Tory Stephens works at Grist Magazine as their climate fiction creative manager and uses storytelling to champion climate justice, and imagine green, clean, and just futures. He's going to tell us about a climate fiction contest, called Imagine 2200, that he says changed him and challenged him on a personal level.
It also inspired thousands of writers to explore what it would be like to write hopeful fiction about the future.
Find out more about Imagine 2200.
Find out more about Imagine 2200.
Creators & Guests
What is The Future Lab with Lee Schneider?
We tell stories that shape the future.
The Future Lab podcast is a platform for authors of science fiction, climate fiction, and fantasy to discuss how we shape our future with the stories we tell today. We’re interviewing publishers and editors who are amplyfying new voices in those genres.
New episodes start in September 2024.
Past seasons of the podcast have covered indie publishing and book marketing. The episodes are an open conversation about how to create online communities that are diverse, welcoming, and safe. In each episode, Lee Schneider interviews a platform creator, an author, or publisher about their projects and the communities they are building online.
One of the big things that's happened with this initiative is the writers, getting people to write in a different manner. You know, there's a certain kind of email that I get from writer that says, you know, I've never been challenged to think in this way, to write something positive. I've been writing dystopian stories for my whole life, and now I'm I flexed a muscle that's got me moving in a different direction, and I'm kinda hooked, and I wanna try this again. Thank you.
Lee Schneider:That's Tory Stevens. He works at Grist Magazine as their climate fiction creative manager. I'm Lee Schneider, and this is the FutureLab. As Grist's climate fiction creative manager, Torrey uses storytelling to champion climate justice and imagine green clean and just futures. He's going to tell us about a climate fiction contest called Imagine 22100 that he says changed him and challenged him on a personal level.
Lee Schneider:It also inspired thousands of writers to explore what it would be like to write hopeful fiction about the future. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Tori Stevens. Tori, thanks so much for doing this and welcome to the podcast.
Tory Stephens:Thanks so much. Thanks for having me.
Lee Schneider:I first discovered what you were working on by reading Joy Donnell's story in Grist's imagine 22100 climate fiction initiative. Saw that on LinkedIn. She posted it there. Can you tell us how this whole thing came about? How did it start?
Tory Stephens:Yeah. So Imagine at this point is 4 years old, and we're coming up on our 4th contest. And, you know, a a big part of this is the contest, but we also publish stories like the one that you, encountered with Joy Danelle's story. That one's a part of our editor's picks. Unfortunately, she didn't win the contest, but her story was excellent.
Tory Stephens:We received thousands of stories, and hers was, like, one of the ones that was really, like, resonating with us. So we knew at some point we wanted to publish it. The contest came about because Grist was exploring quietly whether they should bring a literary or climate fiction or something other than just the news to their offerings or their, website. And for the listeners, Grist is a nonprofit independent news media organization and has been around for 25 years. It's actually Grist's 25th year.
Tory Stephens:And we're solely focused on the climate, from the angles of justice, climate solutions, and bringing the environmental news that you all crave and, need, in these day in this in this day and age. So we were exploring quietly behind the scenes. You know, I got, into a conversation with the founder of GRIS, Chip Geller, and he said, you know, I've been thinking about bringing climate fiction to Grist, and this is when I was not in this driver's seat. At the time, I was a network weaver, which was a very cool title for a very cool job. It was basically bringing folks together to have conversations around climate solutions and hope.
Tory Stephens:And he just wanted to get my idea on it, and I said, I don't know much about climate fiction at all. I had come from the fundraising world and and only been at GRIS for about 3 months at that time, and so climate fiction was just really just that was the first time I had heard of it. Fast forward to a few months later, we are at a retreat, and I'm doing my network weaving, and I'm bringing people together, and we're having this, retreat where it's, folks discussing just their their different climate solutions that they're bringing into the world and other people kind of learning about them, asking questions about them, and inspecting those things. And we did this because Grist has a, like, a list, kinda like times 100 or Forbes 50. We have a list called Grist 50, and it showcases 50 people from across the United States that are focused on climate solutions or justice, or climate justice, I should say.
Tory Stephens:And so those are the people we were convening. And right at the tail end of that, you know, retreat that we were having for 3 3 days, Chip said, I wanna do something different. You know, Grist has been around at this time. I think it was 20 years. And he said, what if we were to offer something new at Grist?
