Deborah Tomkins Writer - Blog

Countdown to... Penzance!

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 12:37:00 +0000

I am so looking forward to the Penzance Literary Festival this year. Not only is it in one of the most beautiful and fascinating parts of the world (West Cornwall), with a line-up of brilliant writers, I am taking part on Wednesday 8th July with my two-hour workshop, Weathering the Storms. It is part of the Festival's series on "Inspired Starting Points For Your Novel".

My workshop is for anyone doing any kind of writing at all: poetry, fiction (both short stories and novels), and non-fiction. The basic premise is that we are bombarded with depressing climate and nature news every single day in the media (and the pendulum has swung, as it always does, in precisely the opposite direction from where it was only 10-15 years ago, when it was difficult to find much news about the environment) - but there is a LOT of good news around, despite a gas-guzzling war and some serious denial across the Atlantic.

How can we harness the hope, while balancing the realism we all need when facing these twin crises? And what does 'hope' mean, in this context?

I hope this has whetted your appetite!

My blurb says: Most climate fiction focuses on disasters, but other ways of approaching the climate crisis include hope, generosity and ingenuity, often deployed in unexpected ways. Novelist and founder of the Bristol Climate Writers network, Deborah Tomkins, will explore different genres and techniques for writing about climate change, with reference to her own prize-winning books, Aerth and The Wilder Path (shortlisted for The Encore Award 2026).

If you find this interesting and you are in the area, please come along. Places are limited to 12 people, and it costs £20. Open to all writers!

Various bits of news...

Tue, 26 May 2026 16:28:00 +0000

May 13th was incredibly cold, unseasonably so at 12C. I was greeted by a massive thunderstorm and very heavy hail at Paddington station, on my way to the Institute of Contemporary Arts for the Encore Award. I was dressed in a summer frock, but I wore many layers to keep warm. Today the temperature is about 34C, a huge difference (and I read that in India it is approaching 50C right now, which is life-threatening, not just for humans but for animals, bird and insects). More global weirding.

The authors and judges met for tea ahead of the event, and we had lovely writerly chats. Then we moved into the main rooms of the ICA, a handsome Georgian building with beautiful reception rooms upstairs, with high ceilings, big windows and polished floors. There were many guests, including publishers, stunning flower arrangements, sparkling wine and canapés, live music - and us! Claire Adam won the Award for her book Love Forms, but I am still so happy that my climate novel The Wilder Path was on the shortlist of only 4 books.

Huge thanks to The Society of Authors, and to our panel of judges chaired by Malika Booker. Here's a picture (photo by Jonathan Hawkins).

Meanwhile this unseasonably hot weather has taken both me and my garden by surprise. Two weeks ago my small veg plants had to be brought inside not only at night, but often in the daytime, especially tomatoes which hate the cold. Today the heat drives me inside and it's a challenge to keep them watered. It's the hottest May week ever.

You will see from the photo below that I plant my tomatoes in large pots directly into the earth. This is to protect them from weather shocks - heat, cold, flood and drought. It works. The first year I did this, I harvested nearly 40kg of tomatoes from 7 plants. I recommend this technique!

The garden is always a work in progress this time of year. You can see climbing French beans in the plastic tub, almost ready to be planted. There are cucumbers too, and courgettes, parsley and mint (in a pot), lettuce, pak choi and other herbs. Behind are raspberries which are already beginning to fruit (several weeks early, despite the cold spring). Wild strawberries bring me and the birds pleasure. And the large grey-green plant is a poppy which I didn't have the heart to dig up. It's not in the way right now.

There is very little better than home-grown produce. And it takes a tiny bit of pressure off our increasingly vulnerable food supply systems.

Bristol Climate Writers event - May 22nd 2026

Fri, 08 May 2026 11:44:00 +0000

Our very own award-winning ecopoet Helen Moore is launching her new collection The Last Lighthouse in Rising Seas (Palewell Press) at respected independent bookshop Bookhaus on Friday 22nd May, where she will be reading alongside poet Ambrose Musiyiwa. Tickets cost £7 and include a glass of wine or a soft drink.

Dr Helen Moore is a pioneering British ecopoet, socially engaged artist, and writer. She has previously published several acclaimed collections of poetry, including river/run, available from Cape Farewell.

If you are in the Bristol area, we would love to see you!

Tickets are available here.

(For members of Bristol Climate Writers, only, there will be a further meeting after this event, at a different venue. Please contact me for more details.)

The Encore Award - shortlisting

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 16:37:00 +0000

I am so excited to share that my novel The Wilder Path has been shortlisted for The Encore Award, which is for a novelist's second novel. The Award was set up by the Royal Society of Literature in 1990, and is now being administered by the Society of Authors.

This year's judges were Malika Booker, Rachel Aroesti, and Anita Sethi, who selected a "treasure trove" of four novels for the shortlist. It's absolutely amazing that my novel now keeps company with the brilliant books shortlisted in the past, as well as these wonderful contemporary novels.

The judges say, about The Wilder Path:

This immensely atmospheric novel depicts both extreme weather events and the characters' stormy emotions as it tells a potent story of grief for the loss of human life and the destruction of the natural world - and how such loss can be channelled into hope and action to strive for a better world.

