As my older son emerged dripping from the lake with a leech on his foot my excitement was infectious enough to send his brother wading back into the icy waters to get one of his own. I’m not suggesting blood-sucking leeches should be loved by everyone. That’s probably taking it too far. But if […]
In 2012 Sheffield City Council and the Department of Transport signed a 25-year contract with Amey plc to renew the city’s highways in a programme called ‘Streets Ahead’, at a cost to the taxpayer of £2.2 billion. As part of this contract, some 17,500 trees were due to be felled, most of them healthy. […]
Read More… from Persons Unknown: Q&A with Simon CrumpSally O'Reilly
In July 2021, I read about an Extinction Rebellion group which was planning to walk from London to Glasgow for the COP summit. Much like the historic Camino to Santiago in Spain, the walk was intended to symbolise a path for meditation and growth, and also to connect, not just with nature but […]
Sometimes it is dreams that do it. Sometimes it is facts. So it was with this film. Sometimes, half-waking, an image is given to us, just like a dream-vision. I was on the tricksy sweet edge of sleep, when I saw Tintern Abbey in its woodland home, filled with insect-angels, and the Red Rebels: […]
Kim Stanley Robinson is widely recognized as one of the world’s foremost science fiction writers. He has received both the Robert A. Heinlein Award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society for his body of work, which includes the Mars trilogy, the Science in the City trilogy, and […]
A conversation between Chiara Ambrosio, co-founder of independent childrens’ book publishing house Child Be Strange, and Oliver R. Cheetham, author of Roger The Elephant. Roger the elephant was a buffalo: Or at least that’s what his parents told him, and he’d never known them to be wrong… Chiara: Your book is about […]
Read More… from A human city burning in the distanceChiara Ambrosio interviews Oliver R. Cheetham
What happens when our civic waters are run as profit centres? I call it ‘Liquid Iniquity’. All too often, big business is privileged over nature, over life. And all too often, the results are filthy air, ruined vistas, tormented and dispossessed citizens. Take London. The River Thames is run on a charter from 1909. […]
My mother’s handbag is 30 years old. It’s black leather, and covered in scratches and bumps. On one side the strap has come loose, but she has cobbled it together with green twine. Some of the seams are coming apart where the leather has worn off. But my mother hasn’t thrown it out, because […]
Most people don’t know that thousands of finds from archaeological digs end up in landfill. Some of these “de-selected” artefacts turned up on the spoil-heap or outside the trench. They can’t be used to date deposits because they are not stratified within excavated layers. Many fragments of ancient bone, pot and stone are not […]
Read More… from Recycle Archaeology’s Labels for LandfillHelen Wickstead
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 […]
Read More… from The last speech I gave before I became a criminalCarsten Jensen
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 […]
Read More… from FOLLOW YOUR HEARTBREAK: Q&A with Jeremy LentLiz Jensen
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 […]
Read More… from “We are Climate Canaries” – Liv Torc at THE ANTIDOTE
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 […]
Read More… from “What are you doing to make the planet better?” – Courttia Newland at THE ANTIDOTE
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 […]
Read More… from “There is no rehearsal, the time is now” – Sarah Winman at THE ANTIDOTE
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 […]
Read More… from “Hope is a group project” – Nikita Gill at The Antidote
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 […]
Read More… from “Are WE the endangered species?” Zena Edwards at the Antidote