Tory Stephens:What what would it be? Just like go into small groups. We broke those people into small groups, and then they came back and they presented their ideas. And one of the groups said, you all should do climate fiction. And for him, that was a real tell because we had already been exploring this.
Tory Stephens:And then here's these kind of, like, movers and shakers, you know, saying the same thing. And it was just something in the heart of what Chip Geller wanted. He wanted to bring something that is creative and could speak to people in a different way other than just the news, the facts, the figures around what's happening. And so, yeah, I said, he approached me and said, well, will you help me kinda bring, you know, bring this together, bring this energy together, try to, like, think through what's the business model, what's the kind of approach, what kind of climate fiction do we do? And the thing about Grist that they've always had is this ethos around, you know, no not they wanna break the cycle of doom and gloom, and that's been, like, the that was the tagline for years.
Tory Stephens:We've moved on from that tagline, but that was the kinda ethos and still is for, like, 20 years. And so we knew that that's the kind of climate fiction we wanted to bring, something that was hopeful, something that was around the climate solutions. And then we started to scratch, like, what's the other things other than just that? And I said, you know, let's do something different. Instead of us just thinking about this, let's widen the circle and let's bring back those Chris 50 folks from all different walks of life, you know, who are scientists, activists, novelists, just a whole range of people, influencers, fashion folks that are all working on a climate solution.
Tory Stephens:And so we brought those folks together pre pandemic, and we started to plan this whole thing and it was gonna be an in person retreat and then the pandemic happened. So then we had to really pivot because we still wanted to have this convening where we talked about climate fiction and the type of climate fiction we wanna bring to grist. And so we ended up pivoting to using Miro, an online whiteboard technology, and we involved a couple facilitators that could help us with this facilitation because Zoom was new to us. Using Miro was new to us. And one of the gentlemen that we worked with, Adam Burke, he he was like, you know what?
Tory Stephens:I I have a background that I think is relevant here, and he said, when I was younger, I used to play d and d, Dungeons and Dragons. And I was, like, okay. Where is this going? And he was, like, I think that we should bring this convening of people together and have them all go on a quest, like a d and d quest, and combined it with your ideas of doing a visioning quest, and we'll be able to get them to dream and think through about the world that they want. But, essentially, they'll be dropping gems around the kind of climate fiction they want.
Tory Stephens:And so fast forward to a couple months later, we put people into these different groups and sent them on a quest together. The folks didn't know each other, and they could dream, envision the future they wanted. We called that game at the time Imagine 22100. It was just a game. We didn't even think that that would be the name of the climate fiction initiative we started.
Tory Stephens:We just created it for this specific instance, and that game was a lot of fun, and I learned a ton from all the things that these people put on their timelines. There was these timelines to how do you get to a clean, green, and just world is what we asked them. And so everybody went on their own quest, and on their way, they had to map a way to get to this beautiful world of, you know, 22100 where we've, you know, solved a lot of the crisis, where we're, in right relationship with ourself in the earth, and where justice is a kind of a a big piece of this whole thing. And what I the things I learned after that, there was all these beautiful timelines on these Miro boards. I sat with them.
Tory Stephens:They gave me 2 months to sit with these kind of ideas and sift through them, and people put things on there that I just wouldn't have if I if I did this alone, climate fiction wouldn't have been as dynamic as it is at Grist, because it wouldn't have all these ideas that I encountered and were somewhat new to me. I didn't know about the Land Back movement, you know, just ceding lands back to the indigenous folks. I didn't know about that. That wasn't something I've again, I had moved from fundraising in the health advocacy world to climate, and, you know, this was a new concept to me. The some of the justice folks were really pushing hard for reparations for black and brown folk and tying that to the climate movement and how it's relevant.
Tory Stephens:And there was abolitionists also at the table, you know, folks who don't believe in the kind of police state and prisons and wanna, you know, really abolish those. You know, that was something that I had heard about, but I didn't know about it in great detail on how people were linking it to the climate issues that are happening in jails and other places. And so this I was just swirling with all this new information, and what I did was we squished those things into the prompt that we now put out to the world. So when we ask for a story, we ask for climate fiction that's hopeful and climb and has climate solutions. That's probably where we would have left it if it wasn't for this meeting that we had.
