Cirrus@Austlit

'This paper considers an evolving project about climate change that will explore
using collaborative creative writing strategies to emotionally support and engage
writers, primarily focusing on how narratives of hope and optimism might counter
affective responses of anxiety, and the resultant solipsistic inertia or surrender. We
ask: what role could collaborative fiction play in helping to create positive futures
that emotionally strengthen us to manage what may come and what already is? We
outline the inspiration and background to our project and begin to theorise
justification for applying posthuman approaches to the question of reimagining
climate fiction. We review a number of collaborative climate change projects
located outside of traditional writing but still drawing on narrative storytelling, and
consider how our project – which focuses on genre fictions – might add to the
horizon point; one that is not delusional, but also does not lead to dystopian despair.'

(Publication abstract)