About the Book
A modern coven must thwart a looming eco-cataclysm and find the key to the bright futures we need.
Betsy’s a modern-day Witch with an ageless problem: she’s worried about screwing up her coven’s ritual. Again. But the coven has a bigger issue to face—the destruction of their home thanks to a fracked gas pipeline. And then an even bigger problem—a greed-fueled entity will soon obliterate Earth’s ability to support life. See more at Water Dragon Publishing.
Chat with BrightFlame
Mary: It’s great to finally spotlight your work here! Tell us something about your life that not many people know about.
BrightFlame: Hi Mary, thank you for having me on!
What a juicy question. Since my early 20s, I’ve been a web-weaver, meaning I love to connect people. These days it’s also about interconnection with all our Earth kin. Back in the day, I had the urge to create a center where people could come together to create. I pictured art, writing, being with Nature, sharing healing modalities and bodywork, and more.
More recently this dream coalesced as the nature preserve where I live with my partner. We tend it lightly, re-introducing native plants, helping assure forest regeneration, inviting humans to be among the wild. We create community here, including gatherings, rituals, workshops, and music jams.
Mary: I met you at the Rewilding our Stories Discord, which you’ve been an integral part of. What other writing communities are you a part of, and how do they help?
BrightFlame: Writing communities have helped me immensely. The first group I joined was rather informal, pulled together by a woman who’s become a dear friend and also a published writer. I shared a bit of an early draft of my manuscript that became The Working. We met in-person for a number of months, but not all were serious writers, and the group fell apart.
Next, I became part of an online group of writers formed from the first iteration of Manuscript Academy’s five-day workshop on honing first pages. Our cohort wanted to stay connected, and most are still part of the resulting Mid-May Writing Group. While we’re a very supportive online group, we don’t have a set critique process or schedule.
I joined the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers in 2019. We’re a large community, close to 200 writers, with many critique groups, some for novels, some short stories, and some graphic novels. We host events, attend conferences together (notably Readercon), and we have published and successful authors among us. I love the BSFW community. They’ve helped me sell a number of my short stories by offering detailed and invaluable critiques. Critiques and beta feedback from BSFW folx helped me make final revisions to The Working before publication.
Mary: Tell us about The Working and what inspired it, or was it accidental?
BrightFlame: The Working started with a question: What can we do about all those who harm life on this planet—those individuals and groups whose claws rip apart the Web of Life? I didn’t know the answer when I began to write.
The novel is inspired by an ancient foremother who communicates with me. She’s the basis for the Old Ones in my story: Neolithic Elders who reach through time to warn that the domination and hoarding of resources begun in their time—patriarchy—would trigger a cataclysm in our time.
The modern coven of my story battles a fracked gas pipeline set to destroy their home. And then finds a nefarious entity in the metaphysical realm they need to thwart before it kills the Web of Life. The Working embeds magical activism and tools as well as real spiritual practice.
It is both solarpunk and fabulism that leaves us with hope and a path to action.
Mary: How does your book align with nature and place?
BrightFlame: One of the coven members, Sail, writes an environmental column for a living. It’s her woodland home where the coven meets that a pipeline would destroy. The setting is a fictionalized version of where I live, and I strive for visceral descriptions so readers feel Nature. Forest is part of the community that forms around the coven’s home. We also see a few of Sail’s columns embedded in the story. I contrast the devastation to the land caused by the nefarious entities with the vibrant beauty and health of a regenerative forest.
Some of the coveners live in New York City. The Working has vivid scenes both in rural and urban settings.
Mary: Does your book have a message, or do you consider it more a piece of art? Or both?
BrightFlame: It definitely has a message, at least one. I’m thankful that, according to reviewers, I’ve managed to weave this into an exciting plot and relatable characters. Frankly, it took me years of revising my manuscript to dial back the didactic bits and add more tension, depth, and thrilling plot.
My book speaks truth through fiction and, as one reviewer said, it is a blueprint for how to change the world. It lifts eco-feminism, community, justice, and hope.
Mary: That’s great, and I totally get it about spending a lot of time on revision. Have you been on book tours or community events to promote your book?
BrightFlame: I’ve taken part in many regional events, plus online worldwide events. For instance, I was on the program at last year’s Solarpunk Conference as well as the in-person Readercon. I look forward to the video of my conversation with Sarena Ulibarri from the 2024 Flights of Foundry. I’ve also been a guest on several podcasts. You’ll find links to those and other goodies on the Media page of my site.
Two memorable in-person events: authors Cameron Roberson, Phoebe Wagner, and Alex DiFrancesco joined me for “Conversations in Solarpunk, Futurisms, and Climate Fiction” at a regional book festival Fall 2024. And as part of BSFW’s “We Demand Stories” series, I was a panelist on stories “about Climate with a Future” in April 2025.
Mary: What other writers and books do you enjoy and why?
BrightFlame: I devour anything by Louise Erdrich, Barbara Kingsolver, N.K. Jemisin, and recommend all of Octavia E. Butler’s books. These writers undertake stories about justice in various and diverse settings, often with environmental themes. (I compare my book to Jemisin’s The City We Became.)
I recommend anything that Stelliform Press publishes for diverse, climate, and solarpunk fiction. Some of the many books that float to the top of my list:
- Different Kinds of Defiance by Renan Bernardo
- Be the Sea by Clara Ward
- A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys
- Another Life by Sarena Ulibarri
- Sordidez by E.G. Condé
- The Lost Cause by Cory Doctorow
- All City by Alex DiFrancesco
Take a look at the Great Reads section of my website. It’s quite a list.
Mary: I agree about Stelliform Press. I devour most of the books they publish. What’s next for you?
BrightFlame: I’m pitching my collection of solarpunk stories that form a mosaic novel. They spiral through various timeframes in the future I desire that I call the Threads. Readers can find some of the stories in published anthologies like Bright Green Futures, Solarpunk Creatures, and Bioluminescent. Plus, I link to a few on my site that folx can read for free.
I’m also writing a nonfiction book on Solarpunk Witchcraft. It’s modeled on a workshop I offer and includes experiential exercises and anecdotes from those who’ve worked with me.
Mary: Thanks so much for this chat!
About the Author
BrightFlame (she/they) writes, teaches, and makes magic towards a just, regenerative world. In addition to her speculative novel The Working, her climate fiction appears in anthologies and magazines, most recently in Bright Green Futures and Solarpunk Creatures. She’s a member of the Climate Fiction Writers League and the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association. Her globally acclaimed workshops for magical and mundane audiences boost interconnection and resilience. She co-founded the Center for Sustainable Futures at Columbia University that features her workshops and nonfiction. She lives on Lenape territory (Turtle Island/U.S.) with a human, a forest, a labyrinth, the Fae, bees, turtles, fungi, and many other nonhumans. Visit brightflame.com for musings, doodles, workshops, and more.
Publisher’s link: https://waterdragonpublishing.com/product/working/