Tory Stephens:What we've added is that we want intersectional characters. We we have a focus on folks that are marginalized and on the front lines of the climate fight, So folks, living in island nations, you know, could be Louisiana, could be, food deserts, a lot of different things there. And yeah. So so that's how we got to this kind of, calm. I I would call it, like, a dynamic climate fiction that is inclusive.
Lee Schneider:It's really the details mattered so much, didn't they? Seeing all those levels, some of which were new to you, really mattered.
Tory Stephens:Yeah. Yes. They did.
Lee Schneider:CHRISTUS always impressed me, even from way back, with that sense of detail and a systemic approach to things and to the world. Why do you think climate justice needs to go deep and address these foundational problems, and does climate fiction need to do that also?
Tory Stephens:Yeah. From the justice I mean, for me, justice is just a sort of way to communicate that we care for other humans. Right? And that there is a right way to walk and live your life. I grew up, evangelical, and so there's this really deep desire to do good in the world.
Tory Stephens:I'm not evangelical anymore, but that kind of ethos is still there in wanting to care for my fellow humans and my neighbors and, you know, love thy neighbor, that sort of thing. Is still, like, deeply a part of who I am as a person. And so in the health advocacy space, you know, I was advocating for justice, and I learned that the reason we wanna go deep is because we want other people to be happy, healthy, and whole. And, you know, many folks a lot of the reason people are calling for justice is because there's trauma in people's lives, trauma that they did not bring to their life, trauma that is coming from outside of their community or even in their community, but is not right. You know, there it's a strong you have to have a strong idea of what is wrong and what is right.
Tory Stephens:And I think, like, a lot of people know this. And so to have a justice lens is really to just do good by others. And I think in climate fiction, we wanna do the same. And, like, the the kind of climate fiction we are bringing to the table is showcasing the visions that people have of a more just world because we live in a world that isn't always just. You look at places like Cancer Alley in Louisiana and what's been happening to the black and brown folks down there, and that is clearly unjust and unfair.
Tory Stephens:Like, it shouldn't be that people have cancer that they didn't, like, you know, bring to themselves. You know, they didn't do these things. These things have been done to them. Indigenous folks who've been pushed off their land for, you know, 100 of years and us not thinking about ceding back some of the land or even a a lot of land back to them, I think, is unjust. And so the reason we wanna depict these things in climate fiction you know, I used to say it was just because, you know, we we wanna talk about these things.
Tory Stephens:Right? But we also wanna vision what that world looks like. So what does it look like when you seed lands back to folk? What does it look like when you clean up Cancer Alley and people are thriving and their health, is not in decline because of the poisons in the water due to the fossil fuel industry and the plastic in, industry as well? So we wanna show what that looks like.
Tory Stephens:Sometimes people say, like, oh, that's utopian. And, like, is it utopian to kind of, like, have a a world where someone has, like, clean water, in a nice place to kind of raise their kids that is free of violence and, you know, the air quality is good, that's not utopian. Right? And, you know, sometimes we do get utopian stories that are, like, you know, really, pushing in a way that I've never seen. But even then, I'm like, is it really Utopian?
Tory Stephens:Like, one of the far ideas that I'm thinking of is, like, being in right relationship with animals and deciding that they too deserve rights, you know, that we have and that we're not just domineering over these animals and that we can, you know, kill them at will or whatnot. And so, you know, some people will be like, oh, well, that that's, like, a utopian idea. I don't think so. It doesn't have to be. And so we just wanna explore justice from a fictional lens that allows us to vision the world that we want and to to some folks, the world that they deserve.
Lee Schneider:I wanted to dig into that a little bit. One of the secret agendas of mine of doing this podcast, not so secret that since I'm announcing it, is I wanna show the road map to writing this kind of fiction that models the future and is utopian in a way that seems like it could really happen. I have a saying, writing about dystopia is easy, but utopia is hard. And the authors in the contests now, they're telling stories of the challenges ahead of us, but they're also modeling the way to maybe overcome them or at least be more sustainable and have a more just world. Now my question here is, can a story do that?
Lee Schneider:Does fiction really help create a better reality?
