Rachel Birchley and Helen Salsbury
Pens of the Earth was formed in 2019, its mission to inspire writers to engage with green initiatives and to spread the word by writing positive environmental fiction, poetry and articles. Perhaps one day we would have enough to publish a book (spoiler alert: we did). When we started out, we were driven by a question: why, despite the recent national declaration of a global climate emergency, despite the science, were so many people choosing not to recognise and respond to this?
In seeking to understand, we looked to our own reactions. All too often, we’d reeled from negative news, feeling impotent as national and global events were presented in sensation-driven headlines channelling fear into the limbic brain. What we needed was a balanced vision and a sense of empowerment.
Maybe we couldn’t make governments act or defeat tyrants. Maybe we didn’t have the time, money or knowledge to make the necessary lifestyle changes all at once. But a subtle revolution was unfurling at a local level, in our coastal cities, towns and villages, in flat, terraced streets and across sprawling estates. From tower block balcony planters and bird feeders to street-level pocket parks and urban orchards cultivated from waste ground, the seeds of change were being planted. These small initiatives and acts of rebellion by ordinary citizens responded to another question: What can we do as citizens?
Those involved in the local initiatives we saw, had begun, like mycelium, to form connections, melding strands into communities to create vital change through nature and planet-focused initiatives including plastic-free drives, beach cleans, citizen science and rewilding projects. Working in collaboration with environmentalists, Pens of the Earth writers created stories and poems in which people are prioritised over cars, planting over profit, and children are given space to run and play – an aim integral to Sustrans, whose ‘active travel’ and ‘school streets’ campaigns focus on creating quieter, more pleasurable streets to walk and wheel on. Or the remarkable seagrass and seascape renewal projects taking place on our shores. Seagrass restoration seeks to mitigate the impacts of climate change: seagrass stores carbon, cleans the water, acts as a natural flood defence and restores precious habitats for birds and marine life.
We specified one basic requirement for writers’ submissions: no dire warnings or dystopian tales. Instead, we welcomed quirky, fun, characterful, lyrical, hopeful pieces exploring our connection with nature and the myriad ways to become involved.
In the collective’s early days, we questioned whether and how storytellers could make a difference. However, we were welcomed into a community alive with hope, energy and fierce determination; one shaped by every small act of defiance. We were awed and roused by the sense that this was a truly cross-planetary movement, that collectively we have one voice, one mission.
Stories, songs, artworks and poetry have always been a vital part of our cultural growth. It’s how we shape our understanding of the world, learn empathy, and discover our connection with others, human and non-human. As Andy Ames, formerly of Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust wrote for us: ‘We need different people playing different parts – rebels and advocates, artists and writers, funders and supporters, doers and thinkers. We need to come together to use our individual talents, knowledge and perspectives to bring nature back’.
In writing about nature – in learning about what we can do, rather than ruminating on what we can’t – our vision has shifted. An incredible energy drives the Pens community. In 2024, after four years of online publishing and spoken-word events, we crowdfunded our first book, Wild Seas, Wilder Cities, with the twin aim of raising awareness and supporting direct action to alleviate climate change. Our poets, authors and artists freely donated their work so that all the money raised through book sales and associated events could support our chosen charity: the Solent Seagrass Restoration Project, which works to sustain and preserve a Solent coastline significantly impacted by damage, erosion and biodiversity loss.
As authors, we know how hard it is to produce and publish a book. And yet, within six weeks of our launch last October, it was into its second print run, and far exceeding our expectations. The co-operation of those people we approached for support has been galvanising, affirming just how much can be achieved with a community focus.
It’s an echo of one of the strongest examples of the current zeitgeist, namely Zero Hour’s Real Change for Climate and Nature campaign. Also founded in 2019, the Climate and Nature (CAN) bill has been building momentum ever since. Zero Hour adopts a cross-party approach, with an open invitation for support, coupled with easy, friendly guidance on how to take small steps. Like Pens of the Earth, the focus is on positive, collective action.
