Geneva Writers Conference
I am excited to be joining the Geneva Writers Conference in November as a workshop leader, alongside a wonderful array of excellent writers. I am very much looking forward to meeting them all and to having lovely writerly chats!
I will be travelling by land and sea, rather than flying - quite the adventure. The carbon emissions are less than 10% of those emitted by flying. And although it takes longer, some of my travel is overnight, in comfortable cabins on board a Brittany Ferries ship (and at a very low cost, due to my "early bird" booking!). So all in all, I don't feel I lose much time compared to flying. I will arrive in Geneva at 15.29 on the Friday the conference begins, having set off (and slept well!) the previous night.
A helpful website for information about public transport in Europe (and beyond) is www.seat61.com - my go-to.
Here's a quick video about the conference...
INSTRUCTOR_ANNOUNCEMENT_-_GWG_CONFERENCE_2025_TEASER.mp4
Interzone IZ podcast with Gareth Jelley
I really enjoyed chatting with Gareth. Our conversation roamed widely, including of course my novella Aerth.
Interzone has a long history. Originally a paper publication, set up in 1982 in the UK, since 2022 it has been headed up by editor Gareth, with ebook issues and a digital online presence, IZ Digital, and an audio show, IZ Pod.
They say: Interzone is a European zine publishing fiction and non-fiction from all over the planet.
Gareth has just published Interzone issue 302, and individual issues are available here. IZ patrons get the latest issue and back issues going back to 2023.
Many thanks to Gareth for the interview - and apologies for taking so long to mention it here!
Interzone latest issue, #302, July 2025
Aerth... in Italian
I met with both the publisher and the translator last Friday, on one of the hottest days of the year so far. It was around 35C in northern Italy, where they are based, and over last weekend it became even hotter - and this is at the end of June, when summer has only just started.
Giorgio Raffaelli of Zone 42 wrote to me that this is why Aerth is so relevant, and said - with irony - that they comfort themselves with the thought that this is a cooler summer than those of the future...
There is a lot we must do regarding climate and nature, and of course we all have a part to play in our daily lives - flying less, consuming less, being mindful of how we live. The science is clear, and we mustn't give up.
Books, plays, films, art and poetry can help us to think around the issues. You may not agree with everything you read or hear or see, but keep engaging with it. We need to pull together as never before.
Ciao!
Book signing in Bath, UK
Toppings is housed in a fascinating building - a beautiful Georgian stone building with steps and columns outside, and an internal gallery running around 3 sides. the bookshelves are so high on the ground floor that a ladder is needed to reach the top books. There are also many other rooms and sections, including a large children's section on the lower ground floor. The bookshop opened in these premises in 2021, although they had already had a shop for many years elsewhere in the city.
I was amazed to see both my novels displayed in stacks on a big table, where customers were browsing. Here I am in the gallery - notice the beautiful plaster work on the ceiling behind me. Do pop in if you are in Bath. This is definitely a bookshop to visit. (And I bought three books...)
Book Launch
Do come along if you can!
My novels deal with climate change, nature, and social justice.
Hope to see some of you there!
https://booksontherise.com/event/fbf-2025-writing-climate-fiction-an-evening-with-deborah-tomkins/
Climate Grief and Eco-Anxiety
The Wilder Path is a story of grief, and love. Or, it's a story of love, and grief. It deals with one woman's growing realisation that climate change is real, and that the natural world is in deep trouble - and her frustration that others around her don't see things the same way. She journeys alone through grief and acute, relentless anxiety about the future.
Fifteen years ago, climate grief and eco-anxiety were likely to be pathologised, seen as "illnesses" to be "cured". But this kind of anticipatory grief and anxiety about what climate heating will bring to our planet, to animals and trees, and plants, to human beings, is entirely a natural and normal response. We also know that climate heating is unstoppable, although we may be able to slow it down, perhaps, or mitigate the worst effects, or even adapt, to a degree.
So, unlike Rosalie in the Wilder Path, where do we put these powerful emotions? How can we reach a place of active peace and hope? The word active is important here.
I am fortunate to have colleagues who "get it". For many years I have been a trustee of an environmental charity, Green Christian, and pre-pandemic some of us were discussing how we could help people with these powerful emotions. The upshot is an 8-week course, Deep Waters, which is free, and open to anyone (as long as they don't mind that it comes from a Christian organisation). In safe and sensitive spaces, Deep Waters explores our powerful reactions to the climate and ecological crises, and is online a couple of times a year. It has now been running for 5 years. Participants describe it as very helpful, giving them a sense of direction, helping them to become more active in their decision-making, rather than staying trapped in grief-induced reactions such as anger or guilt.
