are also writing for different audiences.

So this collection presents twelve very individual approaches. The authors’ experience of the subject is very varied, but all have committed themselves deeply to their own interpretation of the theme.

All have also benefited from meeting and talking to scientists, social scientists and geographers to whom they have been introduced by TippingPoint.

The collection combines two publications only available previously as PDFs into one e-book.

From the first collection come contributions from writers Sarah Butler, Dark Mountain’s Nick Hunt, Stevie Ronnie, Dan Simpson, and a group of three activist poets, all with a deep commitment to social and climate justice, Zena Edwards, Sai Murray and Selina Nwulu.

From the second collection come Darragh Martin, with a delicious children’s story about ‘the shortest private detective in her school’, Emma Howell’s warm tale of the 1970s, Sarah Thomas’ exploration of her neighbours’ experience of recent floods, David Thorpe’s near future in which adapting to climate change has unfortunate consequences, and Justina Hart’s poetic evocation of the earlier inhabitants of what is now the North Sea forced off their land by the melting ice cap. Sound familiar?

If there is a common theme to these five powerful pieces of writing it is that their scale is personal.

As Peter Gingold, Director, TippingPoint, says: “This most grandiose and abstract subject is experienced at a very personal level, making its demands on the way we live with partners – or with friends, neighbours and communities. This must be fruitful.”

The pieces in this collection were commissioned by TippingPoint, Free Word and partners from 2014-2016. TippingPoint has since morphed into the project Climate Cultures.

Download Weatherfronts: climate change and the stories we tell.

Featuring work by:
Sarah Butler, Zena Edwards, Justina Hart, Emma Howell,
Nick Hunt, Darragh Martin, Sai Murray, Selina Nwulu,
Stevie Ronnie, Dan Simpson, Sarah Thomas, David Thorpe

Forewords by:
Peter Gingold, Director, Tipping Point

Climate change fiction is coming of age

Literature that touches on the topic of climate change is reaching maturity. This is evidenced by the latest collection of work just launched by the Weatherfronts project, called Realistic Utopias, in which I have an 8,000 word story, For The Greater Good.

Whether you call is climate fiction, cli-fi, stories for change or have your own pet name, it really doesn't matter. It is now such a broad church that this collection includes poetry, a very funny children's story (with illustrations), speculative fiction, human interest and domestic drama.

The book is a free download:

https://cdn.freewordcentre.com/uploads/2017/01/Realistic-Utopias-Writing-for-Change.-Anthology.pdf

There was a previous collection last year:

https://cdn.freewordcentre.com/legacy/files/Weatherfronts_-_Climate_change_and_the_stories_we_tell_-_Final1_copy.pdf

The Weatherfronts project, run by TippingPoint and the Free Word Centre (where the launch happened) in London, is about using the arts to broaden the conversation about climate change, away from the scientific, polemical or political. Five stories were commissioned for this collection.

It grew out of an event that brought together fifty scientists and thinkers and fifty writers in a series of workshops. (Listen to it here.)

"One thing we have seen very clearly is that over the 12 years of TippingPoint’s life, writers' responses to the subject have grown far more sophisticated and increased in their range and scope," observed the director of the Free Word Centre, Peter Gingold, as he introduced the writers to this sold out event.

The audience arrives for the launch event.

Peter Gingold introduces the authors.

Each of the authors then read some of their work:

Sarah Thomas read from her story based on her friendship with the widow of the one man who died in the Cumbrian floods of the winter of 2014-15, Rainfell, Fell.

Emma Howell read from Thrift: A Love Story about her father's attempts to go green in the 1970s.

Justina Hart read from her poem sequence Doggerland Rising, in which she imagines (based on archaeological research) the inhabitants of islands that used to exist in the North Sea having to leave their homes when the sea level rose around 9,000 years ago.

Then I read from my story For the Greater Good, set in 2084, in which I imagine the possible side-effects of Britain achieving a goal of feeding its population and satisfying all of its energy from renewables.

