January 28th Meeting
Join us for our January Meeting with Sandy Lawrence
Dinner starts at 5:30, talk starts 6:30 or so at Jalapeno's Barkley.
The concept of climate fiction has been around since at least 2005, when an NPR story surfaced. Kim Stanley Robinson, with books like MINISTRY OF THE FUTURE, is considered by many as the dean of the genre of cli-fi. My belief is that a cli-fi manuscript must comprise 2 essential components. The first is that one or more climate events should be so central to the storyline that they could almost be considered characters in the book. Examples may include flash floods, droughts, lightning strikes, windstorms, hailstorms, haboobs, and many more. The second part, clearly, is that the characters must have lives impacted by the deteriorating climate and be working valiantly somehow to counteract these changes. Finally, I bifurcate cli-fi into two camps. Most writers are postapocalyptic and pessimistic, while some of us are preapocalyptic and optimistic. Choose your poison.
Sandy Lawrence began writing in 2019, based on years of lectures on energy systems, the climate system, and the electric grid, including in a couple of out-of-state conferences and at Western Washington University. My professional background was in academic medicine, where I focused mainly on infectious disease and obstetrics, and both of these themes are incorporated into my books. My wife and I ran a bed & breakfast for eight years in the Pacific Northwest, and I made use of this experience as well, I have driven an electric vehicle for a dozen years now, and for the last eight years we have lived in a comfortable, PassivHaus-certified home. On the side we raise goats and chickens for our grandkids.
We have a new location for meetings this year. Jalapeno's at Barkleys has graciously waived the room fee for their banquet room for us. We will need you to RSVP to ensure they have the correct number of staff.
New to WWP
Welcome, Pacific Northwest Writers!
We meet every fourth Wednesday from September to June in scenic Bellingham, WA. Supper starts at 5:30, and the speaker starts at 6:30-7.
Dues are 25 dollars a year or 40 for two years. We use the dues to pay for our speakers to come from around the region, and for an occasional table at local writer events. Our dues year runs from September to June, like our meetings, but will roll over if you pay late in the cycle. If you want to try us out first, feel free. Speakers in the past have included WA Poet Laureate Rena Priest, author Robert Dugoni, and agent Donald Maass, covering topics such as social media, self-publishing, memoirs, mixed media, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. It is our goal to offer something for everyone, no matter your place in the writing journey-- just starting or long-published. Old school or new. If you have an idea for a speaker or topic, let us know, but if it has been covered recently it might not be picked up.
Pay your dues
25 for 1 year
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40 for 2 years
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40 for couples
To pay online, please provide name and email address on the form so we can keep track of you.
We have a paypal account if you would prefer to pay on line. You can also pay by check; just drop it off with the treasurer at a meeting.
