Cost/Benefit
by Alex DiFrancesco, plus a bumper book giveaway - MG, YA, Picture and Adult climate fiction!
Giveaway competition
Happy holidays! This is our thirtieth newsletter issue since the Climate Fiction Writers League launched last winter! To celebrate we’re giving away four bundles of Climate titles.
Bundle 1 includes 4 Middle Grade titles:
FloodWorld by Tom Huddleston (signed!) - a Middle Grade adventure novel set in a flooded future. Read our interview with Tom here.
Effie the Rebel by Laura Wood - a Middle Grade activism novel. Read our interview with Laura here.
Between Sea and Sky by Nicola Penfold (signed!) - a Middle Grade Ocean Dystopia. Read our interview with Nicola here.
The Raven Heir by Stephanie Burgis - a Middle Grade adventure novel. Read our interview with Stephanie here.
Bundle 2 includes 4 Young Adult titles:
When Shadows Fall by Sita Brahmachari - a Middle Grade novel about urban green spaces
Giften by Leyla Suzan - a Young Adult dystopia
Hold Back the Tide by Melinda Salisbury - a Young Adult eco-horror
The Summer We Turned Green by William Sutcliffe - a Young Adult activism novel
Bundle 3 includes 4 adult titles:
Eat Like a Fish: My Adventures as a Fisherman Turned Restorative Ocean Farmer by Bren Smith - a non-fiction account of the fishing industry
Edge of Heaven by R.B. Kelly (signed!) - a cyberpunk adult novel
OMD: The Simple, Plant-Based Program to Save Your Health, Save Your Waistline, and Save the Planet by Suzy Amis Cameron - a non-fiction food guide
Dreamtime by Venetia Welby - near future in which we have lost the battle against climate change.
Please choose which bundle you’d like to win, then fill out this Google form to enter.
If you’re a paid subscriber, you can also enter to win an additional bundle of books here. This bundle includes:
Amara and the Bats by Emma Reynolds (signed!)- a picture book about bat habitats. Read our interview with Emma here.
Fantastically Great Women Who Saved the Planet by Kate Pankhurst - a non-fiction feminism picture book
Crowfall by Vashti Hardy - a Middle Grade ocean adventure novel. Read our interview with Vashti here.
Melt by Ele Fountain - a Middle Grade Arctic adventure. Read our interview with Ele here.
Both giveaways are open internationally, and entry closes on 28th Jan.
Cost/Benefit by Alex DiFrancesco
In 2019, I started flying. It had been over ten years since I went on my first and last, until recently, flight, a trans-Atlantic one that had lasted 12 hungover, painful hours. I’d vowed never to fly again, and, until my work as a writer began to gain a little traction, I didn’t have to. I took buses and trains, I drove long, anxious hours on the highway in pristine, rented cars. I always rented an SUV or a pick-up truck to feel safer as the whale-like hulks of buses and semis passed me on the road.
On my first flight to Portland in March of 2019 to launch one of my books at the Association of Writers & Writing Programs’ annual conference, I looked at the carbon emissions printed on my ticket and wondered if it was worth it. This was after the doomsday reports of climate change had begun, and, seated with many other people on the plane, dosed up with CBD to curb my flight anxiety, I thought of the cost versus the benefit. Sure, there was a personal benefit, but what was the larger one? My book, a tiny collection of essays about my life as a transgender person, was something I should be promoting, should be getting into as many hands as possible. But I looked and looked at the carbon emissions, tried to calculate what harm I was doing to the planet and humanity versus what good I was doing. How many people would I reach with a message that transness was as valid a part of humanity as any of the myriad human variations? How many minds or hearts could I change? Would those people who needed the changing even be somewhere like where I was going, anyway?
I am bad at math, and such things cannot always be measured in numbers.