Their response to 25 January’s six-month adjournment of the second reading of the updated CAN bill (now scheduled for 11 July) has been one of zeal and vigour, focusing on the next steps to intensify the campaign, determined to keep the CAN bill at the forefront of public consciousness. Real Change has seized upon the frustration and disappointment of the CAN bill’s supporters and channelled this into escalating the movement for change. On 22 May, the International Day for Biological Diversity, they urged to all: ‘Let’s demand action rooted in science, action backed by strong laws, proper funding, and real accountability’ .
These community-fuelled organisations make it easy to act. They help create new narratives in the stories of environmental activism – stories that break the monomythic ‘Hero’s Journey’ where only individuals can succeed.
Author Toby Litt, in How to Tell a Story to Save the World writes, ‘by making everyone a Hero, you make everyone feel justified in consuming whatever they need in order to achieve their aims, to save their world…the most environmentally degrading force in existence is Heroism’.
His book debunks this well-worn storytelling trope, where communities are dismissed as ‘weak, indecisive and incapable of acting in their own defence…If we accept the monomyth, then the world can only be saved by a Hero’. Litt proposes that if climate damage is ever to be surmounted, communities must be the central characters in our stories, that we need to ‘think bigger – beyond the ideology of individualism’.
Since its launch, Wild Seas, Wilder Cities has raised over £4,000 for seagrass restoration, and that is entirely down to a collective effort in terms of time, skills and consumer choices. By changing the focus from ‘I’ to ‘us’, a massive charge of energy is released. Like solar panels, hydropower and wind turbines, this energy – this vitality – flows freely, liberated from the polluting prices of fossil fuels, extraction and self-interest.
It’s an energy of collaborative, creative consciousness through the insurgent medium of environmental writing. ‘Writing is a radical act’ says Nicola Chester, author of On Gallows Down. And only through radical acts and radical thought can we keep this wave of energy pulsing towards our goal of a repaired and renewed earth.
Pens of the Earth was founded in 2019 by a community of creative writers in collaboration with local environmentalists. Pens uses creative arts to explore how we can make our environment better for ourselves and nature, celebrating the small differences we can achieve, and focussing on how together we can fight climate change through our words and actions. Their first published book Wild Seas, Wilder Citiescontains work from 54 contributors and is sold to raise money for seagrass restoration. In March 2025, it was featured in Rebel Library’s The Paradox of Water reading list.
Rachel Birchley is a Portsmouth-based writer of non-fiction, poetry and short fiction. She holds a creative writing MA (distinction) and is a key member of Pens of the Earth, contributing work, running their Facebook page, and advising on environmental content for Wild Seas, Wilder Cities. Rachel’s personal account of XR’s ‘The Big One’ mass protest was featured in Star & Crescent. Other work has appeared in: Portsmouth: City of Stories; Nightlines; Wild Seas, Wilder Cities; Seaside Gothic; Mugwort and The London Magazine.
Helen Salsbury is a community journalist, the founder of Pens of the Earth, co-editor of Wild Seas, Wilder Cities and one of its contributors. She is the author of coming-of-age novel Sometimes When I Sleep, along with many published short stories. Her forthcoming novel The Worry Bottles explores how landscape and history shape us, and how we shape it.
Call to Action:
- Help to support the CAN Bill:
- Sign the ‘Real Change’ open letter (one for each constituency)
- Join the mass lobby on parliament on 9 July 2025
- Help Pens of the Earth to plant the seeds of change:
- Wild Seas, Wilder Cities is available direct from us and via small independent retailers: pensoftheearthco.uk/the-book
- Our ebook is available from the usual online vendors, although we’re exploring ways to add more ethical consumer options too!
- Help spread the word about Wild Seas, Wilder Cities:
- Leave reviews on and online review sites.
- If you are a reviewer, podcaster, blogger or interviewer with an established platform please contact us directly.