Tory Stephens:Yeah. I would say so. I mean, one of the things that I so this is one thing that I've been harping on for a little while now is the the lack of third spaces in American life. You know? I don't know if folks don't know what a third space is.
Tory Stephens:Just for the folks that are listening, It is your bowling alley, your coffee shop, anywhere that's not your home or work. And now that we many people work from home, that is, like, their one space. And so we're not interacting with each other as much as we should be. You know, oftentimes, our third space is this, like, social media place. And what I think these stories do is they allow 3rd spaces to pop up.
Tory Stephens:So book clubs, story reading sessions, meetups where people talk about some of the solutions that are happening in these stories, You know, that's the sort of thing, that that helps people, because right now, there's a lack of social belonging. And I think that's a that's not just an American crisis. You know, it's it's a kind of, like, modernity crisis, you know, something that comes along with modernity and all the technology that we have. And I think it's a part of the problem for us to solve so that we can solve the climate crisis. We need to talk about this as a community, the things that are happening in our local environment and area and what solutions we can provide.
Tory Stephens:And I don't think that social media will be the you know, you can get some things done on social media, but we're gonna have to talk with each other at libraries, in public squares, sitting down in the grass, what have you, building community. And so that's one part of this, building out, like, a third these stories can allow for a third space to kind of bloom if if you build that around them. So that's one thing that I'm just, like, suggesting people do because I wanna see more of that, and I think it's helpful. The other piece around, like, the visions that they can offer is that people, when you write and you imagine, you can create visions in ways of being with each other that don't exist right now. You can create a, piece of tech that doesn't exist right now but is needed, or you see you the writer sees as needed.
Tory Stephens:I mean, Star Trek is, like, the OG of this. Right? I'm not a I'm not a huge Star Trek fan. I like like it when I watch it, but I don't know all the, like, people in the gizmos. But they had, like, a cell phone thing, with you know, like, years ago, And now, lo and behold, we have cell phones.
Tory Stephens:So and and you can reference so many other books, and books don't always just do tech. Like, that's the sci fi community that leans on tech. But just, again, how do we live with each other? How do we mitigate, our relationships? You know, because a lot of these stories, even though they are utopian or I would say that 30% are probably utopian.
Tory Stephens:Others are what I'm calling, and others are calling througtopia. We can get into what Thrutopia is a little bit more later if you want, but, you know, offering a pathway to a a beautiful and better world. And then, you know, there's there's this other piece of it, which is other than just the throughtopia, utopia, the visions, there's this moment where you can see an arc or a choice that needs to be made. Right? A lot of these stories you know how you were saying, like, dystopian versus utopian stories.
Tory Stephens:Utopian stories are harder to tell. Well, one of the things I've seen a lot of the writers do is where the character has to make a big choice around the you know, what are they gonna do? Are they gonna are they gonna leave Earth or stay? We have a few of those. You know?
Tory Stephens:I think there's been 2 stories that were, really big with us. 1 was Earthbound that we published recently, and then we also have another one called Afterglow, which is also the same name of the book that we published in 2 or 3 years ago. In both of those stories, you know, the world is not totally sorted out, but it's getting better. But some people still think it's not worth investing in Earth. We should leave.
Tory Stephens:And, you know, the main characters in these stories, they both decide to stay. Sorry for the spoiler. But, I I think that that you know, so, again, not all these stories are utopian. They're they some lean in that direction, but others lean in the direction of just having hope that we will make it as, you know, humans and that the earth will become this, like, you know, flourishing place where, it's not over polluted, and it's clean, green, and just. And so so that's one of the mechanics I see is, like, you know, let's make a big choice.
Tory Stephens:You know? And then another one when sometimes people are further along on the scale of moving towards or in utopia is just showing the social dynamics of what you know, there's still choices. Right? I'll give an example of a story that we have. There's a beautiful story called 7 Sisters about, women on a tea farm, and they're working in right relationship with each other.
Tory Stephens:There's folks from all different walks of life and background, and their salesperson who takes, you know, they use, like, old school kind of ships to kind of move around the world because they don't wanna use, you know, motor, in fossil fuels. And so that person is in Brazil, at the time they're selling the tea. They're, you know, placing or they're taking orders from different buyers and whatnot. And the farm is, you know, moving along, but then they have a issue with their, like, drones, and those go down. So then they have to pick the tea themselves, and that's, like, a lot more laborious.