*
There is much talk, here at the seeming end of things, about how we, as individuals, can change the direction our world is hurtling in with terrifying speed. We can eat less meat. We can travel less. We can recycle. I think these things are, often, a red herring meant to distract from the true culprits of climate change: massive, untaxed, unchecked capitalist ventures, underhanded politicians and leaders, billionaires who never do the sort of calculation I did on that plane. I am not sure that the individual actions of many could ever counter the bad behavior of the privileged few. Yet, the ways I could and sometimes don’t change my own behavior haunts me. I was raised in the ‘80s, a “gifted program” child who was told every day by teachers that the world was in crisis, there was a hole in the ozone layer, and that we, bright-faced, eager young people, would have to be the ones to save it. I didn’t do anything. I wrote a few books that may or may not be worth the trees that died for them. The expectations of those grade school teachers that we would save a world they would long be gone from still haunts me.
*
There have been multiple, interesting studies done on trees. About how they form bonds and care for each other, feeding one another through a complex forest root system. How they “talk” to one another in subtle, intricate ways. I am fascinated by this life that exists calmly under the perception of human beings. I am moved by their interdependence, their quiet communication, and gentle care. I wonder if the words I print on pages made from their deaths could ever be worth these soft things.
Many suggest that if we were to apply ourselves deeply, as humans, to planting new forests, we could change the path of our own doom.
*
My book tour was an incredible waste of resources, speaking in terms of the planet. It was ironic because it clearly negated any of the work done by my second novel, which was about building community and surviving climate change. I went all over the country in cars and planes and buses to speak to people. At one event, a man asked me if I’d feel different about the things I’d written about if I had money.
I am trying. A book on climate change -- how many trees did that take? How many carbon emissions to present it to little groups of people who were already on board with its message? Does it count not to change hearts, but to strengthen them?
I tell a room full of people to look at the faces around them and know these others are the ones they will be fighting alongside for their and their children’s survival.
*
Towards the beginning of fall, I am home from my book tour. What it has cost is heavy on me, but I am light as I rent a car and begin to drive. I am driving an hour east, towards Geneva, Ohio, where my best friend since childhood and her family live. She is having a baby, a little boy, my nephew.
Along the way, I drive back roads, even though it takes more time, more gas, more emissions. I listen to the Tom Waits song “Jersey Girl.” It is a song about driving from New York City to New Jersey regularly to see someone the singer loves. I weigh the cost of that constant trip in my head, measure it against when the song was written, in the ‘80s, and now. What is the cost of love? What is the cost of distance? Can you possibly measure the benefits?
I think of my niece, Bella, who is 12, who I love with all my heart. She is waiting at the end of this trip, at the end of the planet-damaging ride. She has been nervous about her new baby brother coming, behind a facade of tween angst. It is worth it to be there, to take her out to lunch, to talk to her as much as she will let me. It is worth it to see the face of this new little person in the world as soon as anyone does. It is worth it to be able to talk to him when he is new to the world, to let him know how scary things are getting, and that much more of it will fall on him than on us. I will not give him solutions or tell him he is responsible for the mess all the rest of us have made. I will end this ceaseless weighing of costs, just for today. I will hold this new life, and let him know that I have seen many faces over the last month, ones rife with hope and personal commitment to doing the right thing, try to describe these faces so that he might recognize them one day, when all the benefits are gone, and we are left with the horrible cost.
All City is a novel about climate change, gentrification, street art, and a near-future, storm-battered New York City from which the wealthy escape while those without means are left to die or rebuild on their own. You can find out more here.
Alex DiFrancesco is the author of All City, Psychopomps, and Transmutation. They live in Cleveland, OH with their Westie, Roxy Music, Dog of Doom.
Looking After Planet Earth
Nicola Penfold interviews Chitra Soundar about her new Middle Grade novel Sona Sharma, Looking After Planet Earth, and discusses her own novel Between Sea and Sky.
Nicola: Hello Chitra! I was so grateful to have the chance to read your second Sona Sharma book, Sona Sharma Looking After Planet Earth. It’s such a warm and happy story. I fell in love with Sona and her family, and your words are so delightfully accompanied by illustrations from Jen Khatun. I love all the plants! You must have been very happy when you saw Jen’s artwork?
Chitra: Yes, Jen’s artwork brought a lovely comic book feel and yet so warm and inviting. Her elephant especially is spectacular.
Nicola: I thought your story was a really fresh way of reaffirming messages about taking care of planet Earth. When Sona hears at school that our world is in trouble, she doesn’t need any persuading that she and her family should do more. But in the beginning her methods are heavy handed. She turns off the fan in her grandparents’ room as they sleep, unplugs a video game her dad is still playing, and I did giggle when Sona takes off her baby sister’s nappy because “nappies live in the rubbish forever”! Do you think humour can help get important messages across?
