Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Debut novelist Michael Zapata in Chicago wows readers with “The Lost Book of Adana Moreau’’

UPDATED February 20, 2020






I came across the author online a few months ago, during some recent literary detective work, when I discovered that Zapata had written a novel titled “The Lost Book of Adana Moreau.”

Wanting to know more about his family background and the novel itself, I got in touch
with Michael by email and asked him a few questions. He replied in internet time, that is to say, right away, within the same day, from his home in Chicago to my home overseas.

“To answer your questions, yes, my new novel does deal directly with the Jewish experience pre and post Russian Revolution, in Chicago during the Great Depression, and through the lens of an Israeli-American raised in Chicago decades later,” Zapata told me. “My mother’s family is Ashkenazi, originally from Lithuania, and my father’s family is from Ecuador.”

”My parents met in 1975 in Quito, Ecuador, when my Jewish-American mother was living there as a foreign exchange student studying Spanish. They met outside my mother’s university and, even though neither knew too much of the other’s language, they hit it off and were engaged three months later during Carnival in Santa Fe, the small Andean farming village where my father grew up. Their engagement and subsequent marriage in a courthouse in Quito was seen — for both of their families – an act of rebellion.”

Like many Jews in America and Europe these days, Zapata told me he is drawn more to Jewish culture than to the Jewish religion and is himself secular, and his novel explores these interlocking identities, too.

“As the whole known story goes, my paternal and maternal great-grandparents fled one of those unspeakable pogroms at the turn of the 20th century in the Russian Pale of Settlement and emigrated to the United States. With them, of course, came both rich religious and secular traditions, which, in part, replicated themselves as, yes, interlocking identities, but also occasional fissures in my own family in Chicago,” Zapata said.

”In my novel, I was interested in questioning those fissures, also viscerally and politically evident in the history of the Pale, the February and October Russian Revolutions, Israel, and Jewish immigration to the United States. Still, what binds us to thousands of years (and to each other) is a culture that advocates — and is anchored by — books and questioning, profound Saul Bellow or Cynthia Ozick-like lines of questioning of existence or endlessly mundane questioning such as the one thousand and one ways to best make a brisket. After all, questioning leads to possibility, to parallel worlds and survival.”

“My great-grandmother, who I knew for some time as a child, was fond of calling people, including myself, luftmensch, a Yiddish term of insult loosely meaning “someone with his head in the clouds,” or more tenderly, for the novelist in me at least, as “someone who exists in a cloud of possibility.”

By  the way, Zapata’s beloved grandfather in Ecuador is 100 now, and the author visits him there on occasional trips south.

In Zapata’s recently-published novel “The Lost Book of Adana Moreau,” the mystery surrounding a lost science fiction manuscript from 1930 is revealed in the near-apocalyptic devastation of post- Hurricane Katrina New Orleans.
When asked about his Ecuadorian roots from his dad and his Jewish roots from his mom, Mike told me: “My parents met in Ecuador, and, shortly after their marriage, they left for Chicago. My sisters and I spent our childhoods navigating the construction of a new type of identity and reality, half Jewish, half first-generation Latino, a bifurcated reality, and a new type of language: Spanglish. We existed in a liminal space between continents and languages, a noisy, messy, lonely, and often beautiful space.”
Zapata is a graduate of the University of Iowa and currently lives in Chicago with his wife and two children.
His novel is being talked about now in literary circles as one of the most important books of 2020, according to publishing sources in New York.
“By the way,” Zapata told this blogger,” my novel does deal with the history of science fiction and the writing of science fiction, but the novel is not science fiction itself.  Generally, although I’m not a science fiction writer, I love the experiment and challenge of pulling together disparate genres (historical fiction, science fiction and autofiction) and traditions.”
The novel? It goes like this:
It’s the year 1929 in New Orleans, and a Dominican immigrant named Adana Moreau writes a science fiction novel titled ”Lost City.” Decades later in Chicago, Saul Drower is cleaning out his dead grandfather’s home when he discovers a mysterious package containing a manuscript titled ”A Model Earth” written by none other than Adana Moreau.
Who was Adana Moreau? How did Saul Drower’s grandfather, a Jewish immigrant born on a
steamship to parents fleeing the aftershocks of the Russian Revolution, come across this
unpublished, lost manuscript? Where is Adana Moreau’s mysterious son, Maxwell, a theoretical physicist, and why did Saul’s grandfather send him the manuscript as his final act in life. You’ll have to read the book to find out.
Zapata’s debut novel shines a light on the experiences of displacement
and exile in a page-turner of a story that is an example of brilliantly-layered storytelling.
Could there be a Hollywood movie in the book’s future? Time will tell.
A few more notes and out-takes from our informal chat:
 Mike told me: "I wrote THE LOST BOOK OF ADANA MOREAU with one person in mind, my dear friend
Matt Davis who passed away in 2003, vocalist and guitarist for the band Ten Grand and one of
the founders of the Afro-Punk movement, who passed away tragically in 2003. He was one of
the most passionate, kind, and brilliant people I’ve ever known. My inspiration and intention was
to write a novel he would enjoy. I think I’ve been able to do that.''

Michael Zapata: I’m 40. I was born in Chicago and raised in both Chicago and Roselle. After
writing for the stage and failed, if exceptionally fun, attempts at TV and film in my twenties, I
started writing fiction more seriously at the age of 29.

DO YOU visit Ecuador at time to see relatives?

Michael Zapata: Yes, I do! I’m fortunate to be close to my grandfather, who is 100, and visit
him in Santa Fe in addition my family in Guayaquil and Quito when I get the chance.