Tory Stephens:And they're trying to figure out how to, you know, mitigate this issue. And then the person who has a big heart that is in Brazil selling tea comes home, and they bring migrants with them, climate migrants, like a woman and her daughter. And the the the community, which is very accepting, very justice driven, caring community, still at that time because they're having financial issues with their drones, and they have to replace them and, you know so there's a choice again. Do we accept these people? Do we take them in even though we're having a hardship of our own and there's some financial issues?
Tory Stephens:In the end, they end up doing it. Spoiler again. Sorry. But, yeah, that's that's another example, just interpersonal relationships inside of a a a community, where things are looking good, but there's still hard choices to be made even in a, quote, unquote, utopia.
Lee Schneider:I think that's so well put. One thing that fiction does so well is pose a problem, and then you put your characters. They either figure it out or they don't. Tragedy, they don't figure it out. Comedy or positive, they figure it out.
Lee Schneider:And science fiction and climate fiction adds that extra level, as you're saying. We pose a problem as writers, as creators of these stories. We pose a problem, and we put our people through it, and then they're they either figure it out, or they don't figure it out.
Tory Stephens:Well, let me say something about don't figure it out. I think, like, there was a writer who was saying that, you know, you wanna put your character through hell, and then right when they're, like, you know, getting back up, you you're gonna put them through some more hell. Right? And, like, you're gonna present all these problems, and, you know, make life difficult, so that the reader is just, like, ugh. You know?
Tory Stephens:And, you know Yeah. We're trying to just pose the problem. What if you help them you show these characters solving problems? What if you show them working in right relationship to each other? And, you know, when we first started this out, I wasn't sure that if you could do that and have a compelling story.
Tory Stephens:But after 3 or 4 years, you know, we have a ton of stories that are compelling and great that show the opposite of dystopia. And just just for the listeners out there, like, I'm not someone who hates dystopian stories. I love them. I you know, some of my favorite stories are dystopian, and I think they're useful. You know, the clarion call of we don't want that kind of world is great, but I think what we don't have enough of are the stories that we, that showcase the world we want.
Lee Schneider:True. And what this whole line of thought solves a problem for the story creator, which is if you think you know more than your reader and you really think you know more than your characters, there's a danger of getting ahead and just kind of saying it, sort of preaching it, sort of pushing it on people. But if you state it in this problem way and have your characters, honestly, if you know your characters well, figure it out or not figure it out, then you're not getting too far ahead of your reader, and your reader can go through the process with the character, which I think is kind of what you want. You know? Because you want the reader Mhmm.
Lee Schneider:The the appreciator of that tale to have the same kind of revelation that the character has. Maybe a page or 2 before the character or a page or 2 after the character or right at the time of the character having it, but you wanna be in sync there. And I think this way of thinking about it helps us do that.
Tory Stephens:Yeah. I agree. I definitely agree.
Lee Schneider:Some people have complained, like Bill McKibben in a interview a few years back, that there's not enough climate fiction being written. He he asked something to the effect of where are the movies and where are the plays and where are the novels? And we're seeing a development of this sort of thing, but he might argue, and I would argue for sure, not enough. Mhmm. You know, where's the opera?
Lee Schneider:It there's there's been a few here and there and a few attempts at movies, some of which have been good. What's your thought on why there's not even more of this kind of fiction happening right now?
Tory Stephens:That's a really good question. I know that so I've worked with, Outfit, a nonprofit called Good Energy. They have been looking at this from a statistical, standpoint. They have combed and worked with universities to look over keywords that are in movies, in movie scripts. And what they found is that a measly below 3% of the stories in the last, like, 15 years that we see on screen have not included words like global warming, climate change, you know, or or have had a plot that is focused on that.
Tory Stephens:And so it's a big problem. It's an identifiable problem. Like, it makes no sense that the best storytellers in our world, in the pop world right now, you know, Hollywood, 1,000,000,000 of dollars, entertaining people in a variety of genres, on a variety of level levels from comedy to horror to, you name it, action. Why can't they construct a climate fiction story that is exciting and, you know, a blockbuster. And so I don't really have the answer for why this isn't happening.