In addition, the Climate Psychology Alliance provides support to individuals and groups struggling with eco-distress, and offers safe spaces to share emotions surrounding the climate crisis, both in person and online.
I recommend both of these.
And you may wonder - have I, personally, experienced these emotions, and do I still? The answer is yes, and yes. But, with help, I have learnt how to navigate them, and this is why I write.
Author events this summer
In May, we have the launch of The Wilder Path, at my publisher Aurora Metro's very own bookshop, Books On The Rise, in Richmond, Surrey. I will be interviewed by local Green Party councillor Andrée Frieze, followed by Q&A from the audience. We will also talk about Aerth. These are two very different books, but both are concerned with climate and ecology.
In June, we have an author event discussing The Wilder Path, at the ever-supportive Stanfords Bookshop in Bristol, where we launched Aerth back in January.
In July I will be at Books On The Hill in Clevedon, discussing Aerth (with possibly a brief mention of The Wilder Path!).
Also in July, I will be attending the amazing Flash Fiction Festival, as I do every year, in Bristol. This year I have the fun of appearing on an author panel, along with brilliant writers David Swann, Laura Beasley and Michael Loveday. This is a private event, in that you have to be already attending the festival to attend the panel.
All events are on my events page. I hope to meet some of you at one or more of these!
Interview with Michael Loveday
In other news, Bristol Climate Writers had a wonderful evening earlier this week at Redland Library with the Friends of Redland Library in Bristol. Do contact me if you live in or around Bristol or Bath and would like us to do an event!
Bristol Climate Writers: Desert Island Books at Redland Library
The last time we did this was just over 5 years ago, just before the first Covid lockdown. That evening there was torrential rain, but it didn't prevent an engaged audience and full house, as I recall.
The format is for each member of the team to choose one book to speak about, plus a "wild card" - a book on any topic of their choice.
I'm really looking forward to this event - it was a really great evening last time - and this time my teammates are science fiction author and editor Pete Sutton and science and environment writer Liz Kalaugher.
Signing books
I had a fun half hour last week with some of the booksellers at Mr B's Emporium in Bath - a quirky but serious and award-winning independent bookshop. They really know their stuff, and have a wonderful mailing list and subscription service. If you're in Bath any time, please look them up!
Many thanks to Tom and Soffi for helping me feel so welcome and at home!
Desert Island Books
Here are the books we discussed:
Earth Shattering: Ecopoems (Bloodaxe Books) • The Chrysalids by John Wyndham • The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart • Four Letters of Love by Niall Williams • Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison • We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
The podcast lasts just over half an hour. I hope you enjoy it!
Aerth is being reprinted
The second print run will start arriving in bookshops on Wednesday 12th February, and, as ever, it is available direct from my publishers, Weatherglass Books. Please buy from Weatherglass if you can - independent presses operate on a shoestring and need all the help they can get.
Book Launch for Aerth
Weatherglass publisher Damian Lanigan was there and gave a fascinating introduction to the Weatherglass Novella Prize, and Peter Birchenough, the manager of Stanfords, led a wide-ranging and intelligent Q&A session for the audience, most of whom I knew well - I absolutely recommend being surrounded by friends and family as a first book launch experience. The shop was packed and it was a very happy evening.
Photo: Peter Birchenough
Huge thanks to Damian Lanigan and Neil Griffiths at Weatherglass Books, and also to Peter Birchenough and all at Stanfords!
Environmental activism in a time of war
"We plant trees in shell craters and collect honey from mined fields..."
Of course, it's a good deal more complex than that, political, geopolitically and practically. The article explores some of the aspects of the Ukrainian government's approach to looking after nature. Ecocide, the deliberate destruction of wildlife and natural resources, is a crime in Ukraine - not yet recognised as a crime in most of the world except Samoa, Fiji and Vanuatu.
In the UK, an Ecocide Bill has started going through the parliamentary process, at a glacial pace.
This article is well worth reading.
Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, London, 26 September 2024
More reviews...
So here is one from The Telegraph, by Luke Kennard, poet, novelist, and Professor of Creative Writing at Birmingham University.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/review-aerth-deborah-tomkins-weatherglass/
And another by renowned science fiction author Lisa Tuttle, in The Guardian.
I am still at the stage of marvelling that my book has even got reviews, and that they are generally favourable. Inevitably there will be some one-star reviews! Hopefully the thicker skin I have grown over years of rejections will stand me in good stead.
The book launch comes up in 10 days' time, at Stanfords Bookshop in Bristol. This will be really fun as many of my friends and family are coming along.
Review from The Lonesome Reader
Rather than paraphrasing, I will let him speak for himself. And I am absolutely thrilled with his assessment of Aerth (at 21.50 minutes into the video).
