Read our interview with Wren
Wren James (founder)
Wren James is the Carnegie-longlisted British author of many Young Adult novels as ‘Lauren James’, including Last Seen Online, Green Rising and The Next Together. Amazon MGM Studios is developing The Loneliest Girl in the Universe as a feature film. Joe Roth and Jeffrey Kirschenbaum will produce the film alongside Katherine Langford.
They are a RLF Royal Fellow and the story consultant on Netflix’s Heartstopper (Seasons 2 and 3). Season 3 features guest star Jonathan Bailey in a role created by Wren.
Wren is the founder of the Climate Fiction Writers League, creator of The Climate-Conscious Writers Handbook, and editor of the anthology Future Hopes: Hopeful stories in a time of climate change. They work as a consultant on climate storytelling for museums, production companies, major brands and publishers, with a focus on optimism and hope.
Their books have sold over two hundred thousand copies worldwide in eight languages. The Quiet at the End of the World was shortlisted for the YA Book Prize and STEAM Children’s Book Award. Wren’s writing has been described as ‘gripping romantic sci-fi’ by the Wall Street Journal and ‘a strange, witty, compulsively unpredictable read which blows most of its new YA-suspense brethren out of the water’ by Entertainment Weekly.
Wren was born in 1992, and has a Masters degree from the University of Nottingham, where they studied Chemistry and Physics. They run a Queer Writers group in Coventry. Follow them on Instagram at @wrenjameswriter.
Yaba Badoe
YABA BADOE is a Ghanaian-British filmmaker and writer. A graduate of King’s College Cambridge, she was a civil servant in Ghana before becoming a general trainee with the BBC. She has taught in Spain and Jamaica and worked at the University of Ghana. Her short stories have been published in Critical Quarterly, African Love Stories and Daughters of Africa. Her first adult novel, True Murder, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2009. Her first YA novel, A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars, was shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award in 2018 and nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Award 2018. The Secret of the Purple Lake, a collection of interlinked fairy stories for children aged 9 to 12 was published by Cassava Republic in October 2017. Wolf Light, her 2nd YA novel, which tackles the theme of the climate crisis, was published by Zephyr in April 2019. Yaba lives in London.
Farah Ali
Farah Ali is the writer of the novel The River, The Town and the short-story collection People Want to Live. Her work has been anthologized in Best Small Fictions and the Pushcart Prize where it has also received special mention. Her stories have appeared in Shenandoah, Kenyon Review, Ecotone, Virginia Quarterly Review and elsewhere.
Annemarie Allan
My first novel, ‘Hox’ won the Kelpies Prize and was shortlisted for the Scottish Children’s Book Awards. ‘Ushig’, my third novel, was shortlisted for the Essex Children’s Book Award. My fourth, ‘Charlie’s Promise’, is based on the events of Kristallnacht. In 2020 a new edition of ‘Breaker’ my second novel, was published. It is an environmental thriller set in North Berwick in which Tom, Beth and mad professor MacBlain, together with the mysterious Gaia, come together to save the Firth of Forth from a catastrophic oil spill.
Jay Aspen
Jay writes from experiences in wilderness travel and extreme sports; snow peaks in the Andes, big walls in Yosemite and Baffin Island, sailing the Irish sea to photograph puffins and dolphins. A science degree and training with Himalayan shamans led to an interest in bio-psychology. She lives in the wild Welsh Borders, sings jazz, rides horses.
D.A. Baden
Denise Baden is Professor of Sustainability at the University of Southampton and has published numerous book chapters and articles in the academic realm. She wrote the script for a musical that was performed in Southampton and London in 2016, and has written three other screenplays. This is her first novel. Habitat Man was inspired a real-life green garden consultant who helped make her garden more wildlife friendly. Denise set up the series of free Green Stories writing competitions in 2018 to inspire writers to integrate green solutions into their writing (www.greenstories.org.uk). Habitat Man began as an effort to showcase what a solution-based approach might look like, and then took on a life of its own. In between teaching and research, she is now working on the sequel.
Laura Baggaley
Laura Baggaley is a writer of fiction for young adults, and teaches acting and literature at City Lit adult education college in London. Her latest book is a novella, Dirt, published by Habitat Press. Her novel, Enough, was one of three finalists in the Mslexia Children’s Novel Competition and longlisted for the Times / Chicken House Children’s fiction Competition and will be published by Neem Tree Press. Her second novel, currently in its final draft, was longlisted for the Yeovil Literary Prize. Laura is a firm believer in ‘imagination activism’ and loves books that ask big questions, usually starting ‘What if . . . ?’ She enjoys the challenge of creating alternative possible futures in her writing, and hopes that by imagining different worlds we’ll be able to build a better one.
Mark Ballabon
Philosopher, environmentalist and author, Mark Ballabon has been teaching and writing about personal and spiritual development for over two decades. His non-fiction titles include ‘Why is The Human on Earth’ and ‘Courting the Future: Preparing for a Different World’, which features a collection of essays to explore the future in a visionary and practical way – addressing the climate crisis and climate change in the human. During the past four years Mark has been developing an original series of books for teen readers. The first book in the series, ‘HOME: My Life in the Universe’ will be published in April 2022 with illustrations by Grant MacDonald. It encourages reflection on important contemporary issues including bullying, self-belief and the climate crisis, from a philosophical perspective. Mark lives in London with his wife but regularly gives lectures to audiences in Europe, Scandinavia, North America and the Middle East.
Fiona Barker
Wrote Danny and the Dream Dog and Setsuko, a picture book with the Marine Conservation Society. It’s illustrated by artist and marine biologist Howard Gray. When not writing picture books, I can be found out plogging and occasionally blogging about litter and living a life less plastic.
David Barker
The Gaia trilogy is a series of books set in the near future during a world war for water, released by Urbane Publications in 2017-19. I also have a short story included in Nothing Is As It Was, an anthology of Climate Fiction published by Retreat West. I’m a member of The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and The Society of Authors.
Julie Bertagna
Julie Bertagna is the acclaimed author of several novels for children and young adults, but is best known for her dystopian EXODUS trilogy. She lives in Glasgow, Scotland.
Julie Bertagna is an author with a track record for children’s and YA fiction that is both commercially successful and critically acclaimed. Her dystopian sequence – EXODUS, ZENITH and AURORA has won her a loyal fanbase and garnered many stellar reviews. EXODUS was shortlisted for the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year, won the Lancashire Children’s Book of the Year, won a Friends of the Earth Eco Award (UK) and a Santa Monica Green Literature Prize (US), US Booklist’s Top Ten SF/Fantasy for Youth 2008, The List’s Best Books of the 21st Century, and has been translated into many languages.
Zillah Bethell
Zillah Bethell was born in the shadow of the volcano Mount Lamington in Papua New Guinea. She grew up without shoes, toys or technology; consequently she spent a lot of time in the sea swimming and in canoes – and occasionally, to earn money, she took tourists gold-panning in the highlands of Wau and Bulolo. Zillah’s family returned to the UK when she was ten, and she was eventually educated at Oxford University and now lives in South Wales with her family.
Chris Beckett
Chris Beckett is a former social worker and now university lecturer who lives in Cambridge. In 2009 he won the Edge Hill Short Story competition for his collection of stories, The Turing Test.
Sarah Blake
Sarah Blake is the author of CLEAN AIR, a cli-fi domestic thriller, NAAMAH, a novel reimagining the story of Noah’s ark, and poetry collections, MR. WEST, LET’S NOT LIVE ON EARTH, and the forthcoming IN SPRINGTIME. In 2013, she received a Literature Fellowship from the NEA. Her work has appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books, The American Poetry Review, and The Kenyon Review. She lives outside of London, UK.
Carys Bray
Carys Bray is the author of a short story collection and three novels. She won the 2015 Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award. Her work has been shortlisted for the Costa and Desmond Elliott Prizes.
Jeremy Brown
Jeremy Brown is studying for a PhD in climate communication, under the supervision of Denise Baden. After an integrated master’s in Environmental Sciences, he specialized in comic books while studying for a MA in ‘Climate Change: History, Society and Culture’ at King’s College London. While completing his MA, Jeremy managed a team of artists and writers to create a series of superhero comics about the climate crisis – The Renegades: Defenders of the Planet. The three titles were published by DK between autumn 2020 and 2021. His PhD, based at the University of Southampton, is currently focused on exploring the potential for climate fiction comics to inspire readers and creators of climate fiction comics to imitate the fictional role models. Jeremy is also active within local politics, and is keen to encourage climate activists to find creative ways to engage with the democratic process.
Sophie Buchaillard
Sophie Buchaillard is a writer & poet, a grower, and a well-being facilitator who believes in the power of writing to change lives and foster strong communities for the future. She has written two novels, a dozen essays about migration, motherhood and movement; and recently a poetry pamphlet on overcoming trauma. She was a Bridport Poetry Prize and Wales Book of the Year finalist in 2024 and 2023 respectively. Sophie splits her time between facilitating creative writing in her community; observing the journey of the food she grows, from seed to table; and subverting form to re-imagine tomorrow, preferably in conversation and collaboration with other creative dreamers.
Emily Buchanan
Emily Buchanan grew up on the Kent coast, where her first reader was her little sister, for whom she wrote bedtime stories. After studying English Literature at the University of East Anglia, she worked as a multidisciplinary creative for environmental NGOs, with a focus on climate and conservation campaigns. She lives in Norwich with her pianist spouse, a small herd of animals, and more houseplants than she cares to admit. Send Flowers is her first novel.
Lynn Buckle
Lynn Buckle is the author of two literary novels published by époque press. Her publications also include several short story and poetry anthologies, and literary articles for magazines and The Irish Times. She represents Dublin, Ireland, as a UNESCO City of Literature virtual writer in residence at the UK’s National Centre for Writing, where her work centres around intersections of climate, gender, power and place, from a disability perspective. She teaches creative writing and is founder of the Irish Climate Writers Group at the Irish Writers Centre where she promotes the incorporation of positive climate solutions into everyday fiction. Her second novel, What Willow Says, is an example of this, along with work commissioned during her writing residency.
Interview with Rab Ferguson
Stephanie Burgis
Stephanie Burgis grew up in East Lansing, Michigan, but now lives in Wales with her husband and two sons, surrounded by mountains, castles and coffee shops. She writes fun MG fantasy adventures and has published six so far, most recently the Dragon with a Chocolate Heart trilogy and the Raven Heir duology. She also writes wildly romantic adult historical fantasies, most recently the Harwood Spellbook series. She has had over forty short stories for adults and teens published in various magazines and anthologies.
Kathryn Clark
Kathryn Clark is a graduate of the Bath Spa MA in Writing for Young People. Her work has been long/shortlisted in awards including Times Chicken House, Mslexia Children’s Novel, Bath Children’s Novel and Searchlight Novel Opening. She was runner up in the Book Pipeline Novel Contest and winner of the Arvon Novel Opening Chapter Competition. Her debut novel THINGS I LEARNED WHILE I WAS DEAD was a winner of Faber’s inaugural Imagined Futures Prize for eco YA sci-fi. Kathryn writes about things that scare and anger her, in speculative stories which explore identity, the consequences of our choices, consent, the climate emergency and mental health. She works as a freelance writing mentor and lives in Gloucestershire with her family and two dogs.
A. Connors
A. Connors has a PhD in physics and an MA in creative writing and was one of the Undiscovered Voices of 2020. He works for a large tech company and lives just outside London with his wife and two sons, with whom he enjoys making science projects. The Girl Who Broke the Sea is his debut novel.
Anne Charnock
Anne Charnock is the author of Dreams Before the Start of Time, winner of the 2018 Arthur C. Clarke Award. Her debut novel, A Calculated Life, was a finalist for the 2013 Philip K. Dick Award and the 2013 Kitschies Golden Tentacle award. The Guardian featured Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind in “Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2015.” Anne’s novella, The Enclave, won the 2017 British Science Fiction Association Award for Short Fiction. And her latest novel is Bridge 108 (2020). Anne’s writing career began in journalism, and her articles appeared in The Guardian, New Scientist, International Herald Tribune and Geographical. She studied environmental sciences at the University of East Anglia, and holds an MA in fine art from The Manchester School of Art. She was active for over ten years in the Ashton Hayes Going Carbon Neutral Project in Cheshire, before moving to the Isle of Bute in Scotland.
Michelle Cook
Michelle Cook writes thrillers and dystopian fiction. She lives in Worcestershire, UK with her husband and their two young children.
Her first joyful steps into creative writing were at the age of ten, when the teacher read out her short story in class. A slapstick tale of two talking kangaroos breaking out of a zoo, the work was sadly lost to history. Still, Michelle never forgot the buzz of others enjoying her words.
More recently, she has had several flash pieces published, was longlisted for the Cambridge Prize for flash fiction, and placed first in the Writers’ Forum competition with her short story The Truth About Cherry House. Her debut novel, eco-thriller Tipping Point, was a finalist in the 2022 Page Turner Awards.
Counterpoint, the sequel to Tipping Point, is her second novel.
Lyndsey Croal
Lyndsey Croal is a Scottish author of strange and speculative fiction. Her work has appeared in over eighty magazines and anthologies, including with Apex, Analog, Weird Tales, Shoreline of Infinity, and PseudoPod. She’s a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Awardee, British Fantasy Award Finalist, and former Hawthornden Fellow. Her novelette Have You Decided on Your Question (2023) and collection of dark science fiction tales Limelight and Other Stories (2024) are published with Shortwave Publishing. Her novelette The Girl With Barnacles for Eyes appeared in Tenebrous Press’ Split Scream Volume Five, and her second collection of Scottish folklore-inspired tales Dark Crescent is forthcoming in 2025 from Luna Press. She lives in Edinburgh with her giant cat Pippin and has a background in climate and environment policy and comms. She’s currently working on a number of longer projects in the sci fi, eco fiction, and horror space, and is represented by Michael Mungiello at InkWell Management. Find out more via http://www.lyndseycroal.co.uk.
Sarah Crossan
Sarah Crossan has lived in Dublin, London and New York, and now lives in Hertfordshire. She graduated with a degree in philosophy and literature before training as an English and drama teacher at Cambridge University. Since completing a masters in creative writing, she has been working to promote creative writing in schools. The Weight of Water and Apple and Rain were both shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal. In 2016, Sarah won the CILIP Carnegie Medal as well as the YA Book Prize, the CBI Book of the Year award and the CLiPPA Poetry Award for her novel, One.
Brianna Craft
Brianna Craft is the author of We Don’t Have Time For This (2024) and Everything That Rises: A Climate Change Memoir (2023).
Brianna researchers climate change. She started in the UN climate negotiations in 2011. Four years later, she witnessed the adoption of the Paris Agreement first hand. Brianna works to further equity in the negotiations for the world’s poorest countries, which have done the least to cause the climate crisis but are the most vulnerable to its impacts.
From a small town in Washington State, Brianna lives in London. When she’s not writing justice-focused climate stories, Brianna works for the International Institute for Environment and Development. She holds a master’s degree in environmental studies from Brown University and is an alumna of the University of Washington. Brianna loves peanut butter.
Abi Daré
Abi Daré is a Nigerian-born British writer and the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of The Girl With The Louding Voice and And So I Roar, powerful novels exploring courage, identity, and resilience. Her second novel, And So I Roar, was shortlisted for the Climate Fiction Prize, highlighting its impactful exploration of climate change and environmental challenges through compelling storytelling.
Abi proudly serves as Chief Louding Officer of the Louding Voice® Foundation, empowering young girls in rural Nigeria through scholarships and mentorship. She also oversees the Louding Voice® Academy, offering transformative writing courses and coaching for aspiring authors and professionals. In recognition of her contributions to literature, storytelling, and advocacy, Abi received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Glasgow Caledonian University in 2024.