Tory Stephens:We've you know, I don't think there's any conspiracy. I think it's, like, more god. Maybe people are it won't sell. They think it's scary. Maybe it's too politically divisive, and they might lose they feel that they may lose half their audience, because some think that climate change isn't real.
Tory Stephens:I don't know. Really, it's like one of those things that's a conundrum. But I think, again, instead of, like, you know so this is funny because it's, like, the problem was identified as there aren't enough, stories out there, in films, movies, scripts. And so what you see happening is the I'm on the Hollywood Climate Summit's advisory board, and they produce a an event every year. And they do a whole bunch of other activities, but their big gathering that happens in LA is focused solely on this.
Tory Stephens:Let's add them. Let's educate the public and the industry leaders in Hollywood about the fact that it's a measly 3%. Like, we're not even sure that they all know that. You know? So let's, like so they've been doing at that for, like, 3 years now.
Tory Stephens:And, you know, more every time that I've, gathered with them and, you know, attended their sessions, I see, you know, bigger names adding in the roster or at the event, caring about, you know, the fact that there's or or I wouldn't even say caring, just learning about the fact that there's this, like, lack of climate fiction films. And so I don't know if I have a good answer for you why it's happening, but I I do know there's a you know, those 2 outfits plus a couple others are looking to change it and educate people, and I they are also the some of the people that worked on those two projects, Good Energy and the Hollywood Climate Summit, helped work on a film called extrapolations that was on Apple I figured what Apple TV, I think they call it.
Lee Schneider:I think this might be a good time to bring back in the idea of threutopia Okay. As a way to tell these stories that is engaging and shows a pathway through. So describe it a bit and expand on it a little bit.
Tory Stephens:Yeah. So througtopia is a term that came out of the UK, and it essentially is saying that, you know, there's a there's a whole bunch of stories that people are classifying as utopia when they're really not. You know, they're stories about a a community or a person, a character, and they're working towards this goal of having a, you know, greener world, a cleaner world, a more just world. And you get to see a good Thrutopia, I think, would show, you know, if you had a novel I don't know I don't think at this point because the, if you wanna call it, genre or the label of Thrutopia is not that old. It's, like, 4 years old.
Tory Stephens:And so maybe looking back, there's some stories that do this already and are using the mechanics or kind of fit the bill. But right now, there's not a novel that is, like that I know of that is like a throughtopia, a a blueprint of sorts on, you know, instead of showing the end result, like, we're all living in this happy, clean, green, and just world, what are the things that happen between that? What's the battle? Like, how did how did we, you know, stop using fossil fuel? Was that, like, a fight?
Tory Stephens:Was that policy? Was that, like, public opinion? Then what happened? You know? Like, what happened after we stopped using fossil fuel?
Tory Stephens:How did the transition happen? Where did it happen first? Was you know, did China beat America? Did they collaborate? You know?
Tory Stephens:Was it because of some tech billionaire? Probably not. You know? Did activists kind of push, you know, politicians and society to kind of, you know, see the problem and then, you know, move on that? But what does that actually look like on the ground?
Tory Stephens:And so, yeah, that that's kind of the the vein of stories that sometimes we publish and the ones that we're we look to and label as through utopia because they just utopia doesn't fit well, and then they're definitely not dystopian. I mean, you could just call them a story, but the point was to encourage more people to create Throatopia. And so, you know, let's dream a little. Let's use visioning and the power of fiction in our imagination to show the variety of ways that we could get to a fossil free world and living in a place where, you know, justice is more vibrant, and happening for folks that are on the front lines of this climate crisis.
Lee Schneider:The few writers working recently and now that I've seen or doing it without the label, because it didn't exist, is Ursula Le Guin often writes stories that are we're past the the point of our worst nightmares, and we're living in a world that is better and has its own problems, but takes us to the next step. And, Anne Leckey, who wrote Translation State and a very popular trilogy, kind of gets there too. Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry For the Future is a way of trying to work through how we might get to these better places. And what he does that's pretty compelling is combine grindy, bureaucratic characters who are just working on this day by day by day and look like they have horrible yet fulfilling lives and some pretty radical people who do, you could say, bad things. And he he's what I'm getting out of that is he's finding a way, the author, to show us that between these extremes, there's a middle ground somehow.
Tory Stephens:And I would classify ministry of the future has some threutopianess to it and also some solarpunkness and some climate fiction. It's a little bit all 3.
