creative writing on environmental justice
Read “A Wispy Chastening” in Reckoning 2.
Michael: The sense of ambiguity in “A Wispy Chastening” evokes, for me, a question about what kind of responsibility we should feel, at a personal level, for huge, human-caused environmental problems. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, global warming, wildlife starving to death with stomachs . . .
Michael: This essay of Kate Schapira’s in Catapult, about the decision not to have kids in the age of Trump and climate change, was the direct inspiration for my Reckoning 2 editorial about making the opposite decision. We’ve talked a lot about this since. Kate has very kindly agreed to share a little more of that discussion here.
Kate: What has having . . .
Read “Written in the Book of the Woods” in Reckoning 1.
Michael: Thank you so much for sharing this story of oneness with the woods. I made an immediate, visceral connection with “Written in the Book of the Woods” of a kind I haven’t often experienced reading fiction, and not for a very long time. I hope it has something like the . . .
Read “Insanitary” in Reckoning 1.
Michael: You pack a lot of significance into 250 words. One of the ways “Insanitary” gets to me is as a depiction of personal nature lost. I’ve experienced something like this as a kid and as an adult: I fell in love with a beautiful piece of nature, it shaped me, and then it was taken away from me. . . .
Read “The Hole in the Reef” in Reckoning 1 first—this interview has some spoilers.
Michael: We have in these Reckoning 1 interviews done a fair amount of thinking by now about generational understanding of humanity’s interdependence with nature and the conflict, at times epic, ensuing therefrom. “The Hole in the Reef” depicts . . .
Read “In Hambach Forst” in Reckoning 1.
Michael: Thank you so much for sharing this rather intense window on the front lines of climate activism. Reading it was a vicarious thrill for me. I do what I can—we’re all doing what we can, as many in the US have been telling ourselves frequently over the past five months in order to maintain our sanity. . . .
Extended, with my notes in italics, August 22nd, 2017.
Read “The End of Occidentalism” in Reckoning 1. Or don’t. Maybe read the interview first and then decide.
Michael: “The End of Occidentalism” is explicitly about resistance to colonization. It’s complex, there’s a lot to parse, and I have quite a lot of fun . . .
Read Lora Rivera’s story “When No One’s Left” in Reckoning 1.
Michael: You live in the desert. I gather you’re an avid climber, which makes me think you spend a lot of time outside, in the heat. And you’ve mentioned a number of places online that this landscape and experience colors your writing. Can you talk a little about . . .
Read “Behind the Sun” in Reckoning 1.
Michael: How much meaning do you expect a reader to bring to a story, and how much do you invest it with yourself and expect readers to take from it?
Justin: Fuck if I know. My goal is to make something that’s ripe with potential meanings. A lot of fiction and media I enjoy is less about one thing than it is potentially . . .
