Instructor Spotlight: Julie Carrick Dalton

Tell us about your background and what inspired you to teach this course

I didn’t set out to write climate fiction. I didn’t even know that climate fiction was a category of fiction when I started writing. I was just telling a story that was on my heart. While I was writing my first novel, I was also running an organic farm. I spent my days worrying about soil quality, water resources, invasive species, rising temperatures, and the many other ways climate change was affecting my farm. Those anxieties bubbled up in my writing. All four of my novels – Waiting for the Night Song, The Last Beekeeper, and two more in the pipeline – are manifestations of specific climate anxieties I grapple with. Like me, I think young people grapple with a lot of climate anxiety, justifiably so. I have found that writing about issues that scare me, gives me a degree of control over those fears. I can look at a problem from many angles. I can allow my characters to think through the scary questions I’m not able to tackle in my real life. It’s empowering and therapeutic. I wanted to share that with students.

What is climate fiction?

That’s a great question. If you ask ten writers you might get ten different answers. Some people call it eco-fiction, eco-literature, or environmental fiction. My own working definition is fiction that engages climate science in a meaningful way, fiction that makes the reader think about the many ways climate crisis has, is, or will impact life on Earth. Novels in any genre – science fiction, thrillers, mystery, romcom, horror, romance, fantasy, literary, Young Adult – can be considered climate fiction if they engage climate science.

What piece of advice would you give to students who are interested in writing climate fiction?

Don’t be preachy. Don’t attempt to write a story so you can teach someone something. Tell a story that matters to you. Create complex characters and make the reader care about them. Climate elements should be in the background, secondary to the characters. The reason humans read stories is to understand other humans, not to be preached at.

What piece would you recommend to people who are interested in reading climate fiction? What is your favorite piece of climate fiction?

My favorite writers in this category are Charlotte McConaghy (Migrations and Once There Were Wolves) and Richard Powers (The Overstory and Bewilderment.) I also absolutely adore The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton.

You discuss the concept of writing as a form of activism, could you elaborate on this connection?

I don’t believe that artists owe anything to their audiences other than art. We don’t owe anyone a ‘message’ or a ‘lesson.’ But I also realize that writing novels gives me a voice, a platform to share things that matter to me. I hope readers pick up my book to enjoy an engaging story. And I hope they continue thinking about some of the climate elements long after they put the book down. I do a lot of public speaking on the topic of fiction in the age of climate crisis at universities and conferences. Talking to audiences about climate fiction allows me to unpack some of the climate events and themes that motivate my work and the work of others in the field. That is my form of activism. But to be clear, I don’t think activism needs to be a writer’s goal. Art for art’s sake is valid and very much needed in this world.

How can students incorporate writing into their on-campus climate action?

Storytelling is not limited to fiction or writing. We can share stories in many ways. Students can write op-ed pieces in the school paper, share their personal stories at student gatherings, contribute stories to literary journals, make films, speak at protests, or engage in meaningful conversations with friends. We all have a voice, how you use it is up to you.

What do you hope that students will take away from your course?

I hope students will embrace the idea that fiction has the capacity to change hearts and minds. Reading a novel is an enormous act of empathy. A reader is choosing to give up their own world view for 10-20 hours to experience the world through someone else’s eyes. Seeing the world through a different lens changes you. It makes you more empathetic. And empathy can be a catalyst for change.

What is something coming up in your course that you are excited about?

For their final projects my students will be writing original short stories that engage some element of the climate crisis. At the end of the semester, we will make a series of videos of the students reading their stories and sharing the inspiration for their pieces. We hope to share the videos online. There will also be an activism element to our videos, but the class is still deciding what exactly that will be. Stay tuned!

Julie Carrick Dalton is the author of The Last Beekeeper, longlisted for the 2024 Massachusetts Book Award, and Waiting for the Night Song, winner of the 2023 People’s Choice Award for Best Novel from the New Hampshire Writers Project. Her books have been on Most Anticipated Novel lists by CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, and Parade, and have been selected as a Best Book of the Month pick by Amazon. Her third novel, The Forest Becomes Her, will be released in early 2026. A former journalist, farmer, and beekeeper, she is a frequent speaker on the topic of fiction in the age of climate crisis and is on the teaching faculty of Drexel University’s MFA in Creative Writing program. When she isn’t writing, reading, or trying to keep track of her four children (including one Tufts grad,) you can probably find Julie skiing, kayaking, or working in her pollinator garden.