 What kind of book tour will you do to promote your book?

Michael Zapata: HarperCollins/Hanover Square Press have been extraordinary in their support.
A national book tour, including festivals, will take me to Oxford, Jackson, New Orleans,
Milwaukee, Iowa City, Charlottesville, Boston, Manchester, with lots of great readings and
events, of course, in Chicago, including one with the Chicago Council on Science and
Technology in conversation with a physicist from FermiLab! More to come! 

 Interested readers
can find updated info at: michaelzapata.com


Radio intervews, NPR? TV interviews? Chicago stations? Print newspaper interviews?


Michael Zapata: Very excited for print, podcast and radio interviews including the following:
Lit Hub, Thacker Mountain Radio at Off Square Books (on Mississippi Public Broadcasting and
Alabama Public Radio), The Other Stories Podcast, Biblio Happy Hour Podcast, Writers’ Voices
Podcast, NPR’s A Reading Life with Susan Larson, Writer’s Voice, with more to come!


Any nibbles YET for translations to foreign languges like France or Germany or Spanish?

Michael Zapata: I’m not currently aware of any; however, it’s always been a dream of mine to
publish a novel translated into Spanish.

Any nibbles yet from MOVIE producers for options on the book?


Michael Zapata: So very mad fortunate to have film/tv agent Michael Cendejas at Lynn
Pleshette Agency in my corner for this. Fingers and neurons crossed!

Michael Zapata: THE LOST BOOK OF ADANA MOREAU was released in hardcover, e-
book, and audiobook formats (with the magnificent actress Coral Peña reading)

DAN: ''Thank you, Mike, for taking the timeto answer my questions for this informal interview. I appreciate it. ''-- Dan

MIKE: " Thank you so much Dan! I really appreciate your time and interest. Cli-fi is
such a luminary genre/theme in literature today!''
    
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Michael Zapata / Paper Brigade SDJW


https://www.sdjewishworld.com/2020/01/21/lost-book-of-adana-moreau-a-jewish-story/


If there's a Jewish story everywhere, as the motto of this newspaper puts it, then you're going to love this story today.

Yes, meet Michael Zapata, a novelist from Chicago who is Jewish on his mother's side of the family and Ecuadorian on his father's side. He's 40 and a bright star in American literature for the 2020s.

I came across the author online a few months ago, during some recent literary detective work, when I discovered that Zapata has written a novel titled "The Lost Book of Adana Moreau" scheduled for publication nationwide this month.

Wanting to know more about his family background and the novel itself, I got in touch
with Zapata by email and asked him a few questions. He replied in internet time, that is to say,
right away, within the same day, from his home in Chicago to my home in Taiwan.

"To answer your questions, yes, my new novel does deal directly with the Jewish experience pre
and post Russian Revolution, in Chicago during the Great Depression, and through the lens of
an Israeli-American raised in Chicago decades later," Zapata told me. "My mother's family is
Ashkenazi, originally from Lithuania, and my father's family is from Ecuador."

''My parents met in 1975 in Quito, Ecuador, when my Jewish-American mother was living there as a
foreign exchange student studying Spanish. They met outside my mother’s university and, even
though neither knew too much of the other’s language, they hit it off and were engaged three
months later during Carnival in Santa Fe, the small Andean farming village where my father
grew up. Their engagement and subsequent marriage in a courthouse in Quito was seen -- for both of
their families – an act of rebellion."

Like many Jews in America and Europe these days, Zapata told me he is drawn more to Jewish
culture that to the Jewish religion and is himself secular, and his novel explores these interlocking
identities, too.

"As the whole known story goes, my paternal and maternal great-grandparents fled one of those unspeakable pogroms at the turn of the 20th century in the Russian Pale of Settlement and emigrated to the United States. With them, of course, came both rich religious and secular traditions, which, in part, replicated themselves as, yes, interlocking identities, but also occasional fissures in my own family in Chicago," Zapata said.

''In my novel, I was interested in questioning those fissures, also viscerally and politically evident in the history of the Pale, the February and October Russian Revolutions, Israel, and Jewish immigration to the United States. Still, what binds us to thousands of years (and to each other) is a culture that advocates -- and is anchored by -- books and questioning, profound Saul Bellow or Cynthia Ozick-like lines of questioning of existence or endlessly mundane questioning such as the one thousand and one ways to best make a brisket. After all, questioning leads to possibility, to parallel worlds and survival.''

"My great-grandmother, who I knew for some time as a child, was fond of calling people, including myself, luftmensch, a Yiddish term of insult loosely meaning “someone with his head in the clouds,” or more tenderly, for the novelist in me at least, as “someone who exists in a cloud of possibility.”

In Zapata's recently-published novel "The Lost Book of Adana Moreau," the mystery surrounding a
lost science fiction manuscript from 1930 is revealed in the near-apocalyptic devastation of post-
Hurricane Katrina New Orleans.

An excerpt of the novel appears this month in Paper Brigade, the Jewish Book Council's annual
literary journal, in print only, in Volume Four, according to the council's website.

When asked about his Ecuadorian roots from his dad and his Jewish roots from his mom. Zapata told the San Diego Jewish World: "My parents met in Ecuador, and, shortly after their marriage, they left
for Chicago. My sisters and I spent our childhoods navigating the construction of a new type of
identity and reality, half Jewish, half first-generation Latino, a bifurcated reality, and a new type
of language: Spanglish. We existed in a liminal space between continents and languages, a noisy,
messy, lonely, and often beautiful space."

