Cli-Fi at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

The brochure for the Edinburgh International Book Festival is now live and within a few days the tickets will be on sale, and I am thrilled to say that I’m going to be taking part! I’ve taken part in Literary Festivals before, but nothing quite as high profile as this one.

My event will be on Monday 18th August and forms part of the Baillie Gifford Schools programme. I’ve been teamed up with the very lovely Sarah Crossan, author of the superb YA dystopian novels BREATHE and RESIST and our event is called The End Is Nigh. We’re going to be talking about our books and in particular the environmental aspects – the melting ice caps in Red Rock and the loss of the forests in Breathe.

You can download the full brochure here and find out more about the wide and varied programme of events here.

I’m really looking forward to seeing Sarah again, and I’m really looking forward to talking about Cli-Fi with the kids.

But there’s another reason I’m so excited about heading up to Edinburgh - it’s the city where I was born and whenever I go back there I have the feeling that I’m coming home. I can’t wait.

Cli-Fi Author: Risa Bear

This week please welcome Cli-Fi author Risa Bear who has kindly offered to answer some questions about Cli-Fi for this blog.

Hello Risa and welcome. Please tell us a bit about yourself and your book.

I farm one acre in the Willamette Valley, Oregon. A former tree planter, forest fire fighter, and timber cruiser, I retired in 2009 after twenty years at the University of Oregon and holds the M.A. in English and M.S. in Arts Management. I edited and compiled the pioneering e-text website,Renascence Editions, and my primary blog is A Way to Live. Here's my Amazon author page. And my Amazon Associates Store. :)

Starvation Ridge began as a blovel, written because the ones I was seeing didn't seem to me very realistic. It's had 120,000 pageviews. Some folks said they thought it was worthwhile, So I took it to Lulu and from there to the distribution channels. http://www.amazon.com/Starvation-Ridge-Risa-Bear/dp/1304772683/. It's print-on-demand and there does not seem to be much demand so far, but I'm not very attached to that. More on the process here: http://theredmullet.blogspot.com/.

It's the story of Karen Rutledge, who at fourteen in 2048 escapes from the underground home she was raised in when it becomes a deadly trap. Everything above ground appears to have been devastated some time ago. She wanders through the Pacific Northwest, which has very few, but mostly very dangerous, people left in it, then throws in with a group trying to revive farming. There are bandits, pandemics, crop failure, forest fire, and general lack of infrastructure to contend with. Sort of Seven Samurai meets Day After Tomorrow.

How has climate change played out in Starvation Ridge?

Capitalism might be more the focus -- resource depletion, really. The infrastructure collapses before climate (in the form of obvious heat) gets all that much play. Hunger and resource wars have brought about the "Great Undoing" before most people had time to notice that you can't grow much food after you've wrecked the jet stream. A youth in a late chapter does ask about climate and does get a detailed answer from a respected elder, but I try to lowball the preaching so as to help people make it to the end of the book even if they're used to only getting their news from Fox News.

Had you heard of the term Cli-Fi when you started writing Starvation Ridge? What first brought the term to your attention?

I first heard of it by reading an article by Daniel Bloom, to whom I am eternally grateful.

What compelled you to write about climate change?

It's going to kill my great-grandchildren. I'd like people to try harder to prevent that, though the horse may be out of the barn.

How do you feel about Cli-Fi as a means of getting the climate change message across?

Imagination is the most powerful tool we have. Look at the effect of On the Beach.

Are we already starting to see the effects of climate change and what do you think the future holds for our planet?
https://www.skepticalscience.com/ has some of the best summaries on this, with extensive citations.  We are already losing crops and lives and my personal view is there will be triage.

Thank you Risa, great answers.

Seven Things...

I’ve been nominated for the very Inspiring Blog award by Emma Haughton, a young adult author whose debut “Now You See Me” has just hit the shelves!

I do love awards, even though I don’t get them very often, and this one also involves me telling you seven things you didn’t know about me.

So here goes.

1.    I’ve recently adopted three ex battery hens which the kids have called Nugget, Tikka and Tagine

2.    I once played cricket on an ice floe in the Greenland Sea.

3.    I have a dalek on my desk at work. If I switch it on it wanders around shouting ‘Exterminate’ but I don’t switch it on very often as it annoys my office mates.

4.    I am a Runrig fan. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen them play live.

5.    My favourite flower is sea thrift

6.    When I was a student I had a summer job working as a sewage sifter – and yes, it was as disgusting as it sounds. We were part of a team carrying out a survey of the mudflats surrounding a sewage outfall in the Tay Estuary.

7.    According to my grandmother I am a direct descendant of MacIain of Glencoe. I’ve not been able to verify this and I don’t really want to because it’s much more fun to think that it could be true rather than find out it isn’t.

Now I’m supposed to be nominating some other authors for this award, but I think that anyone who stops by and reads my blog deserves an award for that alone, so if you’ve read this far consider yourself nominated.

Cli-Fi Authors: Natasha Carthew

Cli-Fi, or Climate Fiction, is on the rise as more and more authors become aware of the impact that climate change is having on our planet and start to explore the possible effects through fiction. We are shown futures beset by rising seas, deforestation, frozen wastes and endless droughts. None of these futures are ones we wish to see – and yet all are frightening possibilities!

But what of the authors of these books? What drew then to climate fiction? What are their fears for our planet? How realistic are the scenarios they describe?

In order to answer these questions I have invited a number of my fellow Cli-Fi authors to answer a few questions on this blog over the coming weeks.

First up is author of the wonderful Winter Damage -Natasha Carthew.

Natasha Carthew is a Country Writer who lives in her native Cornwall with her partner of eighteen years. She writes full-time and runs wild writing workshops for all ages.

