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. […]
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A Tale of Shifting EnergiesShivani Baghel
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, […]
WRITING THE OCEANDark Mountain Project
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 […]
FIGHT THE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY: TAKE A CARBON HOLIDAYGary Stark
“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 […]
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KEEPING IT REALSandy Winterbottom
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 […]
LOVING THE WORLD AGAINLiz Jensen
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 […]
TRANSFORM YOUR PAIN INTO ACTIONMargaret Klein Salamon
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, […]
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Fast-Track ActivismAnna Durance
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 […]
FLASH FICTION COMPETITIONWriting Thrutopia
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 […]
STRANGER THAN FICTION Melissa Gismondi
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 […]
Let Us Become the Responsive Species Carsten Jensen
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 […]
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I hold this fragile sphereJLM Morton
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 […]
In Memory of Snow, February 2040John Barron
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 […]
On Writing the UnthinkableAmitav Ghosh and Liz Jensen
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 […]
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The Language of Trees Katie Holten
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 […]
THE UNION OF LAUGHTER Raymond Antrobus
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 […]
CLIMATE OF LIESJessica Townsend
Who or what do you personally blame for the crisis? The twin problems of ecological and climate collapse now seem to overlap so profoundly with our many other issues, such as the cost of living and fuel crises, that many are just calling the whole entangled mess the polycrisis. The finger definitely points at […]
Greeting SamhainJesse Hill
Today is Halloween. Or at least, that is what it has come to be known by. Yet, hidden beneath the commodification and consumerism, this celebration has deeply-winding roots in paganism (as is often the case, such as with Christmas (Yule) and Easter (Ostara)). I’d like to invite you, if you haven’t already, to meet […]
CONSIDER OUR CHILDRENJane Lovell
I’m not an academic. I’m not a scientist or a geographer. I can only give you the broad brushstrokes of an observer, a reader, a poet. Bear with me. How do we see the Earth? Imagine her from space. Describe her. We’ll probably say mostly blue, random areas of green. We won’t mention the […]
DEAR MASS POLLUTERXR Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole
In March 2023, the independent oil company Perenco’s Wytch Farm plant caused toxic oil solutions to leak into Poole Harbour. XR Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole have since been organising protests against Perenco’s ecocidal activities locally and around the world. This is the letter it delivered to Perenco’s chairman last month. Dear François Perrodo, What […]
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WHERE ARE ALL THE CLIMATE ROMCOMS?Alix O’Neill
In case you haven’t heard, the romcom is back. I read the other day that thirty-six new romantic comedies are coming out this year. To quote Meg Ryan, “Yes, yes, YES!” In an age of existential despair and geopolitical turmoil, a time when coverage of the Israel-Palestine war is interrupted by the breaking news […]
Read More… from WHERE ARE ALL THE CLIMATE ROMCOMS?Alix O’Neill