Thursday, February 9, 2017

''You’re reminding me – I cannot begin to say how helpful this is and how deeply I appreciate it – that, as much as our activism in the streets (and in the airports and on the phones and in the elections) matters, writing about all this still matters too. We need to find the way in to people’s imaginations.''

UPDATE:  !!!!
 
A reader who read Amy Brady's recent column in cli fi in the Chicago Review of Books here sent us a brief note today, that read in part: "

Thank you for sending me this great interview. There are books here I’m glad to know about. And I’m really glad to see Amy's new column, too. Your resolute efforts are having an effect. Because how do we get people to wake up? My way of staying hopeful is to think that if we can survive this new regime of madmen climate deniers, it will have the effect of moving us into action on a grander scale than before, hooking up all kinds of new activists and finding the links between movements.
 
''And I was very moved by your saying, “It’s all I do, and it’s all I think about. It’s my life now.” Yes, it has to be. One of the activist characters in the fictional trilogy I’m currently writing says (actually, my father said it first, but he wouldn’t have minded my borrowing it), “If we work all the time now and manage to stop the catastrophe, if we find the way to change course, then our children, or our children’s children, can sit in cafés and drink lattes. We don’t have time for that.”
 
''Not that his children listen, exactly. Well, that’s what we’re trying to figure out, in fiction and in writing about fiction – what are the mechanisms by which people can be persuaded to listen and then to act? Where is the window between “this isn’t happening” and “it’s too late now, so we may as well go dancing.”
 
''But you’re reminding me – I cannot begin to say how helpful this is and how deeply I appreciate it – that, as much as our activism in the streets (and in the airports and on the phones and in the elections) matters, writing about all this still matters too. We need to find the way in to people’s imaginations.
 
''With warm best wishes and with gratitude for your work...''

SEE https://chireviewofbooks.com/2017/02/08/the-man-who-coined-cli-fi-has-some-reading-suggestions-for-you/

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