Zapata is a graduate of the University of Iowa and currently lives in Chicago with his family. 

His novel is being talked about now in literary circles as one of the most important books of 2020, according to publishing sources in New York.

"By the way," Zapata told me," my novel does deal with the history of science fiction and the writing of science fiction, but the novel is not science fiction itself. I like to think of it as literary fiction. Generally, although I’m not a science fiction writer, I love the experiment and challenge of pulling together disparate genres (historical fiction, science fiction and autofiction) and traditions."

The novel? It goes like this: It's the year 1929 in New Orleans, and a Dominican immigrant named Adana
Moreau writes a science fiction novel titled ''Lost City." Decades later in Chicago, Saul Drower is cleaning out his dead grandfather’s home when he discovers a mysterious package containing a manuscript titled ''A Model Earth'' written by none other than Adana Moreau.

Who was Adana Moreau? How did Saul Drower’s grandfather, a Jewish immigrant born on a
steamship to parents fleeing the aftershocks of the Russian Revolution, come across this
unpublished, lost manuscript? Where is Adana Moreau’s mysterious son, Maxwell, a theoretical physicist, and why did Saul’s grandfather send him the manuscript as his final act in life. You'll have to read the book to find out.

Zapata’s debut novel shines a light on the experiences of displacement
and exile in a page-turner of a story that is an example of brilliantly-layered storytelling. Could there be a Hollywood movie in the book's future? Time will tell.
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Monday, December 23, 2019

Michael Zapata debut novel part 2

 Interview with Dan Bloom


You have had many experiences in your life connected with different religions and ethnic groups.
Your mother is Jewish, Ashkenasi, and your father, is from Ecuador. Where did your parents
first meet and what brought them together?
Michael Zapata: My parents met in 1975 in Quito, Ecuador, My mother was living there as a
foreign exchange student studying Spanish. They met outside my mother’s university and, even
though neither knew too much of the other’s language, they hit it off and were engaged three
months later during Carnival in Santa Fe, the small Andean farming village where my father
grew up. Their engagement and subsequent marriage in a courthouse in Quito was – for both of
their families – an act of rebellion!
In your 20s for one year in Chicago you ran an after-school center with socialist Catholic nuns!
 Can you tell me MORE about that experience? Any anecdotes? and did that experience enter
into the way you wrote the novel?
Michael Zapata: Before teaching high school re-enrollment, drop out students in Chicago, I ran
an afterschool center located in a Catholic school. I’m secular, half Latino, half Jewish, and the
nuns welcomed me with wide-open arms, some of whom fought fiercely and unapologetically
during the Civil Rights era and were then fighting for immigrants’ rights. That experience and
the subsequent decade of teaching impacted my understanding of activism, exile, American
exclusionism, and the liminal spaces in which those who are desplazados (displaced people)
exist.
Like many modern Jews in America and Europe these days, you are drawn more to Jewish
culture that to the Jewish religion and you are secular, and the novel explores these interlocking
identities too. For example, re Israeli/Russian during the February and October
Revolutions/American Jewish.
Michael Zapata: Definitely. As the whole known story goes, my paternal and maternal great-
grandparents fled one of those unspeakable pogroms at the turn of the 20 th century in the Russian
Pale of Settlement and emigrated to the United States. With them, of course, came both rich
religious and secular traditions, which, in part, replicated themselves as, yes, interlocking
identities, but also occasional fissures in my own family in Chicago.
In THE LOST BOOK OF ADANA MOREAU, I was interested in questioning those fissures,
also viscerally and politically evident in the history of the Pale, the February and October
Russian Revolutions, Israel, and Jewish immigration to the United States. Still, what binds us to
thousands of years (and to each other) is a culture that advocates – and is anchored by – books
and questioning, profound Saul Bellow or Cynthia Ozick-like lines of questioning of existence or
endlessly mundane questioning such as the one thousand and one ways to best make a brisket.
After all, questioning leads to possibility, to parallel worlds and survival. My great-grandmother,
who I knew for some time as a child, was fond of calling people, including myself, luftmensch, a
Yiddish term of insult loosely meaning “someone with his head in the clouds,” or more tenderly,
for the novelist in me at least, as “someone who exists in a cloud of possibility.”
Does your novel has some aspects of climate fiction, especially as it pertains
to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and ''disaster capitalism.'' In fact your novel was featured
in a short review piece by Julie Cardalt in Climate Disaster list for Electric Literature recently
where she wrote: I WILL QUOTE SOME OF HER REVIEW HERE ...How did Julie come to
know about your book before most reviwers heard of it?
Michael Zapata: For many Americans, including myself, Hurricane Katrina was a catastrophic
canary-in-the-coalmine warning about just how much climate change was set to impact our
civilization in profound, material, and existential ways. The disaster capitalism that followed in
New Orleans, of course, views disaster and the subsequent profit made from one as the true
infrastructure of the world.
When late stage capitalist horrors and irreversible ecological disasters become too strangely easy
to recognize, when even everyday life offers visions of the end of the world, then the experience
of literature changes. In THE LOST BOOK OF ADANA MOREAU, the mystery surrounding a
lost science fiction manuscript from 1930 is revealed in the near-apocalyptic devastation of post-
Hurricane Katrina New Orleans.
THE LOST BOOK OF ADANA MOREAU was featured in Julie Carrick Dalton’s phenomenal
Electric Lit review All the Presidential Candidates Need to Read These Books About Climate
Disaster, and I was ecstatic and honored to be included in list with such luminary writers as
Richard Powers, Omar El Akkad, and Jesymn Ward, to name just a few. Julie reached out to me
after reading a – thankfully – glowing review of the novel in Publisher’s Weekly and we struck
up a conversation on climate change, ecology, displaced farm workers, and the writing life. I’m
madly anticipating her debut novel WAITING FOR THE NIGHT SONG, out in early 2021.
An excerpt of your novel will appear in Paper Brigade, the Jewish Book Council's Annual
Literary Journal, which will be released, I believe, in December, in the PRINT edition, so there
won't be an online link to it or will there? How did you arrange to have that excerpt placed in
PAPER BRIGAGE?
Yes, I’m very excited about this. The excerpt will be in print only, in Volume Four, to be
released February 2020. Paper Brigade was interested in publishing an excerpt after receiving a
galley of THE LOST BOOK OF ADANA MOREAU.
Your novel is being published in February 2020  by  Hanover Square Press/HarperCollins. Do
you have an agent and did your agent bring the novel to the attention of the publishers and they
agreed to publish it? Can u name your agent or do you prefer to keep their name private?
Michael Zapata: I do have an agent, the always brilliant Chris Clemans at Janklow & Nesbit
Associates, whose enthusiasm and astronomical support through the years have been invaluable.
RE your Ecuadorian roots from your dad and your Jewish roots from your mom. can you tell
me A bit about yr mom and dad and growing up with two cultures in yr family.
Michael Zapata: My parents met in Quito, Ecuador, and, shortly after their marriage, they left
for Chicago. My sisters and I spent our childhoods navigating the construction of a new type of
identity and reality, half Jewish, half first-generation Latino, a bifurcated reality, and a new type
of language: Spanglish. We existed in a liminal space between continents and languages, a noisy,
messy, lonely, and often beautiful space.
If there's a Jewish story on every page of the San Diego Jewish World, I've found a good one.
I MGHT START MY ARTICLE LIKE THIS: Meet Michael Zapata a debut sci-fi novelist who is
Jewish on his mother's side of the family and Ecuadorian on his father's side. I came across him
during some recent literary detective work, when I discovered that he has written a new novel
titled "The Lost Book of Adana Moreau" which is set for publication nationwide in February.
Wanting to know more about his family background and the novel itself, I got in touch
with Zapata by email and asked him a few questions. He replied in internet time, that is to say,
right away, within the same day, from his home in Chicago to my home in Taiwan.
"To answer your question, yes, my new novel does deal directly with the Jewish experience pre
and post Russian Revolution, in Chicago during the Great Depression, and through the lens of
an Israeli-American raised in Chicago decades later," Zapata told me. "My mother's family is
Ashkenazi, originally from Lithuania, and my father's family is from Ecuador."
"Additionally, I'm happy to note, that an excerpt of my novel will be appearing in an upcoming
PRINT edition of ''Paper Brigade,'' the Jewish Book Council's Annual Literary Journal,"
he told me.
Zapata is a graduate of the University of Iowa and has lived in New Orleans, Italy, and Ecuador.
He currently lives in Chicago with his family. 
His novel, a sci-fi adventure, tells the story of a Latin American sci-fi writer and the lives her lost
manuscript unites decades later in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. It's being talked about
now as one of the most important books of 2020.
It goes like this: It's the year 1929 in New Orleans, and a Dominican immigrant named Adana
Moreau writes a science fiction novel titled ''Lost City.''
Decades later in Chicago, Saul Drower is cleaning out his dead grandfather’s home when he
discovers a mysterious package containing a manuscript titled ''A Model Earth,'' written by none
other than Adana Moreau.
Who was Adana Moreau? How did Saul Drower’s grandfather, a Jewish immigrant born on a
steamship to parents fleeing the aftershocks of the Russian Revolution, come across this
unpublished, lost manuscript? Where is Adana Moreau’s mysterious son, Maxwell, a theoretical
physicist, and why did Saul’s grandfather send him the manuscript as his final act in life?
Zapata’s debut sci-fi novel shines a breathtaking new light on the experiences of displacement
and exile in a story that is an example of brilliantly layered storytelling from a new literary light.
Could there be a Hollywood movie in the book's future? Time will tell.
ANY MORE DETAILS YOU CAN TELL ME?
Michael Zapata: *Just as a quick clarification note for your profile: the novel does deal with the
history of science fiction and the writing of science fiction, but is not science fiction itself.
Generally, although I’m not a science fiction writer, I love the experiment and challenge of
pulling together disparate genres (historical fiction, science fiction, autofiction etc) and
traditions.
I wrote THE LOST BOOK OF ADANA MOREAU with one person in mind, my dear friend
Matt Davis who passed away in 2003, vocalist and guitarist for the band Ten Grand and one of
the founders of the Afro-Punk movement, who passed away tragically in 2003. He was one of
the most passionate, kind, and brilliant people I’ve ever known. My inspiration and intention was
to write a novel he would enjoy. I think I’ve been able to do that.
QUESTIONS:
How old are you now? Where were your born and raised? Chicago?
Michael Zapata: I’m 40. I was born in Chicago and raised in both Chicago and Roselle. After
writing for the stage and failed, if exceptionally fun, attempts at TV and film in my twenties, I
started writing fiction more seriously at the age of 29.
DO YOU visit Ecuador at time to see relatives?
Michael Zapata: Yes, I do! I’m fortunate to be close to my grandfather, who is 100, and visit
him in Santa Fe in addition my family in Guayaquil and Quito when I get the chance.
What kind of book tour will you do to promote your book?
Michael Zapata: HarperCollins/Hanover Square Press have been extraordinary in their support.
A national book tour, including festivals, will take me to Oxford, Jackson, New Orleans,
Milwaukee, Iowa City, Charlottesville, Boston, Manchester, with lots of great readings and
events, of course, in Chicago, including one with the Chicago Council on Science and
Technology in conversation with a physicist from FermiLab! More to come! Interested readers
can find updated info at: michaelzapata.com
Radio intervews, NPR? TV interviews? Chicago stations? Print newspaper interviews?
Michael Zapata: Very excited for print, podcast and radio interviews including the following:
Lit Hub, Thacker Mountain Radio at Off Square Books (on Mississippi Public Broadcasting and
Alabama Public Radio), The Other Stories Podcast, Biblio Happy Hour Podcast, Writers’ Voices
Podcast, NPR’s A Reading Life with Susan Larson, Writer’s Voice, with more to come!
ANy nibbles YET for translations to foreign languges like France or Germany or spanish?
HEbrew?
Michael Zapata: I’m not currently aware of any; however, it’s always been a dream of mine to
publish a novel translated into Spanish.
Any nibbles yet from MOVIE producers for options on the book?
Michael Zapata: So very mad fortunate to have film/tv agent Michael Cendejas at Lynn
Pleshette Agency in my corner for this. Fingers and neurons crossed!
Book will be out in hardback or paperback in February?
Michael Zapata: THE LOST BOOK OF ADANA MOREAU will be released in hardcover, e-
book, and audiobook (with the magnificent actress Coral Peña reading) on February 4 th , 2020.
ANything else you want to tell readers THROUGH this interview about youSELF or anout the
novel's story line? DISH.\
Michael Zapata: Please let me know if there’s any content/points above that you would like me
to expand upon! Thank you so much Dan! I really appreciate your time and interest. Cli-fi is
such a luminary genre/theme in literature today!
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Sunday, December 22, 2019

