I have of late been receiving many stories, novels, poems and art catalogues that cite The Great Derangement as an influence or inspiration. It is, of course, immensely gratifying for writers to know that their work has had an impact, and I wish I could read and respond to everything that is sent to my website. But unfortunately it has become impossible to keep up.
However I am glad I made time to read an anthology that turned up unheralded on my website, for it caught my attention from the first page. It is to be published soon by the Black Lawrence Press in upstate New York.
“Fire & Water: Stories From the Anthropocene” (eds. Mary Fifield and Kristin Thiel) is an exceptionally good collection of new fiction, with stories that reflect many different aspects of the intensifying planetary crisis. What I particularly like about the stories is that they are about the here and now, mirroring the uncanny, lived reality of an increasingly unfamiliar planet.
March 5, 2021.