But as I'm taking the photos there isn't one of me! Anyway, a number of people said afterwards how affecting the story is. Which was satisfying, so thank you.

Then Darragh Martin read from his hilarious kids' tale Thumbelina Jellyfizz and the Elephant in the Bathroom, with vibrant illustrations from Euan Cook:

There was the inevitable panel discussion, with Durham University's Harriet Bulkley introducing Jane Riddiford, the visionary founder of the amazing Global Generation, a club for teenagers and kids in King's Cross, central London. She explained how she got the children interested in nature.

L2R: Harriet Bulkley, Emma Howell, Darragh Martin and Jane Riddiford,

This led to the following amazing film about their work:

She guides them through periods of silent contemplation and then asks them to write about nature. Three of them came to read their work:

Samika of Global Generation reading her poem on nature.

Aisha of Global Generation

Rania of Global Generation

Then the audience had to do some work – write their own feelings about what nature meant for them, which was a cathartic experience:

That's me in the middle at the front!

It does feel like writing stories about climate change is no longer weird or unusual. Climate change is here, and all stories now react to it or are situated within a climate changed world.

The stories in this collection are all domestic. They show lives, families, affected by the changing climate and our reactions to it. They help us think about what this means and come to terms with the enormity of it. They let us develop and consider our own emotional responses.

Find out more here: https://www.freewordcentre.com/explore/realistic-utopias-writing!


[David Thorpe is the writer of Marvel's Captain Britain, the sci-fi YA novels Hybrids, Doc Chaos: The Chernobyl Effect and the climate change fantasy Stormteller.]

Can Imagination Change the World for the Better?

Ever since 1962 when both Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and JG Ballard's The Drowned World (number one in his 'disaster quartet') were published, tens of thousands of non-fiction but perhaps only scores of fiction titles have addressed environmental and, specifically, climate change-related issues.

Ballard's quartet has been cited as an early example of 'climate fiction' or 'clifi', identified as a new label by the journalist Dan Bloom.  Climate fiction specifically contains references to climate change. I interview Dan about it here.

I would say that there are perhaps more clifi books for children/teens than adults.

Ian McEwan's Solar or Margaret Atwood's Madaddam trilogy are examples of clifi for adults.

Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block, Saci Lloyd's The Carbon Diaries 2015, The Ward  by Jordana Frankel, After the Snow by S. D. Crockett and Georgia Clark’s Parched are examples of clifi books for older children. More are here.

But can fiction ever change minds? Or does it merely confirm existing attitudes in the mind of the reader who chooses to read a book of that nature?

And are more clifi titles aimed at children because their enquiring minds are supposed to be more open?

These questions are thrown into relief by research showing that logic and reason count for little in debates about the reality of climate change among adults.

Much clifi has concentrated on the destructive aspects of climate change, being variants of dystopian or disaster novels. New writer Paulo Bacigalupi, author of The Water Knife, has even coined a new term: "accidental future" novels, i.e. novels that describe an unintended consequence of present human activity.

There is a greater challenge, however, that fewer writers are engaging in with fiction – although plenty have in non-fiction – and that is to create stories in which people successfully tackle climate change, devising solutions that rise to the challenges.

There are a few, beginning with Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia (1975) and Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time.   But can you think of any for children?

I believe it is essential that children are given hope that the future will not be necessarily full of catastrophe.

We should be empowering them. After all, so many children's books are supposed to do this, aren't they? "You can fulfil your dream. You can beat the bully. You can defeat the enemy."

But climate change is not something tangible or immediate, it is a vast and vague. It's scary and discouraging.
If we are to stimulate the imagination of the world's children so they do not feel hopeless and disempowered by the overwhelming scale and prospects of climate change, fiction must play a vital role in helping them envisage how they can successfully live in the future.

The winner of the Guardian Children's Book Prize 2014, Piers Torday's The Last Wild is a good example of an environmental fable that gives hope, but it is not about climate change.