Ele Fountain
Ele Fountain worked as an editor in children’s publishing where she was responsible for launching and nurturing the careers of many prize-winning and bestselling authors. She lived in Addis Ababa for several years, where she wrote Boy 87, her debut novel. It won four awards and was nominated for nine more, including Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize. Her second novel LOST published to critical acclaim earlier this year.
Paul Dalton
After completing an art degree, Paul Dalton got a job in a bookshop and then a library. His storytimes were legendary. Through his writing, he explores climate change and the questions that go with it. He set his novel in the present day, as climate change is a story for now, not the future. He puts jokes in his writing, as sometimes all you can do is laugh. He grew up in Kent but now lives in Yorkshire.
April Doyle
April Doyle is a writer, tutor and editor who lives in rural Kent with her husband and two sons. She has been teaching creative writing since 2012. April’s short stories have been published in women’s magazines in the UK and Australia, and her short story Elsewhere was published in an anthology Tales From Elsewhere in 2016. Her short story Rise on the Wings was longlisted for the 2019 Mslexia Short Story competition. Her debut novel Hive was shortlisted for the 2019 Exeter Novel Prize.
Gemma Fowler
Gemma is a children’s author and general space enthusiast whose published titles include YA sci-fi thriller, Moondust, and MG cli-fi mystery, City of Rust. Even though she considers herself to be a complete layman, she has an infectious enthusiasm for science, which she brings to schools in talks and events based around the ecological and societal issues raised in her books. Aside from being a published author, one of her greatest achievements was featuring on Tomorrow’s World saying that she ‘liked peas’.
Interview with Stephanie Burgis
Rab Ferguson
Rab Ferguson is a writer and storyteller. He was born in Scotland, grew up in Cumbria, lived in Yorkshire then the North-East, so generally just describes himself as vaguely from “The North”. He developed his craft through writing short fiction and poetry, and has had work published in various magazines and anthologies over the last decade. His debut, environmental with-a-touch-of-magic YA novel “Landfill Mountains”, is coming out in September 2021. When not writing, he enjoys cycling, cats, and listening to the music of Bruce Springsteen. He has not yet found a way to combine those interests practically.
Read our interview with Hannah
Hannah Gold
Hannah Gold grew up in a family where books, animals, and the beauty of the outside world were ever present and is passionate about writing stories that share her love of the planet. She now lives in the UK with her tortoise, her cat, and her husband and, when not writing, is busy hunting for her next big animal story as well as practicing her roar. The Last Bear is her middle-grade debut.
Paul Goodenough
Paul is an Emmy-nominated and award-winning writer, author, producer, entrepreneur and environmentalist – working across broadcast, comics, digital, games and publishing.
Paul is also the founder of Rewriting Extinction, a global storytelling project uniting 300 activists, celebrities, scientists, comedians and more across the planet to create stories to raise the money and awareness to save multiple species from extinction.
Paul is a notable collaborator, co-writing and producing stories with creators including Taika Waititi, Cara Delevingne, Adam McKay, Idris Elba, Richard Curtis, Ricky Gervais and over 300 more.
He’s also a best-selling author in his own right with credits including the Sunday Times Book of the Year: The Most Important Comic Book On Earth, Sherlock Holmes, 2000ad, Doctor Who, How To Train Your Dragon alongside a host of writing for international comedians.
Paul is also the designer and founding member of BAFTA Albert (calculator and sustainability accreditation used by Netflix, NBC Universal, Warner Bros, BBC, IMG, Sky etc).
Phil Gilvin
Phil Gilvin lives with his wife in Swindon, Wiltshire. When his children grew too old to have stories read to them, he turned to writing, winning a number of short story prizes. Truth Sister is his first published novel. His other career is as a scientist (now part-time), and he enjoys walking, listening to classical music and prog rock, and murdering folk songs.
Guinevere Glasfurd
Guinevere Glasfurd is a novelist and activist. Originally from Lancaster, she now lives on the edge of the Fens, north of Cambridge, with her husband and daughter. Her first novel, The Words in my Hand, was written with the support of a grant from Arts Council England and was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel award, the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award and longlisted for the Prix du Roman FNAC. Her second novel, The Year Without Summer, a novel of climate crisis, was published in Feb 2020, was shortlisted for the Historical Writers’ Association Gold Crown. Both novels are published by Two Roads Books (an imprint of John Murray Press). She is a MacDowell Fellow (2017-18) and has been awarded three grants from Arts Council England and the British Council. Her short fiction has appeared in Mslexia, The Scotsman and in a collection from The National Galleries of Scotland. In 2019, she was writer in residence at Wicken Fen, the National Trust’s oldest reserve.
J J Green
J. J. Green is an Irish writer who hails from Donegal and lives in Derry. She’s had a passion for writing fiction from childhood and has honed her creative writing skills throughout her adult life. As a social and environmental activist, she also writes non-fiction for ZNetwork in the form of political essays that mainly focus on economic and environmental injustice. The Last Good Summer is her debut novel.
Emma Geen
Emma is a speculative fiction novelist. Her first novel is The Many Selves of Katherine North, published by Bloomsbury. She is also a commited climate activist and has co-produced the world’s first community climate action plan, represented Disabled people on the US Embassy’s Climate Justice exchange, and worked for Extinction Rebellion coordinating their UK and Global Twitter accounts amongst other roles.
Mike Gould
Mike Gould has written over 150 books for young people and adults, mostly in the educational field, including popular science for primary students for Harper Collins, a range of revision resources and best-selling textbooks in English & Drama for Collins, C.U.P, O.U.P etc. He is also the author of short fiction and plays for young people, including three novels for Delta Publishing. His work has been performed at Southwark Playhouse, and several of his shorter scripts have been filmed as part of the Directors’ Club network. He worked as a Subject Leader for English in secondary schools, Senior Lecturer in education, and as a commissioning editor, before setting up his own publishing and educational consultancy – Gould Publishing Ltd, in which capacity he has written national policy frameworks for the DFE in English teaching, as well as supporting schools through work for Ofqual, the National Literacy Trust and many other organisations. He has run numerous creative writing workshops for students and adults, and lectured in creative writing at Brighton University. His short stories and several poems have won or been shortlisted for several competitions, including Hastings Literature Festival, amongst others. He is currently working on a full-length YA novel, ‘The Storm-chasers’ Daughter’, which is based around the wildfires that engulfed Paradise, California, in 2018.
Caoilinn Hughes
Caoilinn Hughes is the author of THE WILD LAUGHTER (2020), which won the Royal Society of Literature’s Encore Award and was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Her first novel, ORCHID & THE WASP (2018) won the Collyer Bristow Prize and was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. Her short stories have won the Irish Book Awards’ Story of the Year, The Moth Short Story Prize, and an O.Henry Prize. She was recently Oscar Wilde Writer Fellow at Trinity College Dublin and a Cullman Center Fellow at New York Public Library. THE ALTERNATIVES (2024), her third novel, was a New York Times Editors’ Pick.
Ruth Hartley
Ruth Hartley is a storyteller, poet, artist and activist who was born in Zimbabwe, educated in South Africa who worked with artists in Zambia for many years, She has retired to France where she writes and blogs every day. Ruth has self-published 3 novels, a memoir, a book of short stories and one of poetry. Her seventh, Dust and Rain: Chipo and Chibwe save the Green Valley is about climate change awareness for children. It was published by Gadsden Publishers in Zambia and is available at the Harare City Library. Michael Holman, formerly the Financial Times Africa Editor praises her lean style, authenticity, and acute and sensitive selection of detail as she writes of displacement, politics, people and their environment.
Interview with Tom Huddleston
Vashti Hardy
Vashti Hardy is an author of middle grade fantasies published across the world in several languages. Wildspark won the Blue Peter Book Award ‘Best Story’ in 2020, and Brightstorm was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2019 and was also the Independent Booksellers Book of the Season. Vashti has an MA in Creative Writing and was previously a primary school teacher. She has a love of science and invention, and especially enjoys creating positive female STEM characters in her stories, exploring humans’ relationship with animals and nature, and asking mind-bending ‘what if’ questions.
