Tuesday, May 22, 2018

MH

  1. 3/ Second, I was struck by how many submissions (in my batch, at least) were from geographical regions I would consider underrepresented in what I would define as the genre (more on this in a moment). I read stories from Nigeria, India, Malta, and South Africa.
  2. THREAD: 1/So, I'm serving as a literary editor for 's Climate Futures Initiatives Everything Change Climate Fiction Contest. We got 547 submissions from 67 countries, and as a second-round judge I read 36 stories and had to pick just five to send on to the third round.
3/ Second, I was struck by how many submissions (in my batch, at least) were from geographical regions I would consider underrepresented in what I would define as the genre (more on this in a moment). I read stories from Nigeria, India, Malta, and South Africa.

4/ Geographical diversity was accompanied by some topic diversity, including the gendered dimensions of climate change, climate injustice in the Global South, multispecies relations in the Anthropocene, and more

5/ To be sure, over half -- I'd say 65% -- of the stories I read dealt with what I would call familiar (and arguably overused) *tropes*: (post)apocalyptic visions, resource struggles, technological advances that nevertheless cannot deliver salvation, etc.

6/ But those stories that did not engage with such themes offered, in my opinion, an interesting glimpse into the ways in which writers/artists are grappling with differently than in the past.





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