The World As We Knew It

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.”