About
I work in the area of sustainability and climate change, and the more you know the scarier it is. But all the solutions are right here, they just have to catch on. Walking lightly and mindfully upon the earth is so doable. I started writing as therapy, with green solutions as the main ingredient, stories to soothe my soul. Then my characters and their stories took centre stage, leaving the green solutions to season the stew.
I set up the Green Stories project in 2018 to inspire writers to create positive visions of what a sustainable society might look like. In the process I continued to research what works in terms of fiction and climate communication and have enjoyed sharing my growing knowledge via workshops and talks. I’m proud to report I am on the Forbes List of Climate Leaders Changing the Film and Television Industry.
Habitat Man is my first novel. Habitat Man began as an effort to illustrate what a solution-based approach might look like, and then took on a life of its own. I’d delighted by the reviews and a comedy-drama audio adaptation of Habitat Man reached the final stage of the BBC Radio 4 Offers Round in autumn 2023. I saw it as a TV series originally, so hope to find a producer who will share my vision. I have several sequels mapped out, so there’s plenty of material for many seasons. Once I’ve finished my current project, I hope to return to my characters and write these up.
I also enjoyed compiling an anthology of climate solutions wrapped in short stories called No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save Our Planet. I enjoyed working with other climate authors and learned so much from the climate experts who helped us hone each story so it represented a truly effective solution. We’ve left it too late to avert many impacts of the climate crisis, so perhaps ‘solution’ is the wrong word. But I believe if all these stories came true, we’d be on our way to a future where we can flourish. I wrote three stories for the anthology and co-wrote two more.
Last year I worked with Bafta, Albert and the Rubber Republic on a project #ClimateCharacters, where we explored the relative carbon footprints of fictional characters, as a fun way to raise awareness of the impact of fictional characters.
I was delighted to win the Writing Climate Pitchfest in March 2024 for my TV script ‘The Assassin’. This develops the story in my stage play ‘Murder in the Citizens’ Jury‘; and draws from my two current novel projects: a literary fiction novel which is part whodunnit and part philosophy textbook (yes I know) called ‘The Philosopher and the Assassin’, and its sequel, with a working title of ‘The Retirement Project’.
Get a FREE teaser 4-story copy of the anthology: No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save Our Planet here
Thank you to all the wonderful people, projects and organisations that inspired these works of mostly fiction. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.
My day job is Professor of Sustainable Practice at the University of Southampton. You can find out about my academic publications, research and projects here. In addition to my academic publications, I wrote the script for a musical Fidel that was performed in London in 2016, and have written four other screenplays (Knickers, World Cup Wendy, The Assassin and Fidel Castro: My New Boyfriend).