As the world turns (and warms), cli-fi is winning the youth market




by staff writer and agencies

WEBSPOSTED: January  1st, 2020

 As the world turns (and warms), cli-fi is winning the youth market

A new genre of fiction shows that writers and readers worldwide are now taking climate change risk scenarios seriously.

In fact, a new standalone, independent genre of literary fiction that explores the potential effects of climate change is gaining global popularity. Climate fiction, affectionately dubbed “cli-fi,” is a new idea that is experiencing a phenomenal growth. Its genesis can be found in some earlier literary works, such as the 1964 novel ''The Wind From Nowhere,'' by British sci-fi writer J.G. Ballard, and in Hollywood creations like the 2004 blockbuster ''The Day After Tomorrow.''

According to some observers, the advent of cli-fi was brought on by President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and his refusal to accept man-made climate change as a serious threat.

Cultural phenomenon and anxieties tend to eventually manifest themselves in art. Just as fear of radical political regimes spawned classics by Orwell and Huxley, Greta Thunberg's  obsession with climate change is informing art now and not just in her native Sweden. Cli-fi has gone global.. Novelists and Hollywood directors  are using their imaginations to construct imagined worlds where the planet is punching back at humanity in a cataclysmic fit of rage.

Authors are asking questions about this new world, as well they should. What will it mean for food acquisition? In what ways will it rip apart the family structure and redefine morality? Their answers conjure at time a chilling dystopian landscape and at other times a hopeful, optimistic scenario in the distant future. Think science fiction turned climate visionary.

Take, as an example, Omar El Akkad’s novel ''American War.'' The author imagines life in America following the outbreak of a second civil war in 2074.

Through these cli-fi stories, writers are attempting to transform climate change from the political to the personal, blending their version of the truth into emotional cocktails that hit the bloodstream, delivering a potent dose of anxiety to the hearts young and old

The movement is finding its junkies where these things tend to: Greta Thunberg and her global youth army. Scores of climate fiction falls into the “young adult” (YA) category, and young people are devouring the concepts in their media as well. When youthful minds tend to balk at charts and stats and numbers, the emotional appeal of literature and cinema is far more effective, according to acadenics in the field. Cli-fi courses are sprouting up in universities around the world, according to Dan Bloom, one of a dozen cli-fi aficionados and according to other observers in academia, “Cli-fi” literature as an academic study will be catching on big time in the 2020s and 2030s.

Sharpen your pencils, polish your keyboards. Cli-fi is here.

Posted by at 1 comment:

Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Celebrated climate "guru" on why she chooses not to read "cli-fi:" true confessions over the last 5 years on twitter


  1. Prof. Katharine Hayhoe‏Verified account @KHayhoe 18 Aug 2018
  1. Replying to @ClimateKeys
  2. I am sorry, but I do not ever dream about climate change. Nor do I read cli-fi. I prefer to keep a firm grip on reality when it comes to really tough and anxiety-inducing issues like this!
  3. 5 replies 0 retweets 2 likes


    1. Prof. Katharine Hayhoe‏Verified account @KHayhoe May 2
    1. Replying to @simondonner
    2. This is exactly why i don’t read cli-fi, I get enough bad news in real life!
    3. 1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes



    1. Climate guru Hayhoe explains on Twitter .@khayhoe why "cli-fi" novels are not her cup of tea. She tells fellow Canadian David: "You're right, my reading preferences are just my preferences. I study bad news every day. My free time is how I recover from it. Cli-fi doesn't help."
    2. 0 replies 0 retweets 1 like