Such fiction might show children what a successful future could be like and even paint a picture of a good place to be in that is realistic and possible. A future where not only are children given a full part to play in society, but society itself is structured in a way that works with, not against, nature.

There are plenty of non-fiction books that do this but non-fiction is for specialists (planners, politicians, engineers, architects), and fiction, especially if translated into film, can be for the masses.

Fiction reaches places that non-fiction can never reach.

So, writers, how about it? David Thorpe is the author of clifi YA fantasy Stormteller and the SF dystopia Hybrids.

INTERVIEW: Dan Bloom on CliFi – Climate Fiction

Fancy some climate change with your popcorn or bedtime read? Climate fiction, or cli-fi, is a new genre of fiction that was first identified as a distinct concept by Dan Bloom, a freelance writer who has been based in Tokyo and Taipei since 1991. It is, basically, fiction which touches in some way on the topic of climate change.

Dan recently sat down with me,  David Thorpe, author of the cli-fi novel Stormteller, and I picked his brains about the cream of the genre and particularly what the writers of these works think will happen to cities in the future. This is what happened:

David: First, Dan, tell me, what is cli-fi?

Dan: Cli-fi is a new genre term for novels, short stories and movies that stands for works of art and storytelling that deal with climate change and global warming concerns: "cli" stands for the first thee letters of ''climate,'' and "fi" stands for the first two letters of ''fiction.'' Just as sci-fi stands for science fiction, cli-fi stands for what might be called "clience fiction," or novels and movies where climate change is a major theme, although not always the main theme.

Many sci-fi novels and movies also delve into climate themes, so in many ways cli-fi is a sister genre to sci-fi, but with a specific focus on climate change concerns. You could say that sci-fi and cli-fi are cousins.

But in the world we are living in today, where both scientists and the general public is well aware of what the future might look like if we do nothing to stop CO₂ emissions and runaway climate change, cli-fi serves a very important function for writers, literary critics, book reviewers, film directors, scriptwriters and movie critics.

Jeffrey Newman in London has told me that in his view of things, cli-fi is a "reframing" of the national and international discussions we are having on climate issues. Scott Hill in Los Angeles has referred to cli-fi as "a cultural prism" in which to view global warming and its possible fallout, if we do nothing to stop it. I also like to think of cli-fi as a critical prism: a way to focus on what the future might hold.

In the end, what is cli-fi? It is a literary and cinematic ''platform'' for artists and writers to use to say what's on their minds.

David: Can you give examples of how cities are portrayed in cli-fi novels and films?

Dan: Cli-fi novels or movies can deal with large cities, or with smaller cities and towns as well. In "The Odds Against Tomorrow" by New Orleans writer Nathaniel Rich, the setting is Manhattan in the near future, where rising sea levels put the entire area under water, and people are seen canoeing down major streets and avenues. In "Flight Behavior" by Barbara Kingsolver, the setting is the rural countryside where a massive butterfly die-off brings in scientists from the big cities to study the problem.

In "Polar City Red" by Jim Laughter, the setting is Fairbanks, Alaska in 2075 after heat waves in the Lower 48 states of the USA have made that part of the world uninhabitable and climate refugees take refuge in so-called "polar cities" – domed or underground cities – in the Arctic regions to serve as "breeding pairs" for future generations, an idea that was originally put forth by British chemist James Lovelock.



Dan Bloom and Ah-Lin, an actor playing JERKY, in a scene from POLAR CITY RED the movie during location shooting in Alaska.

David: Do you regard the way LA is portrayed (constant rain) in Blade Runner as a clifi feature?

Dan: Yes. That's a very cli fi feature of that movie. And I lived in Tokyo City for five years in the 1990s.....thirty million population....it was Blade Runner to me for five years especially at night and especially in the spring rainy season.



But it doesn't have to be all dark and depressing in cli fi novels or movies. I also hope to read and see cli fi works that portray positive, hopeful ways of coping with what is arguably the most pressing existential threat humankind has ever faced. I am an optimist, myself. I hope cli fi can help readers and movie-goers break through to the side of optimism and hope. But there is a lot of ground to cover, and not all of it is going to be a pretty picture.

