This story was shortlisted for the Writers Rebel Flash Fiction Competition. Jane finds it cooler under the greenhouses hanging tree limbs, as the ground outside browns. Holding hands or alone, others join. Under metal and glass, heavy breathing in the sweaty humidity. Outside, tan grasses crisp. Emptied aquifers become blistering, caving sinkholes. Sheets […]
Firstly, many congratulations on Any Human Power – what an extraordinary, multi-layered, wild and ultimately hopeful read. It’s described as Thrutopian fiction – could you explain what that is, and how the concept of Thrutopia first came about? Thank you – this is always a good place to start. The word ‘Thrutopia’ came from […]
It’s 1993. I am six. Outside my window, the crumbling mills of Blackburn stretch to the horizon. Grass verges paint broken lines down the edges of tarmac pavements. Mr. Barlow’s hedge stands boxy and prim. The occasional battered old car hums its way up the street from the CD factory, where the grown-ups work. Sometimes, […]
Just over a year ago, I was lucky enough to see Rich Felgate’s documentary, Finite: The Climate of Change. I’d been asked to chair a Q&A with Rich, Indigo Rumbelow of JSO, and Asad Rehman, director of War on Want, after a showing at the Bertha DocHouse cinema. I don’t think I did […]
Rajat Chaudhuri’s novel is about how individual and planetary madness mirror one another. Part psychological thriller, part climate adventure with a twist of the occult, Spellcasters – from which the following extract is taken – is a story about dreams, desires and rough weather, and the long shadows that they cast across lives. […]
In the quest for balance and harmony, humanity finds itself in a tale of shifting energies, where the yin and yang dance together, shaping our world and our future. Chinese philosophy delves deep into the concept of Yin and Yang, exploring the balance between feminine and masculine energies. While Yang represents brightness, […]
As the world’s oceans, lands, humans and more-than-humans struggle to adapt to – or even survive – climactic breakdown, many of us feel powerless to stem the tide of destruction, to fix the damage, to find solutions for living and thriving on a planet that is bearing the brunt of our appetite for her […]
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” By now most of us are familiar with this expression, and nowhere does it apply more than in our response to climate change. Individually, we can recycle, stop flying and driving, turn off lights, plant trees, cut out meat, lobby […]
Read More… from FIGHT THE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY: TAKE A CARBON HOLIDAYGary Stark
Stirling ReUse Hub provides refurbished products to the local community. Its mission is to reduce waste, contribute to inclusive community wealth-building, and influence consumption habits. These are the stories from its people. When Johnny was seven years old, he watched a family friend build a shed out of reclaimed wood. He was sent for […]
Every parent fears losing a child, but when my first son was born I was gripped with an unshakable terror that one day a child of mine would die. Dismissing it wasn’t an option: its hold was too firm. It made me feel lonely and furtive and ashamed, the way awful secrets do. I […]
In 2012 I was living in New York City, working as a therapist, and finishing my Ph.D. in clinical psychology. For years, I avoided thinking or reading about the climate because it made me feel terrified and helpless. I would read the first sentences of articles about global warming, and say to myself, […]
Read More… from TRANSFORM YOUR PAIN INTO ACTIONMargaret Klein Salamon
On 23rd January I attended City of London Magistrates’ Court to support three women at their court case who had been charged with breach of Section 12 of the Public Order Act. They had briefly disrupted traffic as they slow marched down Shaftesbury Avenue in July 2023 to raise the alarm about climate and […]
Our mission at Writers Rebel is to motivate writers not only to write about the climate emergency, but to get their work into the world and begin to enrage, engage and inspire readers. Because in order to navigate the crisis and change the business-as-usual narrative of our politicians and mainstream media, we need first […]
A few weeks ago, I was working on a story which features a character overwhelmed at the crises facing our world. I typed the words livable future because I wanted the character to engage with the absurdity of such a phrase, the fact that the possibility of it is still — shockingly — up […]
The elephant doesn’t dream of a trunk the length of a fire hose. The blue whale doesn’t want to become a kilometre long. Bigger isn’t always better. Nature knows boundaries: humans don’t. It is our sick dream of eternal, relentless growth that has set us on a collision course with nature. Not only are […]
Read More… from Let Us Become the Responsive Species Carsten Jensen
We don’t often share videos on Writers Rebel, but this one is special. You probably know Louise Harris as the young woman from the JSO gantry protest over the M25 motorway. Here’s what Brian Eno says about ‘We Tried’: “This beautiful and moving song is a powerful weapon. We need to wake up to […]
I hold this fragile sphere of earth and sit up on the long barrow to see myself a minuscule speck on the sphere at the end of the day at the end of the world and tell myself there could be more time and the waters of the Severn promise me they’ve always been […]
1st Snow was a kind of hand-wringing heat; mine burned psychedelic red with it. Where your footsteps trod, it cast blue shadows like a methane fire. Crystals, so many I couldn’t get the maths straight in my head, falling feathery, light … FeatherLite, my nan’s eiderdown, all put away now inside some cupboard. We […]
In your 2016 book The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable you take contemporary literature to task for failing to address the climate and ecological crisis. Have fiction writers woken up since then – and if so, what are the most important changes you’ve seen in the literary landscape since 2016? Has the […]
Read More… from On Writing the UnthinkableAmitav Ghosh and Liz Jensen
When I feel overwhelmed by what we’ve caused—biodiversity loss, climate change, ecocide, hunger, migration, pandemics, poverty, war—I find solace in the beauty of the living world, especially in trees. Trees are truthful. They fill me with joy. The simplicity and quiet wonder of trees, whether alone on a city footpath or together in a […]
First we laughed with prickly legs and stubble beards at police in polished riot vans. Then we laughed shivering like candles at the Prime Minister’s heated swimming pool. We carried our laughter like The Big Issue and hurled it at the Education Minister and his ten-thousand- pound Rolex. When they took our right to […]