The Lonesome Reader Best Books of 2024.
To buy Aerth, please go to Weatherglass Books, or order from any book shop.
Author copies of Aerth
So this a picture of five of them on my slightly tidied desk. You can see two mugs of tea, and swept to one side is the MS of my novel, The Wilder Path, for which I'm doing some edits.
Also last week arrived a box of bookmarks, advertising both books (which are being published within 15 weeks of each other). I designed these myself.
Also in the last week arrived Storm Darragh, the fourth named storm of the season. Winds of over 90mph, trees down, much storm damage, thousands of people without power for several days - and the first time I have ever received a red alert on my phone, along with 3 million others in Wales, Northern Ireland and the South-West of England. The siren is loud and unlike any other sound that may arrive on a mobile phone. Having never heard it before, and happening to be standing near our electric piano, I spent a few minutes convinced that something had gone dreadfully wrong with it. (I heard the siren but didn't look at my phone).
But, levity aside, we need, as a world, to be taking the climate and ecological crises much more seriously than we are. Ordinary people can only do so much. Change needs to be systemic. Governments and big companies - I'm looking at you. We already have the solutions - let's implement them.
The Wilder Path
Publication is 1 May 2025, and here is the cover! It was designed by Michelle Hughes.
I am currently looking at my publisher's notes and working in some edits. We have had to change the title, which was 'A Wilder Shore', as Penguin published a major new book with the same title in August 2024. I am looking forward to reading that, a new look at Robert Louis Stevenson and his relationship with his wife, and the fact that they travelled extensively seeking better conditions for his poor health - hence the rather wonderful title... But The Wilder Path is also a good title, and I am now used to it!
The Wilder Path is available to pre-order from the publisher Aurora Metro Books, on Amazon and from all major bookstores.
Implicit - explicit - complicit
The cottage was interesting. Alongside a fast-flowing river, it had been a part of a mill, and dated to around 1600. The kitchen was the old hen-house, and the barn where we collected anthracite* for the coal*-fired Aga, had once housed 8 cows and a horse. The owner lived next door, and his family had lived there for generations.
All in all, a lovely few days, except... yes, you read that right, we relied on coal to cook our meals, boil a kettle, dry our wet clothes, and warm the house.
This made me think. Last Wednesday, while we were away and stoking the Aga with coal, the climate sceptic Donald Trump was elected the next President of the United States. He is backed by fossil fuel companies and others who also dispute the clear science which explains that burning fossil fuels increases levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, leading to global warming and a changing climate.
Most of the time, our reliance on fossil fuels is well hidden. We turn a light on, not knowing whether that electricity has come from fossil fuels or renewables. Unless we make a conscious decision to switch to a renewables company for our energy, the likelihood is that the electricity we use comes from burning natural gas or coal, which directly contributes to global warming and a changing climate. (These are not the same, although closely linked).
But suddenly, twice a day, I was filling the Aga with anthracite. (Mined in Wales, in fact). I could smell it in the air when I went outside through the kitchen door. The only slight saving grace is that anthracite is the highest ranking form of coal in terms of purity and energy. It's also the scarcest. But, twice a day, I was made explicitly aware of our reliance on fossil fuels, when usually this knowledge is at the back of mind, an implicit awareness. And it made me aware of my complicity in this system of energy, my complicity in warming the planet.
At home, we buy our energy from a renewable energy company, and have done so for 20 years. Our electricity is 100% generated by renewables, and our gas is 10% renewable biogas generated in Britain. Not enough yet! We try to heat our home as little as possible.
If you don't already use renewable energy, please think about doing so. There's so much more that can be done by each of us. Here's a video about mining anthracite in Pennsylvania.
Bath Flash Fiction Award
The Bath Flash Fiction Award is more than just an award for tiny stories. They also run a competition for novellas-in-flash, with publication with Ad Hoc Fiction as the prize, and an annual Festival. There are often online Festival workshop days too, scattered throughout the year. These days would be an excellent way to find out more, if you don't know much about flash fiction.
I went to the very first Flash Fiction Festival, run by Jude Higgins and her team, held in Bath in 2017, because I knew very little about the craft of flash, and wanted to know more. Subsequent Festivals have been held in Bristol, and are residential for those who wish to stay on site. I can honestly say that I have learnt so much about the craft of writing from attending these Festivals, and reading and listening to excellent writers. The Festivals have a wonderfully supportive and fun atmosphere too - there is always a lot of laughter.
Without the Festival, I would probably never have written my prize-winning novella-in-flash Aerth, which is being published by Weatherglass Books in January. It is available to pre-order from the publisher and also from all major bookstores. The Weatherglass Novella Prize was judged by Ali Smith, and here (again!) is what she said about my book:
