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 […]
Read More… from How to Tell a Story to Save the World 1Toby Litt
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 […]
Katherine Angel has described your new novel, Cold New Climate, as tackling both “personal and global catastrophe”. Can you tell us a bit more about the novel and how you approached these themes? The novel came out of a sense of curiosity about myopia and entitlement. At the outset, Lydia is dissatisfied and bored in […]
Read More… from Q & A with Isobel WohlIncluding an extract from her debut novel, Cold New Climate
Poetry Rebellion is described as poems and prose to “rewild the spirit.” Can you tell us a little more about the anthology, what brought it about and who is in it? What was your criteria for selecting contributors? Batsford Books, part of Pavilion Books that published my How To See Nature, asked if I’d like […]
Read More… from Q & A with Paul Evans, Editor of Poetry RebellionIncluding featured poems
Every time I look out at the ocean through the window of my San Felipe home I wonder: is it over? Until the scientists are able to get their hydrophones back in the ocean, there’s no way to know, for certain. These underwater microphones filter out the distinctive ultrasonic clicks of Mexico’s vaquita porpoise, and […]
Over many years working in ocean conservation, I’ve met people in fishing communities from Cornwall to Scotland, celebrity chefs, MPs, journalists, students, and scientists. We’ve discussed catch quotas, fishing gear, microplastics, aggregate dredging, by-catch, super-trawlers, and harmful state subsidies. I’ve learned about marine litter, EU law, dead zones, longlines, ghost fishing, beam trawling, and ocean […]
Read More… from Our Oceans: Are we looking at it all backwards?Deb Rowan Wright
I lay on my side on the empty beach, the cold radiating through my body as it rested on the stones. This close to the ground I could see that the dark matter between the stones consisted of grains of plastic and ring pulls, strands of seaweed and shards of glass. The corner of a […]
I joined XR back in January 2019 and since then I’ve taken part in numerous XR actions, locally and nationally, and been arrested. But during the pandemic, an increasing sense of futility has kicked in. What difference do these actions really make? On a bad day, they can seem, as Roger Scranton has put it, […]
Author of Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlisted novel ‘The Bees’ Laline Paul shares her thoughts on zoomorphism, ice, and how stories open new worlds of possibility. You are one of the few writers who has written for adults from the perspective of non-human creatures. What led to you make that leap of the imagination, and how do people […]
Read More… from The Natural World Is In Our KeepingLaline Paull
Grass In a courtyard of black tree-like columns, fragile young pasture carpet covers cracked ground. Deer and rabbits congregate silently to eat pale shoots. Under hoof and paw and shoot lies wreckage. Once proud Douglas fir trees, ancient cedar, hemlock and white pine; what was rich and diverse forest is now blistered earth and […]
Dear Earth, put us on probation. You are doing this already with the pandemics that you send us. Try and test us, put us through the suffering we deserve. Too often we have been saved by the benevolence of the universe; and because salvation like that has come easily to us, we do not learn. […]
Content warning: this essay contains descriptions and an image of animal suffering some readers may find distressing. Having retired to Phuket in Thailand in 2003, my wife Gill and I were keen to make a positive difference in our adopted home. Having long been aware of the terrible suffering of the ever-increasing stray dog population, […]
Read More… from The dog and cat meat trade in AsiaJohn Dalley
‘Small Axe’ writer Courttia Newland shares an excerpt from his new novel, ‘A River Called Time‘ (Canongate, 2021), and speaks to Writers Rebel’s James Miller about Afro-Futurism, dystopia and the ecological movement. A River Called Time: An Excerpt He sank into the silence, grateful for the life that surrounded him on all sides, an unseen […]
The incredible story of Yaku Pérez, an indigenous water defender who, after being jailed and nearly assassinated for his activism, is among the top three candidates in Ecuador’s presidential election, taking place on February 7th. #YakuPresidente #ClaroQueSePuede, #YakuEs […]
Mary Wollstonecraft is best known for her pioneering writing on human rights, feminism and education. But one of her lesser-known works contains a startlingly prophetic insight into humankind’s impact on the environment. By @BeeRowlatt How did you first become aware of the natural world’s vulnerability to the impact of humans? Did it come as an […]
Read More… from Mary Wollstonecraft as environmental prophetBee Rowlatt
Maryland, 1988. Junior high. Our task in Mr. M’s class: author a dispatch to a pal on Phobos, a moon of Mars, communicating highlights about our world. This task had a catch: ABC’s fifth and most common mark was off limits — for, as Mr. M told us, this symbol didn’t occur on Phobos. This […]
As Christmas approaches, Clare Druce, founder of Chickens’ Lib, reminds us of the damage done by factory farming chickens and turkeys. Factory farming promised plentiful cheap food. Instead, it has given us giant corporations where the profit motive reigns supreme, while ‘food animals’ suffer on an unprecedented scale. Treating animals like machines goes hand in […]
Read More… from How Factory Farming Threatens Us AllClare Druce
From micro-plastics in the snows of Everest and Antarctica, to carrier bags at the bottom of the 11km-deep Marianas Trench, and the billions of particulates infesting the brains of our children, nowhere and no-one on our planet remains uncontaminated by the polluting by-blow of early 21st century human activities. The atmosphere too is tainted, it’s […]
Read More… from The Case for Rewilding the ClimateBill McGuire