30 minutes with...the founder of the Climate Fiction Writers League

CIWEM’s digital-content editor Miriam Habtesellasie speaks to Lauren James, author of climate-fiction titles including Green Rising and founder of the Climate Fiction Writers League.

Can you tell us a little more about how the Climate Fiction Writers league was created and how it has evolved over the years?

I founded the league November 2020. I did chemistry and physics at university, and then I got a book deal for a sci-fi novel before I graduated. So, I went straight into writing full time, authoring young adult-science fiction novels.

I also started getting into climate activism, and it was really important to me to write a book about climate change. But I didn't want to write a depressing climate novel set in a dystopian world where everything's gone wrong, because part of my brand as an author is that I write fun and friendly, adventure stories.

As part of my research, I was trying to read a lot of climate-fiction titles, but while there were listicles available in newspapers say of the 10 best climate-fiction books, what I wanted was a comprehensive database of young adult and adult books that mentioned climate change.

So, I started thinking about making my own website and database, just to keep track of these types of titles, including quiet releases that may not necessarily have had many reviews, but where you could tell authors had really done their research and made something that was really good quality, and had a good message.

I also found out that in 1908 a Women Writers' Suffrage League (WWSL) was set up as a body of authors in the UK who would write books that included messages about getting women the vote. They believed that writers working together for a common cause cannot fail to influence public opinion.

This model influenced the model for The Climate Fiction Writers league, with the ‘battle’ we’re taking on being communicating about the climate crisis. I really like that idea of having a group of authors who are actively saying please write about climate change, it something we all need to do.

I started by reaching out to authors I knew from my UK network and launched with about 50 authors. We’ve now climbed to 150 and the league includes writers from around the world, all of whom who are traditionally published authors with a book deal in place but vary from having written one climate book to those that continuously write climate fiction, as that's their brand.

It's a really enthusiastic community that’s doing a lot of cool things.

You have writers based around the world. Do you see their country-specific climate issues reflected in their writing?

I’ve seen the types of climate threats facing characters varying from county-to-country.

I've also noticed differences in terms of what gets published in individual countries and the different types of approaches authors take.

American publishers, for example, are willing to publish middle-grade books, aimed at younger readers, where there’s maybe a kid who’s setting up a green environmental group or similar within their school. However, they seem to be less willing to publish adult fiction in this space.

And when it comes to UK and Australian authors, I’ve found that they’re a bit more political and show adult action in a different kind of way.

I haven't personally read every book from every member of the league, but these are just some of the observations I’ve made.

Can you tell us about your writing process and more about representing strong female scientists in your writing?

I studied chemistry and physics. And I knew from a very young age that I wanted to do something science based, because I really enjoyed science, but I was scared that I wasn't clever enough or good enough, particularly because when you watch movies, characters who are scientists are portrayed as geniuses.

They’re depicted as knowing everything, having instant recall and are like a walking Wikipedia.

When I started writing, it was important for me to correct that image, and show science as something that’s approachable, particularly for women.

I tried to write from the very beginning about characters who are interested in science and have things that they're good at, but who are also just normal people trying to live a normal life.

Supporting STEM education is also part of the league’s work. Can you tell us more about that and projects you’re particularly proud of?

I run the league on my own at the minute but am hoping to get more help from members in the future.

We get a lot of inquiries form external groups wanting to work with us. I have just been approached to join the Society of Authors’ (SoA) Sustainability Board, which is an advisory board for publishers, which works with both SoA itself, which is the author’s union, and agent’s unions.

We also work with Extinction Rebellion, who have an author group as well.

One of the big things that I've been working on that is really rewarding, is a list of changes we want publishers to make to their environmental practices over the next 10 years, giving them set timelines to achieve this. So, it's a lot of like going away and researching how paper can be made more recyclable or come from more sustainable sources and how we can recommend those to publishers.

I've also been working with professors from different universities. A lot of our authors work as climate professors, or they work in a university in a science field and have written fiction as part of that work.

I’ve been working with Denise Baden, a professor at the University of Southampton who’s working on climate fiction and has set up the Green Stories competition, which encourages people to write climate stories, as well as Professor Emily Coren at Stanford University, who is publishing an academic book about climate storytelling and how it can accelerate activism.

So, I've been collaborating with them on how we can talk about writing climate fiction in a way that is going to be useful for writers and showing them tips gleaned from the league on how they can use their writing to both educate and entertain.

Every researcher I've spoken has said that we need to be showing positive futures and indicate the kind of solutions that are going to be in place in 10 to 15 years that are going to make a big difference.

We also need to help people visualise what that world is going to be like and show them the small steps that can be taken to get there. Because many of the solutions are so simple, they're things that we already have, it's just about getting the infrastructure in place to do them on a larger scale.

For COP27 I’m working with a group of scientists who want to create a book of short stories and I'm also with working my publisher on an anthology aimed primary-school aged students.

Both of the above will be set in the future and show these positive worlds/solutions in action.

Acting as a hub of information, and connecting people who are searching for solutions, has been one of the most valuable parts of setting up the league. Something I wouldn’t have anticipated.

What’s next for you and the league?

I would really like to get an Arts Council grant to support getting class sets of the author's books to take to schools and provide funding for our authors to offer school visits so they can give a talk or workshop about climate fiction, and activism, based on these titles.

Then if that’s something that proves successful in the UK, I can encourage American and Australian members to do something similar in their own countries.

Do you have a favourite/desert island title and what makes it so special?

One of my favourites as an example of what I mean by positive climate fiction is Becky Chambers’ short novella, A Psalm for the Wild-Built.

It's just set in a world where most of the planet is given to nature, and only a small percentage of land is given over to cities.

And even the cities that do exist are eco-friendly and built into the forests. And everything has a focus on sustainability and protecting the environment.

It's also just really good, heart-warming story about a robot and a monk who go on an adventure together that happens to have a backdrop of this world that has many implications for how we need to change the way we live.

So that is one that I always recommend, as an example of what I would like to see more of.

How do you feel fiction, vs non-fiction, helps to engage people on climate issues. Has it helped you look at climate issues from a different angle?

In the process of writing my books, I've read a lot of nonfiction, and it is a slog to get through.

On one end of the spectrum, you have something that’s very heavily factual, basically a scientific publication that's been turned into a book. And on the other you have very opinion-based titles, where a lot of information hasn’t been sourced to create it, which is not as useful in the opposite direction.

So, I can see how fiction is an easier way in because authors can seed in information on climate issues through characters and through a story line, to make it more engaging.

A good example along these lines is the BAFTA albert project, which is a series of courses run by BAFTA aimed at production companies, which is specifically aimed at showing how we can get climate issues into TV and fiction.

One of the things they say to embed climate messaging in a non-overt way is through the behaviour of your characters. So, ensuring that villains have negative environmental behaviours, such as throwing litter on the pavement, while heroes have positive environmental behaviours, even if it's just having an electric car.

This influences the way we judge these characters. And doing something like that can really help progress the climate conversation.