About the Book
Nearly a year ago, when helping to raise awareness of Grist’s Imagine 2022 Climate Fiction Contest winners, we talked with Tory Stephens, Grist’s Creative Manager of the Imagine 2200 initiative. Now we have exciting news about a new anthology, Metamorphosis, published by Milkweed Editions in 2024, curated by Grist, and edited by Sheree Renée Thomas (my interview with Sheree and other editors of Africa Risen is here).
These stories are grounded in soul, a deep communion with the belief that we can—and must—rebuild our relationship with the planet. -Omar El Akkad, author of What Strange Paradise
Otherworldly but remarkably familiar, ancestral but firmly rooted in alternate futures, these twelve innovative stories—winners of the Imagine 2200 climate fiction contest organized by Grist—offer a glimpse of a future built on sustainability, inclusivity, and justice. A beekeeper finds purpose and new love after collaborating on a bee-based warning system for floods. An Indian family preserves its traditions through food, dance, and the latest communication fads. After an oceanic rapture, a lone survivor adapts to living in a tree on a small island with a vulture he befriends. Flickers of hope, even joy, illuminate these alternate realities.
Curated by Grist, the leading media organization dedicated to foregrounding stories of climate change, Metamorphosis is a visionary and speculative collection. Immersive, thought-provoking, and often surprising, these stories serve as a springboard for exploring how fiction can help us envision a tomorrow in which we flourish and thrive.
Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Our goal is to use the power of storytelling to illuminate the way toward a better world, inspire millions of people to walk that path with us, and show that the time for action is now. Our award-winning journalism engages the public about the perils of the most existential threat we face, and shows that a just and sustainable future is within reach.
The twelve stories in this anthology take place around the world.
Chat with Tory
This conversation includes some of our earlier chat as well.
Tell us something unique about yourself.
12 years ago, my partner and I owned a streetwear clothing company, called False Prophet. Our brand was a blend of political rebelisness mixed with hip hop and gothic undertones. People used to call it blvck fashion. That style is still around. A quote by the philosopher Albert Camus defined us and what we represented. It’s something I still ruminate on. It goes, “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” We rode the Instagram wave, our designs catching fire, but behind the scenes, the textile industry’s underbelly churned with environmental toxins and exploited labor. It really hit home when we asked a supplier to send us a value statement on how they treat their employees, and they said they didn’t have one, nor did they know who made the clothing. The one thing they did note, was that they were out of Bangladesh. I of course started to read up on Bangladesh and its role in the textile industry. I learned a ton about how the garment industry works, but once I read about child labor, workers’ ill health, and work-related death, I decided to exit the business. We had a good run, but it was mainly a hobby that brought in just enough income to keep it going. We care about people and understand solidarity means making hard choices. This one was easy.
How do you find authors to participate in Grist’s contests, and is interest growing?
We’ve relied on marketing, collaboration, and partnerships to spread the word about Imagine 2200. It’s worked well. We’ve received close to 3,000 short stories in the first three years! However, reaching a diverse audience in a crowded market has proven challenging.The main challenge is that we are looking to publish a collection that is diverse in a multitude of ways. We want solid representation from across the globe, and we want to ensure we have stories that reflect the diverse human experience. I talked about this before, but it bears repeating. We want intersectional characters and stories, and it’s not always easy to find these types of stories. To help ensure we are receiving the right stories we make sure the language we use is clear, and talks about the importance of intersectional characters and stories. We also partner and collaborate with writing affinity and community groups, and let their audience know that Imagine 2200 exists. Each conversation was unique, and the trust levels varied, but once folk knew we were an ally the conversation started to flourish, and organization and people wanted to help get this opportunity out and into the world.
Can you tell us how Metamorphosis came to be?
The pivotal moment really arrived way back in 2021. Someone close to me knew I was tasked with helping develop what would later become Imagine 2200. They told me to pick up Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements by adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha. This anthology illuminated the power of speculative fiction to challenge societal norms and envision a more equitable future. It ignited a passion within me to create a similar platform for climate fiction, one that would inspire action and foster empathy. I knew then that anthologies and short stories aren’t for everyone, but this anthology showed me that anthologies like all other literature have the power to create discussions, and focus our attention on important social and political issues.
I was fortunate to collaborate with visionary figures like Sheree Renée Thomas, an acclaimed afrofuturist writer and editor who wrote the foreword for Metamorphosis. It was a full-circle moment, a testament to the interconnectedness of the literary world. Octavia’s Brood had not only inspired me but had also played a role in bringing together a community of writers and thinkers committed to using fiction to address climate change.
Through this project, I’ve come to appreciate the power of literature to create echoes, spark discussions, and forge connections. Metamorphosis is more than just a collection of stories; it’s a testament to the enduring impact of great literature and the potential for human imagination to shape a better future.
I was also invited to participate in a discussion at Arizona State University, “How to Build Collective Visions of the Future Using Sci-Fi & Foresight Tools.” Part of the discussion highlighted the ephemeral nature of digital archives. We discussed groundbreaking online anthologies that had unfortunately disappeared due to website closures and canceled hosting. This experience solidified my belief in the importance of preserving these stories in physical book form.
By publishing these stories in book format, we ensure their longevity and accessibility. Books find their way into book clubs, literary magazines, and online discussions, fostering a wider reach and deeper impact. It’s funny because we often say everything on the internet is forever, but what I’ve learned is that, although that may be true for your most embarrassing moment, this isn’t true for literature. Literature hosted on digital domains requires funding, and funding for the arts is always a fight, so when the money dries up the content goes away. Over the past five years, I’ve had the opportunity to connect with a diverse community of readers and writers through book publishing, expanding the reach of climate fiction beyond digital platforms.
So it was a mix of seeing what adrienne and Walidah Imarisha did in the space, me learning that things on the internet are not always there forever like we think they are, and us trying to figure out a way to get these stories off the internet and in people’s libraries, barns, and other places people come together to discuss important things with their neighbors and community.
Do you plan future similar anthologies?
I’m passionate about continuing this work and bringing more climate fiction anthologies to market. I understand that anthologies can sometimes be considered a niche market, but I firmly believe there’s a profound and growing desire for stories that authentically reflect the complexities of our world and ignite the courageous conversations we desperately need to be having with each other.
Books are really accessible and have the unique power to catalyze these essential discussions. People are yearning to engage with the challenges we face, explore the potential solutions, and ultimately, envision a future filled with joy and justice.
My vision is to curate anthologies like Metamorphosis until someone tells me to stop. This work is incredibly rewarding for me. It allows me to contribute to a vital cultural shift, where we grapple with the realities of climate change through the lens of compelling narratives.
Climate fiction, far from being a mere genre, offers a crucial space for exploring our anxieties, hopes, and fears surrounding the climate crisis. It allows us to imagine different futures, to challenge our assumptions, and to ultimately inspire action. By amplifying the voices of diverse authors and presenting a multifaceted view of the climate crisis, we can empower readers to connect with the issues on a deeper, more emotional level.
I believe that by nurturing this space for creative expression and critical dialogue, we can foster a more informed, engaged, and ultimately, hopeful citizenry. We need climate fiction to jump off the page and into the hearts and minds of readers, igniting the conversations and inspiring the actions that will shape a more sustainable and equitable future.
What’s next for you and your team?
We just dropped our fourth collection on January 8th. It’s our fourth year running the contest, and it’s always inspiring to see the creativity and vision of the submissions. This year, we received over 1,200 stories from all over the world, which is incredible!
This collection, like in the past, is all about using storytelling to imagine the futures we want to create, where we’ve tackled climate challenges and built a thriving world. The stories can be hopeful, but they also acknowledge the struggles we face.
This year’s contest winners and finalists are a fantastic collection, featuring diverse voices from around the globe, particularly those most affected by climate change. They’re a testament to human ingenuity and the power of storytelling to inspire action.
The full collection was published on January 8th, and I can’t wait for you to check it out! You can find it at Grist.
Thank you, Tory! Learning more about your work at Grist is enlightening.
Bios
Grist’s curator Tory Stephens creates opportunities that transform organizations and shift culture. He is a resource generator and community builder for social justice issues, people, and movements. He currently works at Grist Magazine as their climate fiction creative manager, and uses storytelling to champion climate justice, and imagine green, clean, and just futures. In another life he owned a kick-butt streetwear company, and he would have gotten away with eating the last cookie too, if it weren’t for his three meddling kids.
Editor: Sheree Renée Thomas is a New York Times bestselling, two-time World Fantasy Award-winning author and editor. A 2022 Hugo Award Finalist, she is the author of Nine Bar Blues: Stories from an Ancient Future, a Locus, Ignyte, and World Fantasy Finalist, Marvel’s Black Panther: Panther’s Rage novel, an adaptation of the legendary comics, and she collaborated with Janelle Monáe on the story, “Timebox Altar(ed)” in The Memory Librarian and Other Stories of Dirty Computer. She co-edited Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, a NAACP Image Award nominee, and is the Editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, founded in 1949 and the Associate Editor of Obsidian, founded in 1975 during the Black Arts Movement. Sheree lives in her hometown, Memphis, Tennessee, near a mighty river and a pyramid. Visit Sheree’s website.
Contributors
- Nadine Tomlinson (she/her) is a speculative storyteller and freelance writer from Jamaica. Her poetry and short stories have been published in adda, The Gold Anthology, and Intersect Antigua.
- Jamie Liu (she/they) is a writer, climate resilience planner, and climate activism volunteer. She was born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley, California, and currently lives in New York City.
- Susan Kaye Quinn (she/her) is an environmental engineer turned science-fiction writer currently residing in Pittsburgh and dreaming of a better future through her hopepunk climate fiction. Her self-published novels have been optioned for virtual reality, translated into German and French, and featured in several anthologies.
- T. K. Rex (she/they) writes science fiction and fantasy in San Francisco on Ohlone land, tweets dinosaur stuff as @tharkibo, and recently graduated from the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop. Look for her stories in places like Strange Horizons, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, and Queer Blades.
- Akhim Alexis (he/him) is a writer from Trinidad and Tobago who holds an M.A. in literatures in English from the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine. He is the winner of the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival’s Elizabeth Nunez Award for Writers in the Caribbean and was a finalist for the Barry Hannah Prize in Fiction and the Johnson and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writers Prize. His work has appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Transition Magazine, Chestnut Review, and Moko.
- Rich Larson was born in Galmi, Niger, has lived in Spain and Czech Republic, and is currently based in Grande Prairie, Canada. He is the author of “Annex” and “Tomorrow Factory,” and his fiction has been translated into over a dozen languages. His first screen adaptation, “Ice,” won the 2021 Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Form Animated Program.
- Cameron Nell Ishee (she/her) is a writer and research program administrator most recently from Vermont, whose roots include the Mississippi Gulf Coast. This is the first time her work has been published, and she celebrated with chilaquiles (the best breakfast food).
- Sanjana Sekhar (she/her) is a socioecological storyteller amplifying character-driven stories that help heal our human relationships to ourselves, each other, and our planet. As a writer, creative producer, and film director, her work has been featured in the Hollywood Climate Summit, Tedx Climate Across the Americas, VH1 India, Sage Magazine, and the Webby Honorees. She is currently based in Los Angeles on Tongva homelands.
- Louis Evans (he/him) has been going to Passover seder at his Papa and Bubbe’s house since the year he was born. He is a writer living and working in Brooklyn, New York. His science fiction has appeared in Vice, the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Nature: Futures. His climate fiction has appeared in Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Little Blue Marble, Fusion Fragment, and more. He’s online at evanslouis.com.
- Rae Mariz (she/her) is a Portuguese-Hawaiian speculative fiction storyteller, artist, translator, and cultural critic with roots in the Big Island, Bay Area, and Pacific Northwest. She’s the author of the Utopia Award-nominated climate fantasy Weird Fishes and cofounder of Toxoplasma Press. Her short fiction has appeared in khōréō magazine and made the shortlist for 2023 IAFA Imagining Indigenous Futurisms Award. She lives in Stockholm, Sweden with her long-term collaborator and their best collaboration yet.
- Gina McGuire (she/her) is currently pursuing a PhD in geography and environment at the University of Hawaiʻi, where she considers the well-being of rural coasts from the lens of Hawaiian healing praxis. Her work has been published in Trouble the Waters: Tales From the Deep Blue, Yellow Medicine Review, “But When You Come from Water”, and We Are Ocean People: Indigenous Leadership in Marine Conservation, and she is the 2021 winner of the Imagining Indigenous Futurisms Award. Her writing and research are grounded in her love for Indigenous lands and persons (human and non-human), and in aloha for her ancestors.
- Commando Jugendstil:
- Laura C Zanetti-Domingues (zie/zir) is a senior staff scientist at the CLF Octopus facility in Oxfordshire by day, and a founding member of Commando Jugendstil for the rest. As part of Commando Jugendstil, zie has taken part in several sustainability projects around Europe and has been included in several solarpunk anthologies published in the U.S., Spain, Australia, the U.K., and Italy.
- Guglielmo Miccolupi (he/him) is an illustrator and graphic designer based in Milan, Italy, and Reading, England, and the founder of Commando Jugendstil. One of the initiators of solarpunk in Italy, he has led the Commando through several sustainability and public art projects across Europe, has contributed to the narration of several short stories published in international solarpunk anthologies, and has realized several illustrations depicting hopeful, sustainable futures, such as the postcards published monthly by Solarpunk Italia and Solarpunk Magazine.