In "Finitude" by Scottish novelist Hamish MacDonald, the setting is a city much like London in some un-named country much like Britain in the near future, where all hell breaks loose and a group of people search for a safe haven, against all odds. It's all one of the first cli-fi novels written by a gay author and with a major gay romance in the story.



So cli-fi is an open genre that serves as a platform for writers and film people to explore the future, not in a sci-fi but in a cli-fi way.

David: In some cli fi novels or movies, cities are abandoned. Do you think this is likely?

Dan: Yes, I do. I can't see the future, and I don't have a time frame for when all these things are going to happen, it's anybody's guess and my instinct tells me it's still 300 to 500 years away before the shit hits the fan, so to speak, but if we cannot curb the problems that are causing man-made global warming and runaway climate change, then cities will have to be abandoned and climate refugees will have to seek food, shelter and fuel in northern areas of the Arctic. Goodbye Manhattan, goodbye London, goodbye Paris, goodbye Beijing, goodbye Sydney.

Possible refuges might be New Zealand, the island of Tasmania, and all of the Arctic from Alaska to Canada to Greenland to Scandinavia to Russia and northern China. This is all fertile ground for storytellers to explore with the cli-fi platform.

David: Are all cli-fi films and novels dystopias? Or are there examples of how we might cope positively with climate change in the future?

Dan: "Cli-fi" movies and novels are emerging as a niche genre, taking the pomp of doomsday science-fiction films and novels and mixing it with an underlying message of environmental awareness. Cli fi works do not have to be dystopian, and I hope to see utopian cli fi as well.

Margaret Atwood (right, reading her book Year of the Flood) has coined a term she calls "ustopian" for novels and movies that are both ''u''-topian and dys-''topian'' in theme. Most of what I have read and seen so far in literature and cinema has been what I call dystopiana. But I really hope to see cli-fi take on more optimistic approaches to what ails the Earth these days.

Fabien Cousteau, the grandson of famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau and a filmmaker himself, believes that cli-fi movies allow people to view a changing part of the world through what he calls ''the prism of an anecdote.'

By relating the scientific part of a cli-fi story in a way that people can be entranced by it, cli fi storytellers can win their audiences over, he believes. I like the way he frames it.

What I hope to see in the future are cli fi movies and novels with the power of Neville Shute's 1957 novel "On the Beach," which painted a wake up call picture about the dangers of nuclear war and nuclear winter. We need an "On the Beach" about the dangers of climate change and with, hopefully, a hopeful, positive ending, to raise awareness and also to goad people to take action in ways they see fit.

We need to go beyond abstract, scientific predictions and government statistics and try to show the cinematic or literary reality of a painful, possible future of the world climate changed. I do believe that cli-fi is a veritable cultural prism, a powerful critical prism, that we need to cherish and nurture among our artists and visionary storytellers. Time will tell.

David: What are your favorites?

Dan: For me, "Finitude" and "Polar City Red" resonated deeply. Neither novel is well known, and neither novel was reviewed by the mainstream media critics in London or New York or Los Angeles and both were released by small presses. But I read them both three years ago, and the stories they tell still remain with me. I'd love to see either of them turned into a movie. Hollywood, are you listening?

David: Do we have an idea of how popular they are and who reads them?

Dan: Cli-fi is still such a new term that only ten per cent of the population has ever heard of it, and such novels and movies – classified as cli-fi – are not on the radar of mainstream book reviewers or movie critics.

So for the time being, the publishing industry and the Hollywood establishment has largely ignored the rise of cli-fi (even with major news stories about the genre in Time magazine, the Guardian, The Financial Times and the New York Times).

I believe the public is hungry for cli-fi – both movies and novels. But how to get such storytelling distributed to the public is a question I cannot answer. I'm looking for the answer now but it still eludes me.

Follow #CliFi on Twitter to keep up.

David Thorpe's novel Stormteller is available from the publisher here. or on Amazon.com.