Lee Schneider:Let's back into this a little because we've kind of talked about it, but I haven't asked the question is, what has been the reception to the initiative? How has it been received, and what are people saying about it?
Tory Stephens:Yeah. There has been you know, I would say, overall, it's been a positive reception. The if one of the metrics, I would say, that's important for us is, you know, there's two sides of this. There's the audience. There's the people who are gonna read these stories and what they take from the stories and the gatherings they have, the book clubs.
Tory Stephens:And but I wanna focus before we talk about the audience because that's normally where a media organization would go. They'd say, you know, well, we have, like, big numbers. Like, people are reading the stories. But for us, one of the big things that's happened with this initiative is the writers, getting people to write in a different manner. I receive lots of emails, from people who unfortunately didn't win the the contest, but they're still appreciative of the fact that they you know, they just basically you know, there's a certain kind of email that I get from Riot Oath that says, you know, I've never been challenged to think in this way, to write something positive.
Tory Stephens:I've been writing dystopian stories for my whole life, and now I'm I flexed a muscle that's got me moving in a different direction, and I'm kinda hooked, and I wanna try this again. Thank you. You know? So people reach out and tell us that, and I think that that for me is, like yeah. That's, like, the most forget metrics.
Tory Stephens:Forget, like, those things that you track on the back end, like, how long was someone viewing this article or that. That for me is, like, the you know, that's my happy place, I guess, for for the whole project. It's like, you know, of course, I'm happy when people read it, and they're like, oh, my god. Like, I love a great story. This story is good.
Tory Stephens:I shared it, and, you know, it made me think about my garden or whatever. But having writers kinda think differently and the fact that we've been able to do that with close to 4,000 writers. You know, 4,000 people have submitted stories that are their vision of a clean, green, and just world that is focused on climate solutions and hope, and I think that's a beautiful thing. So so that's one piece. And then the other side is, of course, the part that, you know, we're always looking to, which is how successful has it been as in is it resonating with our audience?
Tory Stephens:So the Grist audience that Grist already has, the folks that come there for the regular news and, the things that we probably investigative journalism and things of that nature, a good amount of them have liked it. You know, if you like the climate, most likely, if you are into literary things or short stories, you're gonna you don't mind the climate story because, like, you're already someone who cares about the climate. So that's been helpful. But then we I didn't know this, but the solar punk community kinda loves the project. And they're you know, a lot of the, people that we've worked with, reviewers and judges have been solarpunks or written solarpunk.
Tory Stephens:And then one of our reviewers, Serena Ulibari, is a big editor and writer in the climb, sorry, in the solarpunk world. And so that was a big surprise for us. Grist had never communicated or been in touch with people solarpunks, And now, they're, are a part of our community. And I've learned a ton from the folks that are, in the solarpunk community. I think that their movement is one that is needed and is very dynamic, and it is a movement.
Tory Stephens:It has all the accouterments of a movement. You know? Music, art. You know? It's not just a genre of stories, you know, that live in books.
Tory Stephens:You know, there's a whole, group of people that consider themselves solarpunks and try to build DIY projects and live their life in a very eco, positive and progressive way.
Lee Schneider:Yeah. Awesome. All of that resonates with me, but one thing that resonates a lot is the idea of inspiring people toward writing a story or reading a story that has that threutopia idea or has a positive idea. It's kind of like these days, I like reading books about nature because I want to appreciate nature. And if I can recommend a book that's just about nature that appreciates birds and animals and trees, well, it's gonna be harder to give that stuff up, I think, if we get a deeper appreciation of those things.
Lee Schneider:So what's next for Imagine 22100? There's a print anthology already out. Right?
Tory Stephens:Yeah. You've alluded to the anthology. So we already have an anthology out called Afterglow. That was produced 3 years ago. It's great.
Tory Stephens:You should check it out. It's with the New Press, which it was the publisher at the time. We've moved over to, working with Milkweed Editions. They're the folks that brought us Braiding Sweetgrass, and they were producing a book where instead of just 1 year's. Book, just to back up, was every story that was, that had won in the 1st year.