    1. Everett Hamner‏ @everett_hamner 23 Feb 2018

    1. Replying to @LandrumAR @KHayhoe
    2. Yep, saw your hat-tip, and #GlobalWeirding indeed rocks--using in my cli-fi class!
    3. 1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes



    2. You mean cli-fi films. See http://cli-fi.net 
    3. 0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes


    1. Boulder Writers Alliance‏ @BoulderWriters Apr 15

    1. Watermelon Snow, the title of my cli-fi novel, has been found to play a role in Earth's disappearing glaciers and maybe life on Mars. Read recent article: http://bit.ly/2UNcNdA  #clifi #climatechange #novels @SJonasBooks @KHayhoe @glacierhu http://glacierhub.org/2019/04/02/snow-algae-climate-change-mars/ … via @liggett1
    3. 0 replies 3 retweets 5 likes



    2. Tim, the stories are "climate fiction", not science fiction. Aka cli-fi and I coined the new literary term that this collection uses. See http://cli-fi.net  . . Sure, I will debate u anytime. @Revkin @michaelemann @ericholthaus @khayhoe @drkatemarvel @DoctorVive RSVP
    3. 0 replies 0 retweets 1 like


    1. David Chernushenko‏ @chernushenko 14h14 hours ago

    2. It is true that cli-fi isn't always depressing. But the problem with any genre label is that it acquires a stigma or at least preconceptions. I like "ecofiction", so thanks. Because #BurningSoulsBook is about so much more than climate. And has really uplifting characters!
    3. 2 replies 0 retweets 2 likes



    2. Yes, there's still hope for Dr hayhoe. I hope she does at least read yr first two chapters. Cli-fi isn't always depressing storytelling. She has wrong impression about the term. So let her be. Call yr book ecofiction. That might help. this chat has been useful. She's a good egg.
    3. 1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes



    2. I had not replied to 2020s as he was muted for being unable to communicate in a civil + constructive manner; now, he's blocked for his third strike 😬 You're right, David, it's a preference. I study bad news every day. My free time is how I recover from it. Cli-fi doesn't help 😰
    3. 1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes



    1. Canadian climate guru Dr Katherine Hayhoe .@khayhoe in Texas personally and sincerely apologizes to all cli-fi novelists and #clifi fans for saying "sorry, I do not read cli-fi" to one of her Canadian fans. What would @MargaretAtwood say?
    2. 0 replies 0 retweets 1 like



    2. Yes, and while Dr H confesses publicly she does "not read cli-fi" novels, does that mean she does not read #scifi either. But "fiction" from her made-up propaganda Bible is okay. Strange how some media stars see the world. Imagine she says, "sorry KSR I don't read #scifi." @revkin @climatehuman
    3. 0 replies 1 retweet 1 like



    1. Replying to @chernushenko @KHayhoe
    2. So Prof. .@khayhoe told a fellow Canadian, a cli-fi novelist who sent her a free copy of his new cli-fi novel to read: "Thank you. I will add it to my shelf from which my students can sample, but to be totally honest I do not read cli-fi." (A closed- minded thing for her to say?)
    3. 1 reply 1 retweet 0 likes


    1. David Chernushenko‏ @chernushenko Dec 15

    1. Replying to @KHayhoe
    2. Cli-fi as a label may not do it justice. More an eco-political thriller. Ah, labels! Thanks for sharing Burning Souls in whatever way you feel appropriate. You may be intrigued by the climate scientist main character Sagan and his exploration of spiritual/religious themes.
    3. 1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes



    1. Replying to @chernushenko
    2. Thank you David! I am truly grateful and will add it to my shelf from which students can sample, but to be totally honest I do not read cli-fi.
    3. 2 replies 1 retweet 2 likes


    1. David Chernushenko‏ @chernushenko Dec 15

    1. Replying to @KHayhoe
    2. Indeed. I touch on some of this in my novel #BurningSoulsBook, a copy of which is on its way to you. In case you have any reading time in your incredibly active schedule for "cli-fi" speculative fiction anchored in science.
    3. 3 replies 0 retweets 2 likes


    1. David Chernushenko‏ @chernushenko Nov 14

    1. Replying to @KHayhoe
    2. So it goes. Such a sad reality in our world (esp for female climate scientists/activists, politicians + journalists) that I had to make it a key theme in my "cli-fi" novel #BurningSoulsBook #BurningSoulsAudiobook Keep on sticking to the high road!
    3. 0 replies 0 retweets 2 likes



    1. Replying to @do_you_cli_fi_ @DrShepherd2013 and
    3.  



    1. Replying to @DrShepherd2013 @PeterGleick and
    3. 2 replies 1 retweet 1 like


    1. Rainbomb‏ @Rainbomb2 Jul 2

    1. Replying to @KHayhoe
    2. Have them read and analyze and critique some cli-fi #novels like "flight behavior" by Barbara Kingsolver and "odds against tommow" by @nathanielrich and others
    3. 0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes


    1. William Liggett‏ @liggett1 Apr 10

    1. Watermelon Snow, the title of my cli-fi novel, has been found to play a role in Earth's disappearing glaciers and maybe life on Mars. Read recent article: http://bit.ly/2UNcNdA  #clifi #climatechange #novels @SJonasBooks @KHayhoe @GlacierHuhttp://glacierhub.org/2019/04/02/snow-algae-climate-change-mars/ …
    3. 0 replies 3 retweets 3 likes


    1. ICSD‏ @InterfaithEco Feb 10

    1. Do YOU get #climatechange facts from #Hollywood?! "#Film, so far, is the most powerful form of storytelling that we've devised." Get the facts on cli-fi here 🎥🌍 @ecotone2 @yaleFES @YaleClimateComm @KHayhoe @TucsonPeck @JFlemingHistory https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/08/world/climate-change-movies-eprise/index.html …
    2. 0 replies 0 retweets 2 likes



    1. The 2020s: Decade of Cli-Fi Novels, Movies, TV Retweeted The 2020s: Decade of Cli-Fi Novels, Movies, TV
    2. @DatHarass @Rare_org @DrKateMarvel @KHayhoe re CNN major news article on power of climate cli-fi movies and storytelling. Reported by CNN producer @jechristensenhttps://twitter.com/do_you_cli_fi_/status/1094041363677474816 …
    3. The 2020s: Decade of Cli-Fi Novels, Movies, TV added,

    4. The 2020s: Decade of Cli-Fi Novels, Movies, TV @do_you_cli_fi_
      Well said. #PowerofCliFi https://twitter.com/TheRegReview/status/1093997654609195008 …
    5. 0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes



    1. Replying to @GhoshAmitav @KHayhoe
    2. Political Cli-Fi – Thomas H. Ford: George Turner’s The Sea and Summer (1987) – Urban Dystopian Cli-Fi – Dana Phillips: Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy (2003–2013) – Post-Apocalyptic Cli-Fi – M. Isabel Pérez-Ramos: Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl (2009) – Biopunk Cli-Fi –

    ***"Curious, empathetic, compassionate: What we should be as human beings."***

    THE ''Cli-Fi ''REPORT:
    100 academic and  media links:
    http://cli-fi.net




    On Fri, Dec 20, 2019 at 2:48 PM Dan Bloom <danbloom@gmail.com> wrote:
    1. The 2020s: Decade of Cli-Fi Novels, Movies, TV‏ @do_you_cli_fi_ 14h14 hours ago
    1. Climate guru Hayhoe explains on Twitter .@khayhoe why "cli-fi" novels are not her cup of tea. She tells fellow Canadian David: "You're right, my reading preferences are just my preferences. I study bad news every day. My free time is how I recover from it. Cli-fi doesn't help."
    2. 0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
    1. Replying to @liminal_haunt @debraj112 and
    2. True but hayhoe believes in it. She is evangelical . reads bible literally as word of god. Ask her @khayhoe, http://tell.me  what she says.
    4. 1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    2. Well said, David. So yes, go with eco fiction. Call it an eco fiction thriller. That's a good description. Good luck, nice to chat, cheers. Dan
    3. 0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
    2. It is true that cli-fi isn't always depressing. But the problem with any genre label is that it acquires a stigma or at least preconceptions. I like "ecofiction", so thanks. Because #BurningSoulsBook is about so much more than climate. And has really uplifting characters!
    3. 2 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
    2. You are right, David. I read too much into her response. She was just being cheeky. I forgive her.
    3. 0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
    2. Yes, there's still hope for Dr hayhoe. I hope she does at least read yr first two chapters. Cli-fi isn't always depressing storytelling. She has wrong impression about the term. So let her be. Call yr book ecofiction. That might help. this chat has been useful. She's a good egg.
    3. 1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    1. Replying to @debraj112 @KHayhoe and
    2. She believes that her God created the Earth 6000 years ago as evangelicals do or her God created the earth 13 million years ago? She should be honest. She never answers this question.
    3. 1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    2. I had not replied to 2020s as he was muted for being unable to communicate in a civil + constructive manner; now, he's blocked for his third strike 😬 You're right, David, it's a preference. I study bad news every day. My free time is how I recover from it. Cli-fi doesn't help 😰
    3. 1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    2. Exactly
    3. 0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
    2. David , professor hayhoe was not expressing her reading preferences, she was rather condescendingly expressing her reading biases. And notice she has not replied directly to me in 5 years. That says it all.
    3. 1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
    2. Dr Hayhoe is certainly free to choose her reading preferences, of course, but for an activist of her high caliber to dunk on an entire literary genre she knows little about is totally out of character for a person of her character. Hopefully she will mend her ways, and her biases
    3. 0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
    1. The 2020s: Decade of Cli-Fi Novels, Movies, TV Retweeted The 2020s: Decade of Cli-Fi Novels, Movies, TV
    3. The 2020s: Decade of Cli-Fi Novels, Movies, TV added,

