The Future Lab Podcast
We tell stories that shape the future.
This week’s conversation is with Tory Stephens. Tory 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.
The contest has also inspired thousands of writers to explore what it would be like to write hopeful fiction about the future.
Key Moments
00:00 Capturing the vision for the Imagine 2200 initiative
10:37 Why climate storytelling has to go deep
15:28 The power of storytelling to suggest real-world solutions to big problems
26:22 Climate-themed media is scarce in the mainstream culture
30:16 How a fiction genre called “thru-topia” can show a journey into a better world.
33:31 Solarpunk, Afro-futurism, and other genres
38:09 How writers have been changed by Imagine 2200
42:29 Cultural authenticity in storytelling
Learn more about Grist’s Imagine 2200.
Climate fiction might just be able to model pathways to a better future. By showing characters making hard choices, and showing those characters succeeding or failing by those choices, authors illustrate a way forward. In fact, there’s a burgeoning genre of science fiction called “thru-topia” that shows a (fictional) journey through our current problems and aims toward a better world.
What’s next for Imagine 2200? Publishing a new anthology of climate stories, hosting visioning events, and exploring different creative media to reach a wider audience.
All Episodes
“Grist has always had this ethos around breaking the cycle of doom and gloom.”