Tory Stephens:The second book has stories from years 2 3. And so there's more stories, which is great, because you'll have more stories to read. And that book comes out in October, I think, 22nd or that week. So it's coming out soon. And so that that's one piece that we have that that is that is that is out there or will be out there, and the other book is out there.
Tory Stephens:The other thing we're doing is, this visioning thing that I talked to you about earlier. We are, instead of just using that technique to just keep it with us and with what we did with climate fiction, we also wanna bring that and we have brought that. So we work with Aspen Ideas. We work with TED, and we've worked with some of the writers that we we we hosted a convening to do what we call collective visioning. We had them play the game, imagine 22100, where folks went on a quest, and they envisioned and plotted a path on a timeline to get to a clean, green, and just world.
Tory Stephens:And what we found was that there's different people that can use visioning in a variety of ways to get epiphanies, climate epiphanies, and we wanna produce climate epiphanies. Like, people who had never encountered geothermal networked geothermal, we want them to to encounter that because someone else brought it up. So it's kind of like, a cafe model, a world cafe model where you kinda just, you know, get to learn about different things, in the climate world that are positive, that are happening in you know, these aren't, like, you know, fiction things. There are things that are happening right now. And so it the visioning is a really great way to showcase that, but then also people can lean into, but what if we did this?
Tory Stephens:So the so that's a offering that we're gonna be showcasing and having. We have a couple more of those events because they're usually they're either live, or we use the Miro whiteboard thing in Zoom, to gather people and have them vision, you know, the world that they feel that they that we all deserve. So I think the biggest focus will be more of the contest, a little bit of the visioning, and then, trying to get these stories to market in in the book kind of way, because what I've heard from a lot of people is that, you know, I love reading stories, but reading 5,000 words on online, you know, on my desktop is just not for me, it's not it. That's what they'll say, And so, the book allows you to kind of bring it where you want. Your eyes get less tired in a different way.
Tory Stephens:You know, you read books. So it's, like, it's just I yeah. I'd rather a book than read something online. And I think I don't know if most people, I I can read news, but then a story, for some reason, I'd just rather a book.
Lee Schneider:Yeah. It's so much more portable and user friendly at the end. I mean, I like taking notes with online gadgets, but to actually read for pleasure also.
Tory Stephens:Yeah.
Lee Schneider:So where can people learn more about all these wonderful things about you and about Grist Online?
Tory Stephens:Yeah. So, I think the best place to start is our about page. So just Google about imagine 22100, and you should get our about page. And then from there, you just scroll down, learn about the project a little bit. And then at the bottom is are all the collections that we have.
Tory Stephens:So right now, we have about 5 different collections, which include some editors' picks that we've pulled, ones that we didn't win the contest, but we either thought, like, you know, maybe should have won or, like, we just liked it a lot. You know, everyone has their own opinion about what makes a good story. And so and and then some of them, then also you can chip you can check out all the previous contests that we've published. So there's been 3 of those. So a total of 36 stories that have won and been reviewed and judged.
Tory Stephens:And, again, these stories are from all over the globe, from Malaysia to Australia to Jamaica. There's some stories one thing we didn't talk about that I think is important to leave with folks is that there's a cultural, a deep cultural authenticity to some of the stories that we've published, you know, where the the place like, for instance, I just main mentioned, Jamaica. There's a woman who wrote a story, that won in year 2, And there's a lot of Jamaican patois in there. And there's a lot of, you know, the food and the vibrancy of the Jamaican life. And so that's just one example.
Tory Stephens:But many of our stories are very much place based, and the person, the writer, is from that particular place and has infused it with a lot of the culture, that comes with living in Malaysia or Jamaica or Ukraine.
Lee Schneider:That's a really great answer to the person who says, well, why should I write this story? Because everybody's already written all these stories before, but no one's written the story from your exact perspective.
Tory Stephens:Right.
Lee Schneider:Awesome. Well, thanks so much for being on the show. Really appreciate it.
Tory Stephens:Yeah. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Thanks for thinking of me. I'm glad that the story moved you to reach out to me.
Lee Schneider:Thanks for listening to the Future Lab today. Please consider leaving a 5 star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps the podcast. If you have some comments for me, go to memo. Fm/thefuturelab and record them.
Lee Schneider:I may play them on a future episode. That's memo. Fm/thefuturelab. See you next time. I'm Lee Schneider, artistic director at FutureX.