34 writers. One planet in flux. How are we processing the changes underfoot and overhead? Join me and other educators, journalists, poets, and scientists as we try to put words to the experience of what Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht coined “solastalgia”… “the homesickness we feel while still at home.” Edited by Paul Bogard, author of The End of Night and many other books.
Perfectly fitting to release it today. A valentine for the planet. <3
The world is changing, in a fast and furious way. The World as We Knew It: Dispatches from a Changing Climate is a new anthology chronicling that change in real time. Co-edited by Amy Brady (now the Executive Director of Orion magazine) and Tajja Isen (author of Some of My Best Friends: Essays on Lip Service and editor for Catapult Magazine) brought together an amazing roster of contributors including Elizabeth Rush, Emily Raboteau, Mary Annaïse Heglar, Alexandra Kleeman, Kim Stanley Robinson, Omar El Akkad, Melissa Febos, and so many others. In my essay “Leap,” I wrote about ticks, and the love child of Poseidon and the earth goddess Gaia, and summer rituals, and more:
Now, I can’t stop the calculus in my head as I interact with the places that once offered solace. This is what climate change is. It’s what it does to the psyche, along with the body, and the places we love. It’s nearly invisible until the moment something startles you into attention. A creeping catastrophe, waiting with arms outstretched to deliver a suffocating embrace. And once the knowledge is gained, there is no unknowing it. You are no longer climate blind. You see and cannot unsee.
From the starred review from Publishers Weekly: “The pieces create a moving mix of resolve and sorrow, painting a vivid picture of an era in which ‘climate change is altering life on Earth at an unprecedented rate,’ but ‘the majority of us can still remember when things were more stable.’ The result is a poignant ode to a changing planet.”
Amy Brady and Tajja Isen have gathered together writers to explore how they’re living in a world changing in a warming climate. I’m honored to be one of the nineteen, which includes Lydia Millet, Kim Stanley Robinson, Omar El Akkad, Lidia Yuknavitch, Melissa Febos, and many more. Join Amy, Tajja and fellow contributor Alexandra Kleeman to celebrate the launch at this Zoom kick-off event on Wednesday, June 15 at 7:00 p.m. ET. Register here.
Update: here’s the video of the event, if you’d like to watch it:
And here’s a lovely shout out from Lily Houston Smith over at The Atlantic:
Near the end of her essay, Subramanian writes, “We have returned to the times of mythology, and we need new stories to survive.” The World as We Knew It is an attempt to write these stories, to hold a mirror up to our lives at a crucial moment in our collective history, and reflect the slew of compounding, often conflicting fears that characterize it. In many ways, storytelling while on the precipice of global devastation is no different from storytelling at any moment in our history. Delve into ancient myths and you’ll quickly realize that the human condition has always been marked by an uneasy awareness that even the most rigid systems are subject to the whims of fate.
It began in 2013 as a question posed by Off Assignment: Who haunts you? It’s a brilliant premise (and excellent writing prompt): write a letter to someone, anyone, who has stayed with you. I wrote about a man I met in southern India, who spoke to me of dancing cobras.
The stories amassed and writer Colleen Kinder decided to collect them into an anthology. Letter to a Stranger: Essays to the Ones Who Haunt Us came out this spring from Algonquin. Pieces by Lauren Groff, Leslie Jamison, Pico Iyer, Lia Purpura, Lavinia Spalding (who led me to Off Assignment so long back!), Irina Reyn and so many others each tell a story that is short, precise and aching in some deeply human way.
And here’s a video of an event I did with Book Passage in San Francisco with Colleen Kinder, Lavinia Spalding, Akemi Johnson, Faith Adiele, Emmanuel Iduma, and Anna Vodicka:
I’ve got a couple of events coming up this week. Hope you can join us!
Person Place Thing / Orion
The first is tomorrow (Tues. 5/3) at 6:30 pm ET. I’ll be in conversation for a live virtual recording with Randy Cohen, the delightful host of the podcast Person Place Thing, an interview show based on the idea that people are particularly engaging when they speak not directly about themselves but about something they care about. I’m trying not to think about the fact that his prior guest was Ken Burns. The man definitely has more stories than me!
The event is co-hosted by Orion Magazine, and here’s the link to register: https://orionmagazine.org/event/person-place-thing-orion-live-podcast-recording/
Letter to a Stranger
The second event is on Wed (5/4) at 8:30 pm ET. A wonderful new book emerged into the world recently called Letter to a Stranger. It’s an anthology of short, searing letters written to people that haunt them for all sorts of reasons, stories of love and regret and wonder and mystery. I’ll be joining editor Colleen Kinder and fellow contributors, Lavinia Spalding (dear friend and sister-in-law!), Akemi Johnson, Faith Adiele, Emmanuel Iduma, and Anna Vodicka. You can just jump into Zoomlandia directly the night of the event at this link: https://www.bookpassage.com/lettertoastranger
Hope to see you!