    4. The 2020s: Decade of Cli-Fi Novels, Movies, TV @do_you_cli_fi_
      Quote Unquote: "Cli-fi is a rapidly expanding literary genre in direct response to the climate crisis." NONFICTION Book titled "Our Entangled Future": an Excerpt ...(free) …
    5. 0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
    1. Canadian climate guru Dr Katherine Hayhoe .@khayhoe in Texas personally and sincerely apologizes to all cli-fi novelists and #clifi fans for saying "sorry, I do not read cli-fi" to one of her Canadian fans. What would @MargaretAtwood say?
    2. 0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
    2. Yes, and while Dr H confesses publicly she does "not read cli-fi" novels, does that mean she does not read #scifi either. But "fiction" from the Bible is okay. Strange how some media stars see the world. Imagine she says, "sorry KSR I don't read #scifi." @revkin @climatehuman
    3. 0 replies 1 retweet 1 like
    1. Replying to @chernushenko @KHayhoe
    2. So Prof. .@khayhoe told a fellow Canadian, a cli-fi novelist who sent her a free copy of his new cli-fi novel to read: "Thank you. I will add it to my shelf from which my students can sample, but to be totally honest I do not read cli-fi." (A closed- minded thing for her to say?)
    3. 1 reply 1 retweet 0 likes
    1. Replying to @KHayhoe
    2. Cli-fi as a label may not do it justice. More an eco-political thriller. Ah, labels! Thanks for sharing Burning Souls in whatever way you feel appropriate. You may be intrigued by the climate scientist main character Sagan and his exploration of spiritual/religious themes.
    3. 1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
    1. Replying to @chernushenko
    2. Thank you David! I am truly grateful and will add it to my shelf from which students can sample, but to be totally honest I do not read cli-fi.
    3. 2 replies 1 retweet 2 likes
    1. Replying to @KHayhoe
    2. Indeed. I touch on some of this in my novel #BurningSoulsBook, a copy of which is on its way to you. In case you have any reading time in your incredibly active schedule for "cli-fi" speculative fiction anchored in science.
    3. 3 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
    2. Well said, David.
    3. 0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
    2. Exactly.
    3. 0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
    1. Replying to @KHayhoe
    2. So it goes. Such a sad reality in our world (esp for female climate scientists/activists, politicians + journalists) that I had to make it a key theme in my "cli-fi" novel #BurningSoulsBook #BurningSoulsAudiobook Keep on sticking to the high road!
    3. 0 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
    1. Replying to @do_you_cli_fi_ @DrShepherd2013 and
    2. They appear in my Twitter feed every time a new news article about the rise of cli-fi appears online in the media or blogs! The tweets are always friendly and humorous.
    3. 0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
    1. Replying to @DrShepherd2013 @PeterGleick and
    3. 2 replies 1 retweet 1 like
    1. Replying to @KHayhoe
    2. Have them read and analyze and critique some cli-fi #novels like "flight behavior" by Barbara Kingsolver and "odds against tommow" by @nathanielrich and others
    3. 0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
    1. Replying to @simondonner
    2. This is exactly why i don’t read cli-fi, I get enough bad news in real life!
    3. 1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
    1. Watermelon Snow, the title of my cli-fi novel, has been found to play a role in Earth's disappearing glaciers and maybe life on Mars. Read recent article: http://bit.ly/2UNcNdA  #clifi #climatechange #novels @SJonasBooks @KHayhoe @glacierhu http://glacierhub.org/2019/04/02/snow-algae-climate-change-mars/ … via @liggett1
    3. 0 replies 3 retweets 5 likes
    1. Do YOU get #climatechange facts from #Hollywood?! "#Film, so far, is the most powerful form of storytelling that we've devised." Get the facts on cli-fi here 🎥🌍 @ecotone2 @yaleFES @YaleClimateComm @KHayhoe @TucsonPeck @JFlemingHistory https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/08/world/climate-change-movies-eprise/index.html …
    2. 0 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
    2. You mean cli-fi films. See http://cli-fi.net 
    3. 0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
    2. Tim, the stories are "climate fiction", not science fiction. Aka cli-fi and I coined the new literary term that this collection uses. See http://cli-fi.net  . . Sure, I will debate u anytime. @Revkin @michaelemann @ericholthaus @khayhoe @drkatemarvel @DoctorVive RSVP
    3. 0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
    1. Replying to @ClimateKeys
    2. I am sorry, but I do not ever dream about climate change. Nor do I read cli-fi. I prefer to keep a firm grip on reality when it comes to really tough and anxiety-inducing issues like this!
    3. 5 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
    1. Replying to @LandrumAR @KHayhoe
    2. Yep, saw your hat-tip, and #GlobalWeirding indeed rocks--using in my cli-fi class!
    3. 1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
    1. @KHayhoe SWEDEN GOES CLI-FI -- A novel titled Hotet ''Cli-fi'' där troll styr världen hade behövt mer kärlek https://cli-fi-books.blogspot.tw/2018/02/swedish-cli-fi-mats-soderlunds.html … Även vana läsare har svårt att hänga med i första delen av Mats Söderlunds dystopiska fantasitrilogi. Sebastian Lönnlöv. #CliFi
    2. 0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
    1. @KHayhoe A powerful cli-fi novel by J.M. Ledgard in 2011 is now a cli-fi film in 2017 from Wim Wenders https://cli-fi-books.blogspot.tw/2017/08/a-powerful-cli-fi-novel-by-jm-ledgard.html … #CliFi
    2. 0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
    1. @KHayhoe 'Cli-fi' mirrors our climate angst anxieties, and it's borderless. Links here in German, French, Italian https://cli-fi-books.blogspot.tw/2017/07/cli-fi-mirrors-our-climate-change-angst.html …
    2. 0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
    1. @KHayhoe ‘Watermelon Snow’ by William Liggett paints ‘cli-fi’ in astounding new colors http://cli-fi-books.blogspot.tw/2017/05/watermelon-snow-paints-cli-fi-in.html … #CliFi
    2. 0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
    1. @KHayhoe ''Cli-fi'' news: "An important alternative to dystopian Hollywood doom-and-gloomers? ''Cli-fi'' is here!’ http://northwardho.blogspot.tw/2016/04/the-alternative-to-those-dystopian.html …
    2. 0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
    1. Replying to @PeterWSinclair
    2. @greenman3610 @khayhoe #TAKLUB by Brillante Mendoza - ''Cli-Fi'' Film wins Cli Fi Movie Awards Top Honors 2015 http://bit.ly/1JL5E03 
    3. 0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
    1. @KHayhoe Cli-Fi: #climatechange is hottest thing in science fiction right now: http://ow.ly/vzNsJ  (via @grist)
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