Exploring literary visions of greener, fairer ways of being
Following the The Word for World is Forest symposium, I was invited to turn my presentation into a full length article for The Acorn journal. I’m pleased to say this is now available online.
Continue reading “My new publication on The Word for World is Forest by Ursula Le Guin”
For the past year or so I have been collaborating in a group poetry project organised by Bean Sawyer. Each month, a poem is started by Bean or another guest poet, then posted on to the next person to write the next verse, then the next person to write the next verse, and so on. When the poem is complete, it is sent home to Bean.
Bean has aptly named this project ‘The Murmuration of Words’. As a writer, Bean is very good at naming things. In this post I’ll explore more about murmurations as a model for working collectively, and about the experience of writing as a group.
Continue reading “The Murmuration of Words Project: Writing Poetry Collectively”
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin is book of the month. We will be discussing this book at our next Utopian Book Collective meeting on Monday 6th May.
I re-read The Dispossessed this month in anticipation of our upcoming book group meeting. I can’t wait to discuss it. In this post I simply want to highlight a few quotations that stood out for me on re-reading. I’m sure other people will have their own moments in the novel that carry meaning for them. It’s such a rich text. Please let me know in the comments or at book group if you happen to be able to make it.
Continue reading “The Dispossessed: what resonates on re-reading”Part II of this three part series, in which Nathan Taylor-Gray explores fictional utopian languages and whether they reflect the utopian ideals of their speakers. If you missed it, you can catch up on Part I here.
Continue reading “Fictional utopian languages: Part II – Speedtalk, Pravic”
Continue reading “Triton: Book of the Month September 2023”Bartleby, the co-op member who had been there the longest, loaned him books, weird books he had never heard of, that spoke of other realities, other times, stranger than this one. Joanna Russ, Samuel Delany, Octavia Butler’
‘And The World Was New’, Chana Porter
My presentation from the The Word for World is Forest symposium is now available online! Find it on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, anchor.fm, PlayerFM and more. Wherever you get your podcasts, as they say.
Continue reading “An ecofeminist and utopian perspective on The Word For World Is Forest”
This morning brought news I have had a proposal accepted to present at an online symposium dedicated to Ursula K. Le Guin’s novella The Word for World is Forest.
The symposium is being organised by The Anarres Project for Alternative Futures on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Forest.
Continue reading “The Word for World is Forest symposium”I wore my Just Utopias badge to a school event recently and it proved a conversation starter. On the spot, I was asked for utopian book recommendations. I can’t believe I didn’t have an answer prepared for this scenario, but there you go.
So, what would I recommend to someone completely new to the genre? Where is the ideal starting point for utopia?
Continue reading “Three quick-fire utopian book recommendations”
Pandemic. Wild fires. Climate crisis. Biodiversity crisis. Rise of the far right. Sometimes, it seems like things aren’t going so well.
I heard an Indigenous viewpoint on the multiple crises facing North America (and the world) from scholar Dr Kim TallBear at the ASLE (Association for the Study of Literature and Environment) Nearly Carbon Neutral virtual conference in July 2020. It was enlightening, perspective-shifting stuff. I want to share with you some of the thoughts that have stayed with me ever since.
Continue reading “North America: a failing colonialist utopia?”