Huge congratulations to my three fellow shortlisted authors, Claire Adam, Caleb Klaces, and Nydia Hetherington, and I look forward very much to reading their novels.

AI - Artificial Intelligence - and creativity

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 16:59:00 +0000

Artificial Intelligence is a HUGE topic, one that we are going to be grappling with for a long time. I am still gathering my thoughts on this, but the TL;DR (too long, don't read) version is that all the greatest works on Earth have been created purely from human imagination and the creative impulse (which we ALL possess, I believe, however that creativity is expressed). We don't need machines to help us.

The second thing to say is that ALL work created by Artificial General Intelligence has been stolen from the works of human beings: writing, music, art, photography. AGI is trained on human work, the vast majority of which has been used without permission - uploaded, saved and then deleted within seconds. Artists deserve copyright fees. There have been some lawsuits (ongoing).

You will find that AGI-created work (can we say "created"? - I'm not sure - it is simply "produced", like in a factory) all begins to sound and look the same. AGI has no original creative impulse of its own, however clever and original it may sound at first.

There are other forms of Artificial Intelligence - some are useful, for example in science experiments when a computer compiles results, thus saving researchers a great deal of time. Other uses are dubious - certain models of AI are factually incorrect up to 40% of the time. We shouldn't rely on these for fact-checking, homework etc. Other uses are plain unethical - such as Palantir now using its AI software to choose targets to bomb in Iran. The AI is making decisions that only humans should make.

I could go on! There is a lot more to say. Perhaps another time. I have never used AI of any kind, and don't intend to. Readers can be assured that everything I write and publish, whether words or images, is all my own work.

Meanwhile, on a lighter note, if you would like to read The Wilder Path as an eBook, you can find it on Kobo.

Italian copies of AERTH have arrived!

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 11:47:00 +0000

So exciting to hold these beautiful copies in my hands - and they have flaps! (I am very keen on the French flap or French fold - extra flaps inside the cover). UN'ALTRA TERRA is being published in 2 days' time, on 4th February. The publisher is Zona 42.

Aerth - Un'Altra Terra

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 13:12:00 +0000

My novella AERTH is about to be published in Italy on 4 February 2026, under its new title UN'ALTRA TERRA. It has a stunning new cover, created by Annalisa Antonini, and has been most elegantly translated by Chiara Reali. I am absolutely thrilled!

Molte grazie to Giorgio Raffaelli at Zona42, and to all the team!

Cornwall in the winter

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 11:32:00 +0000

Here is a rather beautiful deserted winter's beach in North Cornwall. I took this photo in late 2020 near St Ives, where we were taking a family holiday between Covid-19 lockdowns.

In my novel The Wilder Path, Roly takes a cliff-top walk on a beautiful New Year's Eve afternoon - I imagined the weather just like this. She certainly doesn't expect to become trapped in a cave with only an injured cormorant for company.

The novel explores Roly's complex reactions to climate change and the threats to nature, and her equally complex relationships with friends and family. She was a challenge to write - not always sympathetic, but always human - and ahead of her time.

David Higham Associates

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:48:00 +0000

Just a very quick post to share that I am now represented by Sara Langham of David Higham Associates, a long-established literary agency in London, founded in 1935. As one of the oldest literary agencies in the world they have a wealth of experience to draw upon, with agents working to exploit a writer's work in all fields, not just books.

I am delighted to be represented by Sara and feel very confident that she is the right agent for me! We share an interest in what might be called "the liminal" - often taken to mean the slightly uncanny or spooky. I think "liminal" (from the Latin "limen", meaning threshold) can be stretched to cover any place or circumstance where worlds meet, whether that is a physical place, a culture, a point of view, or - of course - the uncanny.

So Aerth and The Wilder Path can both be seen as liminal, in this bigger and wider sense, where worlds collide, or where people step over a barrier or threshold from one world to another, whether that's physical, psychological, emotional, or something entirely different.

I explore this sense of the edge of things in short stories too, as in my very short fiction "me and the foxes battle it out along the railway line". Thresholds are, after all, where the most interesting things may happen...

https://davidhigham.co.uk/authors-dh/deborah-tomkins/

Geneva Writers... and news about Aerth

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 16:59:00 +0000

I have just come back from the 14th Geneva Writers Conference, where I was teaching "Ways into Climate Writing", and I had a wonderful time. It was so interesting and stimulating being with writers of all genres, with so many interesting writerly conversations and brilliant workshops. The weekend had an international flavour, with people coming from all over Europe, so I overheard conversations in several languages. I enjoyed brushing up my French too.

While I was there, a friend sent me a screenshot of my novella Aerth... mentioned as one of the best books of 2025 in the Daily Telegraph Christmas Books supplement. This is tremendously exciting! I must say I found it difficult to sleep that night. Aerth is one of just 21 novels mentioned in that part of the list. Online, it links to the stunning review by the Telegraph's critic Luke Kennard, which was published in January, just before the book came out.

All in all, a very exciting weekend. I travelled to Geneva and back via public transport, a total of: 8 trains, 2 overnight ferries, one bus, one taxi, 2 Paris metro trains, and my own two feet! It was a very interesting journey, and not as tiring as people might expect. More on this, perhaps, in another post.

The Daily Telegraph, 15th November 2025.