creative non-fiction

Hinterland – The Climate Special

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‘I try to imagine being stuffed into the cages shoulder-to-shoulder with a crowd of men in a duplicate cage above, the rock face racing by inches beyond the open frame as we descend into the mine, leaving the world of light and fresh air behind for a seven-hour shift over half a kilometre underground.’

‘From the Ground, Light’, Hinterland Issue 14, pp. 90-109, p.96.

As COP 28 comes to a close I’m proud to be among the contributors of Hinterland 14 – a climate writing special with wonderful cover art by Nature and Wildlife photographer Tashi R. Ghale, guest edited by Iona Macduff and featuring an interview with author of Marginlands Arita Kumar-Rao.

From the editors:

“Climate change has become a constant presence in our lives, and increasingly inflects our writing. Yet, actively writing about climate change is not easy. The contributors of this Climate Writing special issue have risen to the challenge, whether it’s writing about forest fires in New Mexico, frogs in Australia, rivers in Manchester, or the effects of human activity and the Anthropocene.”

My own contribution ‘From the Ground, Light’ explores the mining heritage of my hometown through the re-landscaped mining grounds of Sutton Manor Colliery and the experiences of a former miner. It reflects on our complex relationships with the landscape and the heritage of our industrial past, but also on the impacts of climate change, our ongoing reliance on fossil fuels, and our failure to transition to green energy.

Hinterland Instagram post on my piece, HERE.

Also featuring work from Alison Baxter, Joe Fenn, Tamsin Grainger, David Howe, Rita Issa, Clara Kubler, Wendy Johnson, Iona Macduff, Meg Mooney, Millie Prosser and Joe Shute, with photography by Tashie R. Ghale

Order Hinterland 14 here.

Moving Forward

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There’s a famous quote by Mark Twain. You know the one: 

“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you did not do than the things you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” 

This kept surfacing and resurfacing in my thoughts when, in 2017, I left my job to study anthropology and then creative writing. Six years on I have submitted my PhD thesis – a work of narrative nonfiction with commentary exploring how landscapes shape us, and what it might mean to belong. 

It’s not the PhD that counts, of course, but the journey to get there, for ‘it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive,’ as that other famous writer Robert Louis Stevenson told us. And it has been a journey – fraught with uncertainty and waymarked by personal crisis and self discovery. 

I’ve learned that we are many things, and that the narratives we write for ourselves can change unexpectedly – by both accident and design, and that who we thought we were is not set in stone, but a continual process of renewal and re-creation: a perpetual becoming framed by an evolving understanding. 

Places frame our lives – map out our histories and identities through the landscapes in which we live. The journey I’ve taken and the people I have spoken to have shown me that. We come to know self through place, through all the entanglements and histories that reach out into the wider world. 

I still face uncertainty and there will continue to be change: both driven and unexpected. I guess learning to embrace those things in life is part of what Mark Twain was getting at. 

Four Rivers, Deep Maps UK Launch

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After being published through UWAP in September 2022 and launched initially in Perth, WA, Four Rivers, Deep Maps comes to the UK with a launch event at the University of Aberdeen on Thursday 15th June in the Sir Duncan Rice Library. Click on the image above for details.

The cities – Perth, Australia, and Aberdeen, Scotland – have received relatively little attention as specific geographical–cultural locales. Often perceived as industrial, isolated and lacking romantic association, they nevertheless have rich historical, narrative and creative traditions that characterise interactions between humans and place, particularly along the length of the four rivers.

My own contribution charts the River Don from source to sea, uncovering its ancient sacred associations and exploring how they have shaped the geography and identity of the region through time.

All the contributions of this book are woven together through strands of deep mapping and ideas of place, history and inhabitation. Countercultures seem to return to specific place knowledge that predates industrialisation, whether in the traditional shapes of the Nyoongar knowledge of the Derbarl Yarrigan (Swan River) and Beeliar (Canning River) or the traditions and ancient patterns of Aberdeenshire: we come back to these profound knowledge systems that, in fact, never went away.

Copies of Four Rivers, Deep Maps are in stock at Blackwells and will be available to purchase on the night.