adrienne maree brown on Writing Our Future /278
Cover illustration for Imagine 2200 by Carolina Rodriguez Fuenmayor.
What does a just climate future look like? In this bonus episode Ayana and guest adrienne maree brown discuss Imagine 2200, Fix’s climate-fiction contest, which recognizes stories that envision the next 180 years of equitable climate progress, imagining intersectional worlds of abundance, adaptation, reform, and hope. Turning towards fueling the imagination, this episode touches on stewarding a just future and the value of presence with ourselves, each other, and the movements we dedicate ourselves to. We are in a battle for our attention and for our imaginations. The winner will determine the future of the climate and of humanity. Facing this reality, and the reality of a changing climate is not easy, but despair around this can bring us closer to the earth and to each other when it is used as a learning tool. In the shift from panic to practice, visionary fiction is vital medicine, and adrienne guides us to stretch our minds to see a future beyond what the confines of white supremacy, colonialism, heteropatriarchy, and capitalism tell us is possible.
“New stories lead to new actions, new possibilities.”
Photo of adrienne maree brown by Anjali Pinto
adrienne maree brown is the writer-in-residence at the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute, and author of Grievers (the first novella in a trilogy on the Black Dawn imprint), Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation, We Will Not Cancel Us and Other Dreams of Transformative Justice, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds and the co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements and How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office. She is the co-host of the How to Survive the End of the World, Octavia’s Parables, and Emergent Strategy podcasts. adrienne is rooted in Detroit.
♫ The music featured in this episode is “You Take Me Places” by Nia Simone and “Natural Harmony” by The Mysterious They.
Episode References
A Brief History of Earth by Andrew H. Knoll
Mutual Aid by Dean Spade
Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
Octavia’s Brood edited by adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha
Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors | Fix
Guest’s Recommendations
Submit to this year’s Imagine 2200 contest
Read Imagine 2200: Climate fiction for Future Ancestors: Year One Collection
Read Malika Devich-Cyril’s Grief Belongs in Social Movements. Can We Embrace It? - In These Times
from Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation
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For The Wild is a slow media organization dedicated to land-based protection, co-liberation, and intersectional storytelling. We are rooted in a paradigm shift away from human supremacy, endless growth, and consumerism. As we dream towards a world of grounded justice and reciprocity, our work highlights impactful stories and deeply-felt meaning making as balms for these times.