Joan Haig
Joan (Dritsas) Haig was born in Zambia, where she was weaned on avocados and stories. She moved as a teenager to the South Pacific and has also lived and worked in India and Nigeria. Joan’s debut novel Tiger Skin Rug (Cranachan Publishing, 2020) has been nominated for the Carnegie Medal 2021 and is a finalist in the People’s Book Prize winter 2020/21 showcase. During the 2020 lockdown, Joan edited Stay at Home! Poems and Prose for Children Living in Lockdown (Cranachan Publishing) a free, downloadable anthology by 40 children’s authors living in Scotland, and illustrated by Darren Gate. Joan’s forthcoming book for children is Talking History: 150 Years of Speeches, coauthored with Joan Lennon and the first in a new series imprint for Templar/Bonnier. Her next middle-grade novel, Where the Storm Cats Go, is a response to the increased frequency of cyclones, due to climate change, in the Southern Hemisphere. She recently started blogging for the Awfully Big Blog Adventure.
Sarah Holding
Having been a postman, an architect, a university professor and a community planner, Sarah Holding is now a full-time author. She lives in Surrey in a funny old house with a leaning tower with her family. She loves vegan food, good coffee and modern jazz.
Since SeaBEAN was first published in 2013, she has given workshops and talks at over 250 schools, libraries and festivals, and the popular cli-fi eco-trilogy has now been republished in 2018, 2021 and in a 10th anniversary edition in 2023.
Her first YA novel Chameleon, published in 2020, is about three genetically engineered humans and is set during the fall of Atlantis, which Sarah speculates happened during an earlier period of intense climate change, 12,000 years ago.
During lockdown Sarah began writing poems for children, and on National Poetry Day 2021 she published her first anthology entitled How to Write a Poem. She has since given dozens of poetry writing workshops in schools, and loves inspiring young poets.
In November 2022 Sarah undertook a writing residency at the Arteles Cultural Centre in Finland, during which she started writing a novel set in Iceland.
Sarah’s newest YA novel blackloop came out in October 2023, and is dubbed ‘Stranger Things meets The Breakfast Club’.
Anna M Holmes
Anna is originally from New Zealand and lives in the U.K. with her Dutch partner. Extensive research and world building are what drives Anna in her writing. WAYWARD VOYAGE, her debut novel about pirate Anne Bonny, was published by The Book Guild. Her screenplay BLIND EYE, an environment-thriller, was joint winner of the 2020 Green Stories screenplay competition, judges saying, “A great success of this script is locating the plight to save forestry in a global context and showing how interdependent we are as a community.” BLIND EYE, novel, was published by The Book Guild September 2021.
Read an essay by Tom about writing for politics for kids
Interview with Vashti Hardy
Tom Huddleston
Tom Huddleston is a writer, musician and film journalist best known for his FLOODWORLD series of futuristic, climate-themed adventure stories. He currently lives in London. Tom is the author of several books for children including instalments in the STAR WARS: ADVENTURES IN WILD SPACE and WARHAMMER ADVENTURES series. Published in 2019 by Nosy Crow Books, his novel FLOODWORLD combines thrilling action with themes of ecological disaster and social inequality, and was followed in 2020 by a powerful sequel, DUSTROAD.
John Ironmonger
John Ironmonger (born 8 July 1954), also published as J. W. Ironmonger, is a British writer and literary novelist whose debut novel was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award in 2012. He won the Best Novel Award in 2014 at the European Literature Festival for ‘The Coincidence Authority’. His novel Not Forgetting the Whale (also known as: The Whale at the End of the World) was an international bestseller. His works have been translated into thirteen languages.
Emmi Itäranta
Emmi Itäranta (b. 1976) was born in Tampere, Finland, where she also grew up. She holds one MA in Drama and Theatre Studies from the University of Tampere, and another from the University of Kent, UK, where she began writing her debut novel Memory of Water as a part of her Creative Writing masters degree. She later completed the full manuscript in both Finnish and English. The novel won the Fantasy and Sci-fi Literary Contest organised by the Finnish publishing house Teos. It was published to enthusiastic reviews in Finland in 2012 under the title Teemestarin kirja. In 2015 the English language version, Memory of Water, was nominated for the Philip K. Dick award in the US and the Arthur C. Clarke award in the UK. Translation rights to the award-winning novel have been sold in 21 territories to date. Itäranta’s second novel Kudottujen kujien kaupunki was published in 2015, and it won her the Tampere City Literary Award. In the UK the novel is known as The City of Woven Streets, and in the US as The Weaver. Itäranta’s professional background is an eclectic blend of writing-related activities, including stints as a columnist, theatre critic, dramaturge, scriptwriter and press officer. She lives in Canterbury, UK.
Vicki Jarrett
Vicki Jarrett is a novelist and short story writer from Edinburgh. Her first novel Nothing is Heavy was shortlisted for the Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year 2013. Her collection of short stories, The Way Out, published in 2015 was longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and shortlisted for the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize and the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Her latest novel, Always North, which moves into more speculative territory than her previous work, came out at the end of 2019 from Unsung Stories and was shortlisted for the Red Tentacle (Novel) Award in the Kitschies 2019.
Mitch Johnson
Mitch Johnson is an award-winning writer of children’s books. His debut novel, Kick, was endorsed by Amnesty International UK for its portrayal of children’s rights and has been translated into multiple languages. In 2018, Kick won the Branford Boase Award, a prize given to the most promising children’s book by a debut author. Mitch’s second novel, Pop!, was published in May 2021 and was nominated for the 2022 CILIP Carnegie Medal. His third novel, Spark, was published in February 2022 by Orion Children’s Books. Mitch lives in Norfolk with his family.
RB Kelly
RB Kelly is an author and film theorist. Her debut novel, The Edge of Heaven, is published by NewCon Press and was shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award. The sequel will be published in 2022. Her short stories can be found in publications from around the world, including The Best of British Science Fiction, Aurealis, and Andromeda Spaceways Magazine. She has a PhD in film studies and, with film historian Robert JE Simpson, co-runs CinePunked, an organisation dedicated to bridging the gap between film fandom and film theory.
Kate Kelly
Kate Kelly is a marine scientist by day and a writer by night, with short stories published in a number of SF magazines and anthologies, often inspired by her fascination with the sea. Her first novel, Red Rock, a Cli-Fi adventure for young adults, was published in 2013 by Curious Fox. Kate and her family live in Dorset UK and when she is not writing she takes to the sea on her paddleboard, or can be found wandering the remoter stretches of the South West Coast Path.
Angela Kecojevic
Angela Kecojevic has written several books for the Oxford Reading Tree programme (OUP), and is also the author behind the award-winning adventure park ‘Hobbledown’. Scareground, her debut middle-grade spooky novel will be published in the UK in 2023, followed by her YA sci-fi climate fiction Train. Train follows in the footsteps of the Jules Verne classic ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth‘, and highlights a frozen planet.
Alison Layland
Alison Layland is the author of two psychological thrillers: Someone Else’s Conflict, a compelling narrative of storytelling and the aftermath of war, was featured as a Debut of the Month on the LoveReading website, and Riverflow, a story of family secrets and community tensions against a background of flooding and environmental protest, was a Waterstones’ Wales Book of the Month. She also writes short stories and flash fiction; she won the short story competition at the National Eisteddfod in 2002, and her story Quirky Robbers is featured in the Honno crime anthology, Cast A Long Shadow. She is the translator of a number of award-winning and best-selling novels.
A member of the Crime Cymru collective, she has been actively involved in the First Novel competition in 2022 and the Gŵyl Crime Cymru Festival in 2023.
When not writing, at home on the Welsh borders or in her caravan in the countryside of mid-Wales, she is an environmental campaigner, and involved in various local community projects focusing on sustainability and the natural world.
