Storying Climate Change Conference

In March of 2018, Trudeau scholar, Cate Sandilands, brought together a collection of authors, poets, activists and scientists, both settler and indigenous for an intensive, place-based workshop to start a conversation about the kinds of stories we need to tell about climate change right now.

We spent the weekend talking and writing and brainstorming, starting with breakfast in the morning and continuing on till after dinner in the evening, and we tried to answer the question about how to tell the story of climate change, and how not to get frozen in the grief of the experience. We came to recognize that even if we didn't have all (or any) of the answers, we could still ask the questions.

The workshop was very focused in place - on Galiano island - which helped me to understand that I didn't need to show everything, everywhere, that it was okay to talk about how climate change effected my community in the small and specific details.

Over the weekend and for the following few months I was thrilled to be able to collaborate with such writers as: Jesse Thistle, Betsy Warland, Stephen Collis, Ann Eriksson, Hiromi Goto, Evelyn White and more. It was a rich learning experience for me and shaped the way I think about story.

You can find more about the project here.