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Paper short abstract

The Climate Fiction Writers League is comprised of authors who transform climate narratives into literature of the fantastic. Utilizing novels by League authors, I trace a path from anthropocenic disruption to climate fiction with emphasis on the ways these authors call readers to climate action.

Paper long abstract

The Climate Fiction Writers League is a growing collective of authors "who believe in the necessity of climate action, immediately and absolutely" and who transform climate narratives about bat conservation, changing weather patterns, water shortages, and other concerns into literature of the fantastic for children, teens, and adults. League authors have written The Tale of a Toothbrush: A Story of Plastic in Our Oceans, a picture book for children, The Girl Who Broke the Sea, a Young Adult thriller about deep-sea mining, The Many Selves of Katherine North, in which a woman projects her consciousness into the bodies of wild animals, and other works of fiction that aim to "inspire passion, empathy, and action in readers."

Climate fiction has as its inception a variety of anthropocenic disruptions of natural systems like ocean pollution, deep sea mining, and the abuse of wild animals, which are transformed into climate narratives by people who discuss them in various contexts. League authors perform their belief in the necessity of climate action by re-narrativizing these disruptions in fiction, hoping to inspire further activism on the part of readers. Utilizing three novels by League authors; Memory of Water by Finnish author Emmi Itäranta, Any Human Power by Scottish author Manda Scott, and The First Rule of Climate Club by American author Carrie Firestone, I trace a path from anthropocenic disruption to climate fiction with emphasis on the ways these authors call readers to climate action.