On 22 April, XR co-founder Simon Bramwell and six other rebels appeared at the Southwark Crown Court, charged with causing 25K worth of criminal damage to Shell’s London headquarters. In a historic ruling, six of the defendants were found not guilty despite admitting to criminal damage, and the judge indicating that the law pointed to […]
Tom Bullough was arrested during the September rebellion for failing to comply with a section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986. This is the statement he read in his defence at the City of London magistrates’ court. He received a nine month suspended sentence and was ordered to pay costs. I would like […]
This time, I’m looking at two hugely influential screenwriting manuals – Syd Field’s Screenplay and Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey. Through the gap between them, we see the idea of heroism emerge and start to dominate the very idea of ‘a good story’. Like all film producers say, ‘The audience needs to knows who to […]
How easy is it to be conned? The short answer is that it’s as easy as falling in love. Here’s how I know. I’d always been involved in socialist and environmentalist organisations but I’d been out of the mix for a while. In 1992, when my story starts, I was recently divorced, unemployed, and alone […]
You describe yourself as having ‘the heart of a naturalist, the head of a would-be scientist and the bones of someone who is already wearied by the apathy and destruction wielded against the natural world.’ Where do you see yourself – and the world – in 25 years’ time? Or in 50? If I […]
In June 2019, Carola Rackete, captain of the boat Sea-Watch 3, entered the port of Lampedusa and thereby defied the new Italian law against entering territorial waters. By doing so, she saved the lives of forty refugees who, in the intense heat, were suffering from thirst and threatening to throw themselves overboard – though […]
Jay, what a treat to fire you questions. As you know, I think Why Rebel is a wonder – and, really, it answers this first in itself – but all the same it is such a central question for you, for me, for so many writers: How do you square the urgency of the CEE (Climate and […]
In the next five months Writers Rebel is exclusively serialising Toby Litt’s How to Tell a Story to Save the World, a short book about storytelling, heroism, climate collapse and hope. Normally, when people come along to a creative writing class, they are hoping to learn how to write better stories, not how to […]
In Horizon, the final book from the acclaimed environmental writer, Barry Lopez, who left us on Christmas Day 2020, we are taken on a trip he made in 2012 to the Canadian High Arctic. Lopez was working as a guide and lecturer on a Canadian ecotourism vessel, where he would rise at 5:00 a.m. to […]