“A better world is possible. And it’s one we can achieve.”
The climate and biodiversity crises are frightening. The arts can play a strong role in nudging people’s attitudes toward looking at solutions, and making some changes.
Humans are a storytelling species. Perhaps bees as well. The workshop will begin with an overview of some solarpunk, followed by a slideshow of wonderful solutions that are happening across Canada and the world in fields of clean energy, redesigning existing cities, and restoring biodiversity. But there’s so much good news. We’ll then begin to plan a unique setting by working with a place you know well, a city, a town, a parking lot, a polluted pond, etc.
Next, you will get an overview of how to write a solarpunk short story, the character and plot arcs, the best ways to start, tips on suspense and dialogue. We’ll stop often for fifteen minute writing explosions. By the end of the workshop, you will have a believable, hopeful future setting and a solarpunk story begun and possibly sketched out.
Imagining tomorrow by writing today. This should be fun, or we’re doing it wrong!
ABOUT THE FACILITATOR
JERRI JERREAT has taught freelance and creative writing for four years at St. Lawrence College and has an MFA from UBC in her back pocket. She is delighted to be offering Solarpunk workshops to youth who are ready to use their writing to initiate change.
Her writing appears in Fairlight Books, Grist: Climate Fiction (2022), Flyway: Journal of Writing & Environment, Alluvian Journal, Every Day Fiction, Yale Review Online, The New Quarterly, The Penmen Review, Fictive Dreams, Feminine Collective, Glass & Gardens Solarpunk Winters, Solarpunk Summers, and Solarpunk Creatures (World Weaver Press, 2024), Solarpunk: Many Futures, (Flame Tree, 2024), Through the Portal: Stories of a Hopeful Dystopia (World Weaver Press, 2024).
She has an op-ed online in On Spec, and directs an award winning festival, YouthImagineTheFuture.com. Last fall, Jerri was named Kingston's Sustainability Champion for 2024. On January 20th, 2025, she was a speaker at the Kingston Climate Change Symposium focused on Empowering Youth to Grow a Sustainable Future, where she was thrilled to meet Autumn Peltier.
REGISTRATION
This workshop is limited to 10 participants between the ages of 18 and 30. Thanks to the Wintergreen Scholarship Fund and the Community Foundation for Kingston and Area there is no charge for this event.