My Environment: E J Swift

24 April 2026

The science fiction writer on the importance of hope when it comes to telling stories about the climate crisis

In challenging times, fiction offers the ultimate escape: a chance to lose yourself in someone else’s world while leaving your own troubles behind.

Except it doesn’t always work like that, as evidenced by the work of the science fiction writer E J Swift. The worlds she builds – like our own, just a few steps closer to climate breakdown – are anything but escapist. But Swift’s works of speculative fiction serve a different, no less worthwhile and engaging, purpose: helping us come to terms with the reality we inhabit and through that, to begin to think more creatively about how best to respond.

Swift’s latest novel, When There Are Wolves Again, follows two characters, unknown to each other but whose stories eventually overlap, over a 50-year period from 2020 to 2070. Written as a companion to her previous book, The Coral Bones, which imagined a world in which humanity fails to adapt to climate breakdown, Wolves offers a more optimistic vision, says the writer, “I wanted to write something that said, ‘What if we do act? What if we really try and address this problem?’”

The novel is set in a UK experiencing severe climate impacts, both environmental and social, but responding boldly with nature-based and technological interventions that help avert the worst of the crisis. Here Swift tells us about what inspires her to explore climate futures in her work.

How was it switching into a more hopeful mode for this new novel?

Quite hard. There are a lot of apocalyptic books out there, which is partly why I wanted to try and do something different. There aren’t a lot of really hopeful visions out there for what a positive, green, sustainable world might look like. There's so much focus on what we would lose: ‘you can't get on a plane’, ‘you can't have meat’ or whatever it is that is important to you. But there's not much focus on the brilliant things we might get out of that: better community, better healthcare, better connection. I hope my book might be one tiny little thing starting that conversation.

What made you start writing speculative fiction?

I've always had a great love of the natural world but I first became aware of the discourse around climate when I was at university, which is terrifyingly almost 20 years ago now. It was obviously nowhere near as mainstream as it is now. The first novel that I had published, Osiris, which became the start of a trilogy, was set in an ocean city in the middle of the Southern Ocean in a post-apocalyptic, post-climate breakdown world. I was very interested in what the geopolitical world might look like in that sort of scenario and the trilogy explored those ideas. So I've always had it running through my writing.

Tell us about your research process

I'm not a scientist. I don't have any scientific training at all, but I love science and exploring the emotion around it and what it can mean. When it came to When There Are Wolves Again, I was building on the accumulation of research for The Coral Bones, but it was also important to me to experience as many of the landscapes I was describing as possible, within the limited time I had for research trips.

A section of E J Swift’s latest novel takes place in the post-disaster landscape of Chernobyl

So I visited the Knepp rewilding estate, which was hugely inspirational, and an area of temperate rainforest, and I took a trip to the Cairngorms. I think I’ve also absorbed a lot just from spending time in my garden at home, and on the allotment, observing the wildlife who visit.

Would you consider yourself to be an activist?

I've never really thought of myself as that because I suppose you tend to think of that as more of a physical thing of going out and engaging in communities. Writing is my way of trying to raise these issues and perhaps put these ideas in people's minds. I guess we've all got different tools we can use.

Are you seeking to provoke a particular response?

With The Coral Bones I want people to feel that they can care about these ecosystems, these tiny creatures, however small, and they can find a connection there. And that in that act of care, there is hope and there is something to fight for. Because even though the book has quite a bleak future section, it was really important to me that within that future there was a very hopeful and proactive restorative narrative. It wasn't just about things falling apart and collapsing into the usual sort of post-apocalyptic disaster zone.

And I think of Wolves as a sister novel to The Coral Bones; so whereas The Coral Bones asks, ‘what if we don’t act on climate breakdown, where does that lead us?’, Wolves is considering, ‘what if we do?’ I wanted to show what might be possible, and how there are many different ways people can contribute to making change happen, whether that’s through activism or protest, or by making a garden more wildlife friendly, or simply by bearing witness. And I wanted to depict a positive vision of what we might stand to gain from a sustainable future.

How do you see the role of literature in addressing the climate crisis?

Especially in the UK, it feels like we've been relatively protected from some of the worst of it. But that's not going to last – you just have to look a few hundred miles south and you're seeing what's happening in Spain and Italy.

One thing that fiction, and particularly science fiction, speculative fiction, can do is play out some of these ideas, and really imagine what they might look like, both good and bad. In The Coral Bones, one of the ideas I was really fascinated by was geoengineering: this concept of whitening the skies or mimicking volcanic explosions, by which we might cool the climate technologically. You think, it could be a tool in the locker. God knows what consequences would be.

But what on earth would it be like to live under that white sky? What would it do to us psychologically, and how would that make us feel? Fiction has that extra reach, where you can imagine those things in a way that perhaps you can't quite as much in non-fiction. Fiction has that power.

How do you feel about the UK’s response to the climate and biodiversity crisis?

When it comes to grass roots movements and initiatives, and developments in science and conservation, I feel hopeful. Because there’s so many people and communities out there who do care passionately, and are acting and doing incredible work, and I take a lot of hope from that. It’s just a question of whether that can be converted into political will and wider systemic change.

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When There Are Wolves Again by E J Swift is published by Quercus Publishing (£20).

This article originally ran in the Spring 2026 print issue of The Environment magazine. Become a member of CIWEM today to gain access to the quarterly magazine, as well as digital access via MyCIWEM. Non-members can also access the monthly The Environment digital newsletter.

Jo Caird is editor of The Environment