Soon after laying down our fork at the end of a meal, our body starts to protest. At first it’s a subtle, uneasy feeling in the belly; a sense of absence, a hole that needs to be filled, but ignore it for long and the reminders become less subtle as the stomach contracts in […]
“What if I got to jail?” I thought, when Extinction Rebellion Denmark asked me to speak at the opening of its week of protest. Because this is the point we’ve reached: the point where states come down more heavily on climate protest than on tax evasion. When he was jailed for his role in […]
If you think you can live the way you have always lived, you are wrong. If you think your kids will have a life like yours, you are wrong. If you think politicians have a bigger horizon than the next election, you are wrong. If you think that the problems you don’t solve […]
Jeremy Lent, described by Guardian journalist George Monbiot as “one of the greatest thinkers of our age,” is an author and speaker whose work investigates the underlying causes of our civilization’s existential crisis, and explores pathways toward a life-affirming future. Here he talks to Writers Rebel’s Liz Jensen about his latest book, The Web of […]
What does emergency feel like? If you’re in Henan, China, perhaps you felt a goldfish nibbling your foot as you waded along the pavement during the summer floods. If you’re in Madrid or Chennai or Sydney, maybe it was stifling heat, the smell of rotting trash, dead insects crisping on the windowsill. If you’re […]
We were privileged to welcome Lic Torc, climate change poet and performer, to compere THE ANTIDOTE: our beautiful, creative and furious battle cry against climate inertia, staged by Writers Rebel at the Tate Modern on April 15. Here she explains how the climate emergency puts fire in her belly and how she’s working with […]
Hear author and screenwriter Courttia Newland speak passionately about the climate emergency in a short interview following his performance at THE ANTIDOTE, Writers Rebel’s street literary festival at the Tate Modern on 15 April. Courttia read an excerpt from Seed, from Cosmogramma: and other short stories – his collection of short stories about […]
Here’s Raymond Antrobus MBE, Rathbone Folio and Ted Hughes award-winning poet, speaking to us about the climate emergency. A long time supporter of Writers Rebel and the climate movement, Antrobus wrote for us back in 2020. Read his short piece here. Raymond performed two poems for Writers Rebel’s street literary festival THE ANTIDOTE, […]
Listen to acclaimed novelist and lifelong activist Sarah Winman speak passionately about our obligation to act on the climate emergency in this short but punchy interview, recorded following her performance of US inauguaral poet Amanda Gorman’s poem Earth Rise. Watch Sarah’s compelling performance here. Or click here to see the entire festival – with […]
Here’s acclaimed activist, writer and founder-member of our Writers Rebel clan Alex Lockwood, with a clarion call to action. We’ve vanishingly little time left to mitigate against the worst case climate scenarios so if you’re waiting for your time to act: your time is now. Alex wrote The Chernobyl Privileges, a story of […]
Today’s interview is with Nikita Gill, who mesmerised our ANTIDOTE crowd with three poems that find extraordinary in the everyday. She read out her Reasons to Live Through the Apocalypse. What are yours? Watch Nikita’s full performance here. Or click here to see the entire festival – with contributions from eminent writers, poets and […]
Listen to the impassioned interview from Zena Edwards following her performance at THE ANTIDOTE, Writers Rebel’s street literature festival. Zena asked us: “are WE the endangered species?”. Her bold performance suggested we use imagination as a vaccine to the climate emergency. Here’s more: You can watch Zena’s full performance here. Or click […]
Here’s Lemn Sissay, OBE, official poet of the London Olympics and all-round legend, at Tate Modern in London on Friday 15 April 2022. He’d just come off stage after giving an amazing, inspiring performance for THE ANTIDOTE, a rebellious literary street festival held during the April 2022 Rebellion. You can watch Lemn’s full […]
Behind the missiles, bombs and bullets raining down on Ukraine lie fossil fuels. The rich world’s addiction to perpetual energy is financing a dictator’s war. The Ukrainians fleeing home and those who’ve stayed to fight are at the mercy of a twisted economic system. As the oil pumps, the blood spills. Oil and gas […]
Peter Kalmus is a climate scientist, known as @ClimateHuman on Twitter, founder of ClimateAd and a number of other organisations responding to the climate crisis. Last week he was arrested with Scientist Rebellion. Yesterday (Tuesday 12th April 2022) he spoke at the a launch event of the new A22 global climate change civil resistance […]
Professor Maggie Gee speaks to Writers Rebel’s Sharon Eckman about her new book The Red Children, released today, and how it might inspire wider understanding and action around climate change. Read on for some extracts from the book. SE: You said that you wanted to write an ‘upbeat, funny novel’ about climate change, which […]
This interview took place on Thursday 24th March 2022. The wonderful Margaret Atwood was in London for an event at the Royal Festival Hall, promoting Burning Questions, her new book of essays and occasional pieces. She spoke with Toby Litt, editor of the Writers Rebel website. TL: Thank you for talking to us. […]
There is a place where the river meets the land; a kink in the direction of the water, so that the usually tranquil current froths to a restless swirl, and things wash up onto the grass like bad food spat out. For the past two weeks we have been pulling bodies from that place […]
Bombs are falling on Kiev in a war whose outcome could bring unimaginable consequences. As if the environmental crisis were not dangerous enough for life on Earth, we must wonder: is humanity incapable of mastering its own demons? We have been blessed with an amazing planet born 4.5 billion years ago; a small fireball […]
I have a confession to make. I’m a world class procrastinator. A heavyweight champion faffer-abouter. An Olympic standard timewaster. (This isn’t the confession. I’m just setting the scene.) It’s not great. It drives my friends and family nuts. It’s of practically no use in a climate and ecological emergency, which is all about acting […]
We don’t wake up at 5:14am and check the news to see if we’re at nuclear war. We don’t go back to sleep. We don’t read Putin-expert Fiona Hill’s article ‘Yes, He Would’. We don’t blame friends for dropping out of WhatsApp groups (we can’t, they’ve left). We don’t spend an hour leaving Google […]