M. G. Leonard
M. G. Leonard has made up stories ever since she was a girl, but, back then, adults called them lies or tall tales and she didn’t write them down. As a grown-up, her favourite things to create stories about are beetles, birds, and trains. Her books have been translated into over forty languages and won many awards. She is the vice president of the insect charity Buglife, and a founding author of Authors4Oceans. She lives in Brighton with her husband, two sons, a fat cat called Kasper, a dog called Nell, and a variety of exotic beetles.
Laura Lam
Originally from sunny California, Laura Lam now lives in cloudy Scotland. Lam is a Sunday Times Bestselling author whose work includes the near-future space thriller, Goldilocks, feminist space opera Seven Devils (co-writtenwith Elizabeth May), BBC Radio 2 Book Club section False Hearts, the companion novel Shattered Minds, and the award-winning Micah Grey series: Pantomime, Shadowplay, and Masquerade. Lam’s short fiction and essays have appeared in anthologies such as Nasty Women, Solaris Rising 3, Cranky Ladies of History, Scotland in Space, and more. Lam’s romance alter ego is Laura Ambrose. Lam lectures part-time at Edinburgh Napier University on the Creative Writing MA.
Josh Lacey
Josh Lacey is the author of many children’s books, including A Dog Called Grk and The Dragonsitter.
Gill Lewis
Gill Lewis is an award winning children’s author who writes about the wild world and our human place within in it.
Amy Lilwall
Amy Lilwall teaches Creative Writing at the University of Lincoln. Her first novel, The Biggerers, was published by Point Blank in 2017. Her second novel, The Water That May Come, will be published by Fly On The Wall in October 2025. Amy has written for Fairlight Books, The Lit and is currently co-producer of On Silence podcast. Amy lives in Lincoln with her husband.
Kevan Manwaring
Dr Kevan Manwaring (FHEA) is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Arts University Bournemouth. A BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinkers 2022 finalist, his research focuses on ecology, emergent forms, and Fantasy. He is the author of the interactive novel Hyperion, The Windsmith Elegy (The Long Woman’ Windsmith; The Well Under the Sea; The Burning Path; This Fearful Tempest), Lost Islands, and editor of Heavy Weather: tempestuous tales of stranger climes (The British Library) as well as collections of folk tales for The History Press (Oxfordshire Folk Tales; Northamptonshire Folk Tales; Ballad Tales). His audio dramas include ‘Black Box’ and ‘Sunkenkirk’. He has contributed articles to peer-reviewed journals such as Writing in Practice, New Writing, TEXT, Axon, and Revenant. He blogs and tweets as the Bardic Academic. https://thebardicacademic.wordpress.com/
Pil Van Martin
Pil Van Martin is an author and illustrator working in London. Their alter-ego works as a bookseller in Hackney. Pil Van Martin’s The Spick and the Span is an extraordinary, exciting fantasy middle grade adventure – perfect for fans of Jessica Townsend’s Nevermoor, Jonathan Stroud’s Lockwood and Co, Diana Wynne Jones’ Howl’s Moving Castle, and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld.
Jane McParkes
Jane is the author of a new cosy crime series with an eco twist. It includes ‘green’ characters, ideas and solutions set against the backdrop of a traditional murder mystery. Jane’s impetus for writing came from the desire to escape the reality of a rare but treatable cancer and the covid pandemic. The Olivia Wells Mysteries combine Jane’s love of Cornwall and her interest in the environment and sustainability.
Charlotte R. Mendel
Charlotte Mendel is the author of Turn Us Again (Roseway/Fernwood, 2013), which won the H.R. Percy Novel Prize, the Beacon Award for Social Justice, and the Atlantic Book Award in the Margaret and John Savage First Book category. Her second novel, A Hero (Inanna Publications, 2015) was shortlisted for the 2016 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing and was a Finalist in the 2016 International Book Awards in the General Fiction category. Charlotte’s first YA novel, “Reversing Time” was published by Guernica Editions in 2021.
In addition to her writing, Charlotte is a parent, a farmer, a teacher and an environmental activist. She currently facilitates a Climate Action Game at schools, universities and environmental organizations to spread awareness about the climate crisis. Charlotte has lived in Nova Scotia for 20 years and raised two wonderful children; this year she left her partner of 32 years and moved to England.
N.E. McMorran
N.E. McMorran is an award winning AuDHD British-Cypriot author who previously worked for the BBC as researcher, and taught art in London schools. She has also worked with the National Autistic Society and the London Autism Group Charity, and as a mentor for the Westminster City Lions project.
In 2019, Nema founded Spondylux Press to support neurodivergent writers and celebrate books about neurodiversity, sustainability and social change.
Interview with Marissa Slaven
Bill McGuire
Bill McGuire is an academic, broadcaster, activist and Amazon UK Top 100 popular science and speculative fiction writer. He is currently Professor Emeritus of Geophysical and Climate Hazards at University College London, a co-director of the New Weather Institute, a patron of Scientists for Global Responsibility, a member of the scientific advisory board of Scientists Warning and Special Scientific Advisor to WordForest.org. His books include: A Guide to the End of the World: Everything you Never Wanted to Know; Surviving Armageddon: Solutions for a Threatened Planet; and Seven Years to Save the Planet. His current non-fiction book is Waking the Giant: How a Changing Climate Triggers Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Volcanoes; ranked at number five in The Guardian’s Top 10 ‘eco’ books. His debut novel, Skyseed – an eco-thriller about climate engineering gone wrong – is published by The Book Guild. Bill is a volcanologist by inclination and training. In 1996, he was a Senior Scientist at the Montserrat Volcano Observatory and in 2010 a member of the Science Advisory Group in Emergencies (SAGE) addressing the Icelandic volcanic ash problem. He was a member of the UK Government Natural Hazard Working Group established in January 2005, in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami, and a co-author of its report: The Role of Science in Natural Hazard Assessment. His later work focused on climate change and its impacts, particularly upon the solid Earth, and he was a contributor to the 2012 IPCC report on climate change and extreme events. Bill now works full-time as a writer and blogger. He writes for many newspapers and magazines including The Guardian, The Times, The Observer, New Scientist, Focus and Prospect, and blogs for the New Weather Institute, Scientists for Global Responsibility, Extinction Rebellion and Operation Noah. Bill is co-editor of the anthology, Knock Three Times: Modern Folk Tales for a World in Trouble, published in October 2019. Bill presented two BBC Radio 4 series, Disasters in Waiting and Scientists Under Pressure, and the End of the World Reports on Channel 5 and Sky News. He has also contributed to many other television and radio programmes and was consultant and main contributor for the lauded BBC Horizon films; Supervolcanoes and Megatsunami – Wave of Destruction, as well as for the BBC drama, Supervolcano. Other TV credits include The Big Breakfast, Richard & Judy and The Terry & Gabby Show. Most recently, he was series consultant for the National Geographic series, X-Ray the Earth. He also co-presented Project Doomsday live with comedy duo, Robin & Partridge. Bill lives, runs (sometimes) and grows fruit and veg in the Peak District, where he resides with his wife Anna, sons Jake (12) and Fraser (17), and cats Dave, Toby and Cashew. His new book – SKYSEED – is an ecothriller about geoengineering gone wrong, and the awful consequences for humanity and the planet when everything goes pear-shaped.
Josh Martin
Josh Martin writes and draws his way through life and is currently residing in London. He has aspired to novel writing since he was a tadpole and has since graduated from Exeter University before completing Bath Spa’s Writing For Young People MA. His particular interest in heroines, fantasy, environment, gender studies and wisdom led him to write his first book Ariadnis, published by Quercus Children’s Books in February 2017, and its sequel, Anassa, published in February 2018.
Antonia Maxwell
Antonia Maxwell is a writer and freelance book editor. With a degree in modern languages, and thirty years in book publishing, she is a self-professed word nerd. As well as working with book publishers to hunt down rogue apostrophes and missing full stops, she also teaches editing skills and creative writing. In her own writing, she seeks to engage with our changing world, and foster in young readers tools of self-understanding, resilience and hope. She is based near Cambridge, where she enjoys wild swimming and walking under the big eastern skies. Terra Electrica: The Guardians of the North is her debut novel for children.
Interview with Jamie
Jamie Mollart
Jamie Mollart runs his own advertising company, and has won awards for marketing. Over the years he has been widely published in magazines, been a guest on some well-respected podcasts and blogs, and Patrick Neate called him ‘quite a writer’ on the Book Slam podcast. He is married and lives in Leicestershire with his family. His debut novel, The Zoo, was on the Amazon Rising Stars 2015 list. His second novel, Kings of a Dead World will be published on June 10 2021.
Paul McAuley
Paul McAuley worked as a research biologist and university lecturer before becoming a full-time writer. He is the author of more than twenty novels, several collections of short stories, a Doctor Who novella, and a BFI Film Classic monograph on Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil.
Ian McDonald
Ian is an SFF writer living in Northern Ireland, just outside Belfast. My first novel came out in 1988, my most recent in 2019. He’s a Hugo, John W Campbell Memorial, Sturgeon, Philip K Dick award winer, and been nominated for many others besides. He’s been translated into 15 languages.
Anna McKerrow
Anna McKerrow is the author of YA, adult and children’s fiction as well as poetry. Her work explores magic, nature and environmental issues. She also writes for adults as Kennedy Kerr.
Moira McPartlin
Moira McPartlin made a big impact with The Incomers, her debut novel set in Fife. It was shortlisted for the Saltire Society First Book of the Year Award and was a critical success. Her speculative fiction Sun Song Trilogy novels, Ways of the Doomed, Wants of the Silent and Star of Hope set in 2089, reflect many issues we are living with today. In September 2019 her short play A Handful Of Glaur was included as part of the UNESCO Cities of Literature Short Play Festival in New Zealand and in 2020 she will take up a writing fellowship at Hawthronden Castle. She is also a prolific writer of short stories and poetry and has been published in a variety of literary magazines. Moira is currently working on a fairytale graphic novel about irresponsible tourism. She lives in Stirling.
Read our interview with Simon
S. J Morden
Gateshead-based Dr Simon Morden trained as a planetary geologist, realised he was never going to get into space, and decided to write about it instead. His writing career includes an eclectic mix of short stories, novellas and novels which blend science fiction, fantasy and horror, a five-year stint as an editor for the British Science Fiction Association, a judge for the Arthur C Clarke Awards, and regular speaking engagements at the Greenbelt arts festival.
Simon has written ten novels and novellas. The wonderfully tentacular Another War (2005), was shortlisted for a World Fantasy Award, and 2007 saw the publication of The Lost Art, which was shortlisted for the Catalyst Award. The first three books starring everybody’s favourite sweary Russian scientist, Samuil Petrovitch (Equations of Life, Theories of Flight, Degrees of Freedom) were published in three months of each other in 2011, and collectively won the Philip K Dick Award – the fourth Petrovitch, The Curve of the Earth, was published in 2013. In a departure to the usual high-tech mayhem, 2014 saw the arrival of Arcanum, a massive (and epic) alternate-history fantasy, which not only has flaming letters on the cover, but the story inside is “enthralling”, “intelligent”, “impeccably rendered” (Kirkus), and “engrossing”, “satisfying” and “leaving the reader craving for more (Publishers’ Weekly). Which was nice.
The Books of Down are a very different fantasy, where what you are is what you become: Down Station tells the trials and triumphs of Down’s latest refugees on the run from a disaster that might just have destroyed all of London, and The White City their continuing story to unravel the mysteries of their adopted world.
Brogen Murphy
After graduating with a degree in Zoology from the University of Cambridge, Brogen set about trying to figure out how best to save the world. After a (very) brief stint in climate activism, they spent fifteen years promoting clean technologies that help build a low-carbon future. They are currently on a nomadic adventure with their wife, searching for the perfect place to live.
When not writing Brogen can be found lost in nature, looking (up) for birds and (down) for mushrooms – and therefore often tripping over.
Alex Mullarky
Alex Mullarky is a writer and veterinary nurse who loves creating stories about nature and magic. Raised in Cumbria, they studied in Scotland and spent several years in Australia before returning to the UK.
Alex now lives on the edge of Edinburgh and can usually be found looking for herbs in the woods with their dogs, reading in an armchair with a cup of tea, or playing roller derby for Auld Reekie.
Suniti Namjoshi
Internationally acclaimed author Suniti Namjoshi is an important figure in contemporary literature in English. A writer of fables, poetry, satirical fiction, children’s fictions, she has published over 30 titles in India, Australia, Canada and Britain. Born in Mumbai in 1941, she first wrote and published in India, then moved to Canada, and then to a small seaside village in the south-west of England with writer, Gillian Hanscombe. She was recently made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her books include Feminist Fables, Goja, Suki and Aesop the Fox from Spinifex. Her latest book is The Good-Hearted Gardeners (Melbourne: Spinifex Press, 2023).
Linda Newbery
Linda Newbery has published widely for young readers. YA fiction includes SET IN STONE (winner, Costa Children’s Book Prize) and THE SHELL HOUSE and SISTERLAND (both shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal). A long-term animal and environmental campaigner, she has recently published THIS BOOK IS CRUELTY-FREE – ANIMALS AND US, for readers of 12 – adult. It looks at our daily choices – what we eat, wear, buy, use, waste and throw away – how those choices affect animals and the environment, and how we can choose better. A new picture book, RUBBISH?, illustrated by Katie Rewse, is about upcycling, creativity, play and co-operation.
Read our interview with Joanne
Joanne O’Connell
Joanne O’Connell is a journalist whose inspiration sprang from a year-long column she wrote for the Guardian called ‘Goodbye Supermarkets’, during which she met food waste campaigners, such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and eco-chef Tom Hunt, and presented a short video about taking her children foraging on a Scottish Island. She has written for The Observer, The Times, The Daily Express, The Independent and various glossy magazines, and is the author of The Homemade Vegan, published in 2016. She occasionally appears on television and radio, most recently on BBC Breakfast and Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.
Chioma Okereke
Chioma Okereke is a Nigeria-born author, who grew up in London and studied law at UCL. She started her writing career as a performance poet before turning her hand to prose.
Her debut novel, Bitter Leaf (Virago), was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize – Africa Best First Book. Her short story, Trompette De La Mort, received First Runner Up of the inaugural Costa Short Story Award and her work was included in the Virago is 40 anthology.
A coming-of-age story set in the real settlement of Makoko, Lagos, her upcoming novel, Water Baby (Quercus, April 2024) portrays the pressures on a young woman trying to escape the confines of her community and explores wider societal issues including climate change, digitalisation, gentrification, and resettlement.
Chioma set up Makoko Pearls to raise funds for the inhabitants of the informal settlement of Makoko, most of whom are living without access to basic social amenities. Get involved at makokopearls.org.
As a keen traveller, globetrotting has greatly influenced Chioma’s storytelling. Passionate about universal stories and challenging the stereotypes surrounding writers of African descent, she divides her time between the bustle of London, the hustle of Nigeria and the calm of rural France. Follow her on Instagram, Facebook and sign up to her newsletter at chiomaokereke.com.
Jim Pearce
Jim Pearce has been an oil driller in Saudi and Venezuela and a geologist in a gold mine in Ghana. Now he helps energy clients try to be more sustainable. He enjoys writing first thing in the morning at home in Surrey or enjoying the views in the south of France. He likes to transport readers to unexpected places where survival is a challenge and friendships tend to triumph despite individuals’ flaws. He is married with three boys.
Nicola Penfold
Nicola Penfold was born in Billinge and grew up in Doncaster. She studied English at St John’s College, Cambridge. Nicola’s worked in a reference library and for a health charity, but being a writer was always the job she wanted most.
Nicola writes in the coffee shops and green spaces of North London, where she lives, and escapes when she can to wilder corners of the UK for adventures. She is married, with four children and two cats, and is an avid reader of children’s books.
Lizzie Pepper
Transfixed at an early age with a deep curiosity and love for the natural world, Lizzie has been on a mission for the last ten years to write an adventure series of five novels which reflect the environmental challenges our planet faces.
Fascinated by the natural behaviours of wild creatures. Lizzie tells her story through their eyes as they tackle the effects of a future world, created by climate change.
Having been fortunate enough to work in the conservation sector for over twenty years. Lizzie now wishes to embed her natural knowledge and passion for the environment into her children’s stories. ‘Winter’ is Lizzie’s debut novel and forms the first book of the series. Her second novel of the series, ‘Spring Equinox’ will be released 28/09/2023.
Jane Rogers
Jane Rogers has written 10 novels, many stories, radio drama, and adapted fiction for radio and TV. She is increasingly drawn to future fiction, and The Testament of Jessie Lamb won the Arthur C Clarke Award, and was Man-Booker longlisted. Her second collection of stories, Fire-Ready, has just been published by Comma Press. She also teaches writing, currently for Faber Academy and MsLexia, and is a Gold Dust mentor. She has been an climate activist and supporter of XR since 2019.
Clare Rees
Clare is the Head of English in a Berkshire school. She has enjoyed a varied career so far, including spending two years teaching in Ethiopia and seven years in inner London comprehensives. She loves working with teenagers and is particularly keen on the aspects of her job which involve the promotion of reading and writing for pleasure.
Clare holds an MEd in International Education and an MA in Late Medieval Literature, and has had educational resources published by Pearson, AQA, Teachit and Zigzag. These have included co-authored books, lesson resource collections and teaching units. She has also written education articles for The Independent and ‘Secret Teacher’ blogs for The Guardian. She has a particular interest in, and has carried out research into, the development of literacy skills across the curriculum.
Jelly is her first novel and was published by Chicken House in August 2019.
Read Emma’s essay on bats
Emma Reynolds
Emma Reynolds is an illustrator and author based in Manchester, UK.Her debut author-illustrator picture book ‘Amara and the Bats’ about bat conservation and finding hope in the face of climate anxiety, is due for release July 20th 2021 with Atheneum – Simon & Schuster. Passionate about storytelling and creating unique characters, Emma is the illustrator of ‘Rescuing Mrs. Birdley’, out now with Simon & Schuster. Emma started the #KidLit4Climate illustrated campaign, bringing together over 3,000 children’s illustrators and authors from over 50 countries in solidarity with the youth climate strikes. In May 2020 she shaved her head to raise money for Bat Conservation Trust.Emma’s favourite food is pizza. She is inspired by nature, animals, adventure, and seeing the magic in the everyday. She loves bats, cats and bears, walking in the wild and exploring the world.
Manda Scott
Novelist, columnist, blogger, podcaster, broadcaster and red-green activist, Manda Scott’s novels have been shortlisted for an Orange Prize, nominated for an Edgar and dived into the endless iterations of TV adaptations. She’s currently host of the THRUTOPIA MASTERCLASS which is helping a whole generation of writers to craft plausible, generative, thriving, near-term futures we’d be proud to leave to our children – and map the routes to get there.
Her latest novel, A Treachery of Spies weaves a contemporary crime thriller with the courage and heroism of the Special Operations Executive in WW2.
She’s written a Thrutopian TV series and is working on a Thrutopian novel. Because we have the answers to a flourishing future, we just haven’t created the visions that will draw people towards them.
When not writing, she is host of the Accidental Gods podcast, and runs a horticultural smallholding, which one day will feed the local community.
Emma Shevah
Emma Shevah is half Thai and half Irish, and was born and raised in London. She holds a BA Honours in English and Philosophy from the University of Nottingham and an MA with Distinction in Creative and Professional Writing from Brunel. She is the author of Hello Baby Mo!, an early reader published by Bloomsbury, and four Middle Grade novels published by Chicken House: Dream on Amber (2014 – winner of the Odyssey Award), Dara Palmer’s Major Drama (2016 – optioned by CBBC), What Lexie Did (UK)/Lexie’s Little Lie (US) 2018 and How to Save the World with a Chicken and an Egg (2021). She has also published a number of features in newspapers and magazines, and is working on a non fiction book for adults based on a journey to Newfoundland to find her namesake. She currently lives in Brighton with 50% of her four children and is Head of Year 13 at Roedean.
Nicky Singer
Nicky has written four novels for adults, two books of non-fiction but most of her recent work is for young people. Her first children’s novel Feather Boy won the Blue Peter ‘Book of the Year’ Award, was adapted for TV (winning a BAFTA for Best Children’s Drama) and then commissioned by the National Theatre as a musical with lyrics by Don Black and music by Debbie Wiseman. Her new novel The Survival Game is a migration road-movie about a girl with a bullet-less gun and what she’s prepared to risk – or sacrifice – to stay alive in a climate ravaged world. If you want to join the conversation about how to keep our planet beautiful and our future bright, check the #ChooseLovetoSurvive campaign.
Lauren St John
Lauren St John grew up surrounded by horses, dogs, cats, a warthog and a pet giraffe on a farm and game reserve in Zimbabwe, the inspiration for her bestselling White Giraffe, Laura Marlin and One Dollar Horse series. Kat Wolfe on Thin Ice, her third Wolfe & Lamb mystery, will be out in January 2021. Lauren is an Ambassador for Born Free, a Patron of Mane Chance Animal Sanctuary and the founder of Authors4Oceans, a coalition of children’s authors campaigning against plastic pollution and dolphins in captivity.
Interview with Chitra
Chitra Soundar
Chitra Soundar is an internationally published author of over 50 books for children. She is also an oral storyteller and writer of many things. Chitra writes picture books and fiction for young readers. Her stories are inspired by folktales from India, Hindu mythology and her travels around the world. Her books have been published in the UK, US, India & Singapore and translated into Chinese, German, French, Japanese and Thai.
Read Anthea’s essay ‘Young activists – to be encouraged!’
Anthea Simmons
Anthea Simmons lives in Devon with her polydactyl cat, Caramac. After a successful career in the City and a spell of teaching, she finally knuckled down to write at the insistence of her son, Henry. She is the author of Share, The Best Best Baby, I’m Big Now, Lightning Mary and Burning Sunlight. She is editor in chief for online citizen journalism paper, West Country Bylines, and campaigns on a range of issues including electoral reform and rejoining the EU.
Ray Star
Ray’s passion for writing comes hand in hand with a passion for animals and the environment which prompted the creation of the Earthlings trilogy. Earthlings is Ray’s debut novel with a prequel to follow shortly after the trilogy is complete. It is Ray’s dream to open The Peridot Animal Sanctuary and Wildlife Reserve in England and that dream inspired the Earthlings trilogy to life. When Ray isn’t writing, she is happiest spending time with her children, partner, family and friends or walking with her dogs spending time in nature. Often found star gazing with a tarot deck in one hand and a strong cuppa in the other underneath a full moon. As a Climate Fiction author, Ray’s books are published on recyclable paper where possible and Ray also intends to plant 1 tree per book sale, whilst founding the #READGREEN campaign, petitioning Amazon KDP to switch recycled paper printing.
William Sutcliffe
William Sutcliffe is the author of thirteen novels, including the international bestseller Are You Experienced? and The Wall, which was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. He has written for adults, young adults and children, and has been translated into twenty-eight languages. His novel Whatever Makes You Happy was filmed by Netflix under the title Otherhood (starring Patricia Arquette and Angela Bassett). The Gifted, The Talented and Me was chosen by The Sunday Times as the 2019 Children’s Book of the Year. His latest novel, The Summer We Turned Green, was published in July 2021.
Mimi Thebo
Mimi Thebo is a Carnegie-longlisted author for children and teens. Her work has been translated into twelve languages, adapted for a BAFTA-winning BBC film, illustrated in light and signed for deaf children by ITV. Born in the USA, she is based in South West England, where she is Reader in Creative Writing at the University of Bristol and a Royal Literary Fellow. She writes about recovery from trauma and our connection to the endangered natural world.
‘…movingly explores the interconnectedness of our minds, bodies, spirituality and physical environment…’ BookTrust
Solitaire Townsend
Solitaire has been trying to make the world a better place for nearly 30 years. As co-founder of the change agency Futerra, she advises governments, charities and big brands on ways to solve social and environmental problems.
With Futerra offices now in London, Stockholm, New York, San Francisco and Mexico City she admits that making the world a better place was a good business plan. You can watch her TEDx talks online and read her in the Guardian, Huffington Post and more often on twitter. She was once even profiled in Harper’s Bazaar; but they didn’t let her keep the clothes. Her post-graduate degrees in both Shakespeare and Sustainability are put to good use in her books. As is her love of Star Trek.
Solitaire would like you to know that yes, she thinks it’s a pretty name too. And no, she wasn’t named after the Bond girl.
Isabel Thomas
Isabel is the author of more than 150 books about science, nature and the environment for young audiences. She was awarded the 2020 AAAS Subaru Prize for Excellence in Science Books, and has previously been shortlisted for the Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize. Isabel also writes for children’s science magazines and works with organisations such as Wellcome Trust and University of Oxford to create outreach resources, inspiring children from diverse backgrounds to pursue STEM careers. Isabel holds an MA in Human Sciences from the University of Oxford, and an MPhil in Educational Research from the University of Cambridge. She lives in Cambridge, UK, with her husband and three young sons.
David Thorpe
David is an award-winning writer of scripts, novels and non-fiction. A Marvel comics writer, the Doc Chaos tv and comic series was followed by his prize-winning SF novel Hybrids (HarperCollins) was called “stunningly clever” by The Times. He co-founded the London Screenwriters Workshop and has taught 1000s of hours of script and creative writing, and published a book on the subject. Stormteller led to his presence on the first two Hay Literature Festival climate fiction panels. He’s worked on a number of short films and written over a dozen books and 1000s of journalistic articles on environmental sustainability and renewable energy.
Deborah Tomkins
Deborah Tomkins is an award-winning writer of short stories and novels. Her novella Aerth (January 2025) won the Weatherglass Inaugural Novella Prize, judged by Ali Smith, in 2024; in the same year her novel The Wilder Path (June 2025) won the Virginia Prize for fiction. Both books are published in 2025. In 2017 she founded Bristol Climate Writers. She has been writing climate fiction since 2007, and writes about relationships of all kinds, including our relationship with nature. Deborah lives in Bristol with her family.
Piers Torday
Piers Torday began his career in theatre and then television as a producer and writer. His first book for children, The Last Wild, was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Award and nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal. The sequel, The Dark Wild, won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. Other books include The Wild Beyond and The Death of an Owl (with Paul Torday.) His adaptation of John Masefield’s The Box of Delights opened at Wilton’s Music Hall in 2017. He lives in London with his husband and a very naughty dog.
Kenechi Udogu
Kenechi Udogu is a Nigerian-born London-based writer and architect whose work centres on culturally diverse characters, particularly female protagonists in sci-fi, fantasy and horror genres who stand strong in challenging conditions. Augmented was the inaugural winner of the Imagined Futures Prize. Her work was awarded a Highly Commended Text win for FAB Prize , and she was a runner up for the Writers and Artists Year Book Your Next Obsession in YA Fiction Competition, in association with YALC. She is an alumna of the HarperCollins Author Academy and the All Stories mentorship programme. Her short story was longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and her sci-fi short story was published in an issue of Dark Matter Magazine. Her short story was a finalist in Grist’s Imagine 2200 climate-fiction contest in 2025. She is a book contributor to Worldreader’s free digital library (a literacy global non-profit organisation). She loves singing with choirs, and hopes to one day figure out how to hibernate in winter.
Chris Vick
Chris writes books for young people about the sea, danger and the wonder of magic and stories. He spent years working in whale conservation and a lot of time surfing before enrolling on the Bath Spa MA in Writing for Young People. He has written four books, published in several countries.
Kook, published by HarperCollins in 2016, was longlisted for the Branford Boase Award and shortlisted for the prestigious Andersen Award in Italy.
Girl. Boy. Sea, was published by Zephyr in 2019 and shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie medal. It won the Iris Award (an award voted for by international schools across Europe), and was nominated for the Sakura Award in Japan.
The Last Whale is published in hardback by Zephyr in August 2022. From killers to conservationists, it tells the story of three generations of the Kristensen family, their history as whale hunters and later their mission to save the great whales and our planet.
Chris has appeared at many festivals including Hay, Bath Children’s Literature Festival and Mare di Libri (Sea of Books) in Italy and has written blogs/features for the Guardian and Bustle.com. on YA issues. He lives near Bath, with his wife and daughter.
Interview with Venetia
Venetia Welby
Venetia Welby is a writer and journalist who has lived and worked on four continents. Her debut novel Mother of Darkness was published by Quartet in 2017 and her essays and short fiction have appeared in The London Magazine, Review 31 and anthologies Garden Among Fires and Trauma, among others. She lives in London with her husband, son and Bengal cat.
Harry Whitehead
Harry Whitehead is a novelist and teaches creative writing at the University of Leicester, where he directs the Centre for New Writing and the annual free litfest, Literary Leicester. His new novel, White Road (Claret 2025) is an eco-thriller set in the High Arctic. His first novel, The Cannibal Spirit (Penguin, 2011) was reviewed as ‘powerful, brave, ambitious’ (The Globe & Mail), ‘a thriller with a Joseph Conradian plot’ (The Walrus), ‘a unique work, compelling, complex, thought-provoking and impressive’ (Quill & Quire). Before academia, he worked for many years in film and TV production.
Read our interview with Laura
Laura Wood
Laura Wood is the winner of the Montegrappa Scholastic Prize for New Children’s Writing and the author of the ‘Poppy Pym’ and ‘Vote for Effie’ middle-grade series and YA novels, A Sky Painted Gold and Under a Dancing Star.
She loves Georgette Heyer novels, Fred Astaire films, travelling to far flung places, recipe books, Jilly Cooper, poetry, cosy woollen jumpers, Edith Nesbit, crisp autumn leaves, Jack Gilbert, new stationery, sensation fiction, salted caramel, feminism, Rufus Sewell’s cheek-bones, dogs, and drinking lashings of ginger beer.
Nick Wood
Nick Wood is a disabled South African-British clinical psychologist and Science Fiction (SF) writer, with a collection of short stories (alongside essays and new material) in LEARNING MONKEY AND CROCODILE (Luna Press, 2019). Following AZANIAN BRIDGES (2016), Nick’s latest novel is the BSFA shortlisted WATER MUST FALL (NewCon Press, 2020).
Marian Womack
Marian Womack is bilingual writer, born by the Atlantic Ocean in a small Andalusian town, and educated in the UK. Her writing is concerned with nature and it features strange landscapes, ghostly encounters, and uncanny transformations through a variety of genres – experimental and hybrid fiction, speculative fiction, gothic and ghostly fiction, and fiction of the Anthropocene. Her debut short story collection, Lost Objects (Luna Press, 2018), was shortlisted for two BSFA awards and one BSF award. Marian’s new novel, The Swimmers (Titan Books, 2021) is a near-future fable set in a luscious gothic Andalusia after an environmental catastrophe. She have also published one gothic/environmental fiction mystery, The Golden Key (Titan Books, 2020). Marian is the first Spanish graduate of the San Diego Clarion Writers’ Workshop, and she has recently graduated from her PhD in Creative Writing, focusing on the ways weird and gothic fiction portray environmental anxieties. She teaches on the Oxford University writing postgraduate programme, and she is an enthusiastic collage and pamphlet maker, and wild swimmer.
Climate Fiction Writers League 