6 February 2015

Sarah Holding, author of the SeaBEAN Trilogy,

writes for The Guardian on cli-fi…

Sarah Holding on a book genre you may not have heard of before. Not sci-fi but cli-fi: fiction that explores the consequences of climate change – and possibilities to rewrite the future

Striking a balance between hope and hopelessness is not easy, but it became a whole lot easier once I realised my own writing wasn’t merely magical realism, nor for that matter sci-fi, but “cli-fi” – that is fiction that foregrounds climate change.

Cli-fi is trending in teen and YA publishing right now – witness The Carbon Diaries by Saci Lloyd, Red Rock by Kate Kelly, and Water’s Edge by Rachel Meehan – just a handful of the many British titles tackling a wide range of compelling issues: shortages of food, fresh water, oxygen or dry land, giving us vivid depictions of the human consequences of climate change.

With cli-fi you can liven things up very quickly and get young people writing fictional scenarios in which the world has gone horribly wrong. At every workshop I’ve run – whether it was in a primary or secondary school, a staged event with Ed Davey during Climate Week or my Big Write at the Isle of Wight literary festival, the outcome is very powerful: cli-fi makes young people realise that they too can rewrite our future.

Read the full article on The Guardian website