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I've been a Star Trek fan for as long as I can remember. I'm the one who convinced our family to start watching Star Trek: The Next Generation when it premiered. When I was in high school, I wore a Starfleet uniform to school for Halloween. My Data cosplay even made it into our high school yearbook.

As an adult, I eventually got around to watching every official Star Trek episode, film, and short ever made.

I'm also a Star Wars fan. I'm not nearly as invested in the Star Wars franchise, but I would qualify as a Star Wars fan by most standards. I've seen the nine main movies plus Rogue One. I had a few of the earliest Star Wars toys back in the day. Every empty paper towel roll or wrapping paper roll I get my hands on becomes a lightsaber.

And I recently watched Andor. It took me a while to get around to it because it wasn’t Star Trek and I tend to prefer Star Trek. But I eventually heard so many good reviews that I decided to give it a try.

Andor is a thought-provoking and inspiring work of antifascist cinema. Where is Star Trek's modern response to the rise of real-world fascism?

The post Where is Star Trek’s Andor? first appeared on Treesong.

Do you like reading about visions of climate futures that are evidence-based and inspired by work that people are doing in the real world today? 

What If We Get It Right: Visions of Climate Futures by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a book full of informative and inspiring interviews with people who are working on innovative climate solutions. It's a great combination of compelling personal stories and detailed exploration of many concrete actions we can take in response to the climate crisis.

If this sounds like your kind of book, be sure to read my review over at Climate Change Books. And please share it with anyone you know who cares about climate solutions and climate justice.

The post Check out these visions of climate futures first appeared on Treesong.

The Summer 2025 Hiatus that I announced in May is drawing to a close. I'm pleased to announce that I’m starting to write and publish again!

This post is an update about why I went on a hiatus and what new writing I’ll be sharing with my readers in the coming months. If you want to stay up to date on my latest works in progress and published writings, please subscribe to my newsletter and follow me on social media and Ko-fi.

The post The Story Continues first appeared on Treesong.

Due to major changes going on in my personal and professional life, I've decided to take a break from my writing and community involvement.

This break is starting now and will continue through the end of June, at which point I will reassess my availability.

I’ll continue doing the Your Community Spirit radio show (and reruns of my Climate Book Review show) during the hiatus. I might also continue attending the Carbondale Sustainability Commission meetings. But I won't attend any other meetings or post any new chapters until at least the end of June. If I do manage to squeeze in some writing for fun, I'll wait until after June to consider posting or publishing it.

The post Summer 2025 Hiatus first appeared on Treesong.

How would you feel about the climate crisis if your family died in a wildfire? How would you process your climate grief? What would you do to hold the people who caused the climate crisis responsible?

I’m exploring these questions and more in my forthcoming novel, Burning.

The post A tale of climate grief and vengeance first appeared on Treesong.

Do you like playing Settlers of Catan? Are you looking for a tabletop game with environmental and climate themes? If you answered yes to either of these questions, you may be excited to discover that there’s a new(ish) Catan game called Catan: New Energies.

The post Catan: New Energies Review first appeared on Treesong.

Do you like Climate Change Books?

For the past couple of years, I've been working on a project focused on reviewing, promoting, and selling books related to climate change. It started out as a small bookshop on my personal/author website but eventually evolved into an independent website called Climate Change Books.

So far, I've been developing this in my spare time, squeezing in an hour here and there between my stay-at-home parent responsibilities, writing and publishing projects, and other pursuits. But now I've decided to be more focused in my creative life and professional work. In the case of Climate Change Books, this means that I'm faced with a major choice.

Do I put more time and energy into Climate Change Books so that it can become both a significant revenue stream and a valuable resource to people who are looking for curated content related to climate change books? Or do I put the idea on hold indefinitely and focus instead on my writing and/or other creative and professional projects?

I've decided to ask my readers for feedback. Whether you're new here or a long-time reader, I'd love to hear from you about this project.

Do you see potential in this Climate Change Books project and want to see it become more developed? Or do you think it's time to set it aside and focus on other projects related to the climate crisis, climate communication, and climate justice?

If you have any opinions or ideas on the subject, please let me know by completing the Google survey at the end of this post, replying on social media, or contacting me directly. I'd be happy to give you a free ebook copy of one of my novels or short stories in return for your feedback.

The post Do you like Climate Change Books? first appeared on Treesong.

Donald Trump is now the President-elect of the United States of America.

Many people in the U.S. and around the world are alarmed by the results of the 2024 election. Donald Trump will soon be President again. The Republicans will control both the House and the Senate. The reactionary Federalist Society has taken over the Supreme Court. Project 2025 has become the new playbook for the incoming administration. Trump is already making unhinged cabinet appointment announcements that are raising alarm bells even for many Republicans.

I predicted Trump’s victory with a high degree of confidence. That doesn’t make me any less alarmed by what’s already happening and what’s likely to happen in the coming weeks, months, and years.

Trump’s return to power is just the latest development in the ongoing resurgence of fascism and other forms of authoritarianism in many places around the world. Now that one of the most powerful governments in history has been captured by a candidate and movement that many have characterized as fascist, the outlook for human civilization and the habitability of the planet we call home seems increasingly bleak.

What can the people of the world, and the U.S. in particular, do about the rise of fascism?

The post Resist fascism by embracing municipalism first appeared on Treesong.

Have you ever voted on the fate of a character in a work of fiction? Now's your chance to help me choose my character's next victim!

One of the two novels I'm writing, Burning, features a protagonist named Rionach. Rionach suffers a tremendous personal loss during a climate-fueled wildfire. Rather than dealing with her climate grief in more socially-acceptable ways, she decides to hunt the people responsible for the climate crisis.

In honor of Halloween, Samhain, and my inclusion in the "There Will Be Blood" gory ebook giveaway, I've decided to let my readers vote on who Rionach will choose as her next victim!

The post Choose my character’s next victim first appeared on Treesong.

Are you concerned about climate change? If so, you're not alone.

According to the world's largest survey on climate change, 80% of people globally want their country to do more on climate change. Here in the United States, Yale's "Climate Change in the American Mind: Beliefs & Attitudes, Spring 2024" report tells us that majorities of Americans think global warming will harm plant and animal species (72%), future generations of people (72%), the world’s poor (69%), people in developing countries (68%), people in the United States (65%), and people in their community (52%).

In other words, most people do in fact care about climate change!

If you want more information about the climate crisis and what you can do about it, I can recommend some great nonfiction books about climate change. However, many readers prefer reading fiction, especially in their spare time. As both a reader and an author, I love picking up a good novel or short story collection and spending a couple of hours immersed in a compelling fictional narrative. I read nonfiction too, but it doesn't fill the same niche in my life as reading a good work of fiction.

If you want to read novels, short stories, and other fiction with climate themes, you're in luck! Authors and publishers have started writing and publishing so much good climate fiction that you could read a climate novel a week for the rest of your life and still not have time to read it all. But where can you find all of these amazing works of climate fiction? And how do you decide which ones you want to read?

With those questions in mind, I'm excited to tell you about two places where you can find good climate fiction! This includes both the climate fiction I've written and all of the climate fiction I've read or heard about as a climate author, climate communicator, and avid climate fiction reader.

The post Check out these climate fiction stories and reviews first appeared on Treesong.