She has had three books of poetry published but Winter Damage is her first novel. Her second book The Light That Gets Lost will be published by Bloomsbury in February 2015.

Welcome Natasha to The Scribbling Seaserpent. Please start by telling us a bit about yourself and your book.

WINTER DAMAGE is a story about youth reclaiming their future whilst navigating forever snow and sub-zero temperatures in a never ending winter. A presentation of suffering and despair and the nature of our broken society set against the beautiful, harsh landscape of Bodmin Moor, Cornwall.

How has climate change played out in Winter Damage?
The climate has already changed for good in Winter Damage and plays a part in societies collapse. It’s set in what most people would call Dystopian Present but I call Justopia (It’s just happened or just about to happen). The fall in temperature and the snow in a part of the world that only occasionally gets this kind of severe weather gives the reader some indication what the book is about. The weather get worse through the unravelling of the story and the characters (and us as readers) know without much doubt that this is how things are going to be from now on.

Had you heard of the term Cli-Fi when you started writing Winter Damage? What first brought the term to your attention?

I had heard the term before but didn’t think to apply it to Winter Damage until you did.

What compelled you to write about climate change?

The climate, the weather and the changes and temperature of the seasons plays a massive part in my life (I write entirely out of doors and run Wild Writing workshops). It’s very important to me to include issues that affect us all in my work, especially environmental ones. Strange climate patterns feature heavily not just in this book but also my next two books.

How do you feel about Cli-Fi as a means of getting the climate change message across?

It’s a great way to get the message across, especially in Young Adult Fiction. It’s also important to get a few facts in the writing somewhere, push the seriousness that this could happen/is happening. So many young people have concerns about climate change which is great, their awareness means they are the ones who will ultimately take further steps to protect the planet.

Are we already starting to see the effects of climate change and what do you think the future holds for our planet?

I believe we have been seeing the effects of climate change for a long time and most people, especially in this throwaway culture of ours, don’t do enough for the environment because they don’t believe that the changes are happening or will happen. I believe that some kind of climate/doomsday scenario if not too far away (Justopia) and then maybe the planet can get on with the business of healing itself. Until that time, I’ll just keep on writing about it.

Thank you Natasha. I’m looking forward to your next book! 

Wistman's Wood

We headed up onto Dartmoor in the spring sunshine, followed the track north from Two Bridges – and came to Wistman’s Wood.

This is an eerie place of twisted trees and moss covered boulders - high altitude oaks that almost appear to be sprouting from the rocks themselves. Even in winter, when the trees are not in leaf, the woods are green, branches festooned with mosses and lichens, ferns sprouting from the boughs, as if to give them their own set of antlers.

Local legend claims that the devil inhabits these woods, his ferocious wisht hounds lurk among the rocks and the wild hunt rides out from here across the moor, baying for the blood of sinners. Most of the time this wood is dripping wet, shrouded in drifting mist and thin rain and you could well believe these legends to be true, the devil watching from between the trees, his hounds stalking you as you move among the rocks.

But this day of spring sunshine the woods seemed a friendly place, gnarled branches stark against the blue of the sky, mossy boulders forming a carpet of hummocks and a peaty stream bubbling over the rocks in the valley below.

It is a place of weird beauty.

A place of stories.

A place to come back to in moonlight…

Review: Bone Jack by Sara Crowe

 

Sara Crowe’s debut YA novel, Bone Jack, is one I have been eagerly awaiting for some time, and suffice to say it’s lived up to everything I was hoping for.

The book opens with Ash, out running in the mountains, training for the annual Stag Chase where he has the honour of being the Stag Boy – an honour that his soldier father himself bore in his time.

But all is not well. Ash’s father returns, shattered by the experience of war, casting a dark cloud over Ash and his feelings about the Stag Chase. But worse, strange things are stirring in the mountains – ghostly apparitions and strange happenings that cannot have an Earthly explanation – for the land is ailing, ravaged by sickness and drought, and the Old Ways are resurfacing, seeking blood.

This is an amazing debut. The powerful evocative writing brings the landscape to life in a way that can only be achieved by a writer who has a real connection with the countryside and history around them. Sara Crowe weaves a magical tale that moved me on many different levels. This was a book that compelled me to read it in one sitting and left me aching for more. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Sara Crowe is a writer to watch.

Literally Sand!

Who would have thought that I would find myself taking part in an author event at Sand Sculpture Festival, but last weekend that is exactly what happened.

Sandsculpture is a feature of many seaside towns and in Weymouth, Dorset the sand is particularly fine and the sculptures of an exceptionally high standard. There have been sandsculptures on Weymouth beach since the 1920s but four years ago the sculptures were brought together under one roof to form the sand sculpture park that is Sandworld.

This year Sandworld’s sculptures are themed around books and authors, and the sand artists have been working hard to bring your favourite characters to life – from Moby Dick to Alice in Wonderland, Charles Dickens rubbing shoulders with Tolkien – but this stunning Warhorse sculpture has to be my favourite. Who cannot feel moved by the tenderness shown between horse and boy?

 

In order to celebrate the Grand Opening of this fantastic sand sculpture festival, five local authors were invited along. Kit Berry cut the ribbon and declared us open and we took turns giving readings to spellbound audiences.

We were given out own special authors area where we set up our books while the sandworld staff kept us supplied with coffee and burgers. In fact I can speak for us all if I say that we had a really lovely day. But enough words. I’ll let the following pictures speak for me.

The author area

Carol Hunt introduces us to the Portland Mermaid

The five local authors, Myself, Carol Hunt, Kit Berry, Kathy Sharpe and Laura James

A young fan asks Kit Berry to sign her book

Moby Dick - note how the waves form the pages of a book!