Chitra: Humour can always get both adults and children to see the underlying truth. And also, Sona is just earnest. Her focus on the task at hand – saving Planet Earth – takes over and results in funny situations at home and school. Just like her teacher Miss Rao, hopefully readers, especially adult readers who read the book with their children, will laugh and figure out the serious messages embedded. We all need to be a little Greta inside and if you follow Greta on twitter you’ll know that she has got an amazing sense of humour.
Nicola: The main part of the story is about kolams, traditional artwork drawn outside people’s homes for certain festivals. Sona is alarmed when she realises plastic, glitter and chemicals are being used in some of the designs, but Sona and her grandmother Paatti show us it doesn’t have to be like this. Can you tell us a little about kolams and why the traditional ways are the best? And do you think returning to old ways is often helpful as we try to reduce our impact on the natural world?
Chitra: My parents still live in India and kolam is a living art. Every woman of the house draws a kolam every morning in front of their houses. And these kolams were intended to decorate but also help other creatures of the planet. The more I think back on my growing up in India and still the many habits of my parents and grandparents, we follow many things that are planet friendly – from mud pots for storing water, to eating on banana leaves, to using cloth bags for shopping, making just enough for a day and not reheating food. There are so many little things that help us protect our planet.
While we adopt modern conveniences, I think we should all pause and ponder on some of the little inconveniences can help save our planet – like walking to the shops or not buying things whenever we need them or not using too much gift wrapping or carrying a water bottle instead of buying water when we travel.
Nicola: I’ve written a couple of books for older children, the latest of which is Between Sea and Sky which is set in a future world, to which much climate related devastation has occurred, but to which hope – and nature in fact – is returning. I was very aware of my audience - children who have inherited this incredibly beautiful but damaged planet, and who are so keen to protect it. I wanted to write about hope and solutions, and empower change and connections with nature.
Sona Sharma is set in India, which is a country hugely vulnerable to the effects of climate change. You must have been particularly aware of this writing this book?
Chitra: Yes, we grew up in a coastal city and every monsoon season we’d worry about floods. I remember when I was 8 when our ground floor flat was flooded and I had to climb up a shelf to sleep. But in the last 10 years, our city has been flooded three times, we’ve lived through a tsunami and every rain now causes panic.
The industralisation of western economies, that push their manufacturing to the poorer countries, send their waste to other countries to deal with, are adding to the already fragile state. While I’m writing for a western audience primarily, I’m acutely aware that the story is set in India and Sona sees it from that point of view. Her worries and anxieties are based on what she sees in her part of the world.
We might be different countries by “artificial” borders. But we are all interconnected by the oceans and the changing weather patterns and our green habits. If someone in Europe or the US buys one dress less, goes without a new toy or stops using plastic straws, perhaps it will save another child half the world across whose parents work in a garment factory or recycling plant.
Nicola: I adored Elephant, Sona’s toy friend. Children can have a natural affinity with animals. Did you have fun writing Elephant’s character?
Chitra: Elephant is my favourite character in the story, even though there is a little bit of me in every character. I loved writing his comebacks, observations and warnings, and he resembles my inner-voice with whom I often have lengthy conversations. I wanted Elephant to be cheeky and I’m so happy that often the first thing a young reader tells me about is how much they love Elephant.
Thank you. Nicola. for reading my book and asking such thoughtful questions. I hope all our books, inspire young readers and their families to do more to save this planet and fill them with hope of a greener tomorrow.
Find out more about Sona Sharma, Looking After Planet Earth and Between Sea and Sky.
Chitra Soundar grew up in Chennai, India. An award-winning author of more than 40 books for children,she loves writing picture books, fiction, non-fiction and verse. Chitra travels the world visiting schools and appearing at festivals to bring Indian stories to children everywhere.
Nicola Penfold is a children’s writer. She writes adventure books about the natural world. She studied English at St John’s College, Cambridge. Nicola’s worked in a reference library and for a health charity, but being a writer was always the job she wanted most.
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