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Speculative fiction – the latest tool for imagining what’s possible on climate? Author of ‘Hum’ and winner of the 2026 Climate Fiction Prize, Helen Phillips, joins Climate Curious to share the personal trigger that got her started in writing climate fiction, breaks down the genre of ‘speculative fiction’ and how it can be used to process eco-distress, and why the AI robots at the centre of the book (The Hums) might not be the villains you’d expect… who would have thought it!? Hosted by Climate Curious’ executive producer Josie Colter.
Read Helen Phillips’ book, ‘Hum’: https://www.helencphillips.com/hum
Want more climate fiction novels? Check out the Climate Fiction Prize Shortlist 2026: https://climatefictionprize.co.uk/shortlist-2026/
‘Dusk’, By Robbie Arnott
‘Endling’, By Maria Reva
‘The Tiger’s Share’, By Keshava Guha
‘The Book of Records’, By Madeleine Thien
‘Awake in the Floating City’, By Susanna Kwan
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Created by TEDxLondon
Executive produced by Josie Colter
Produced by Ben Beheshty
Curated by Deesha Chandra
Hosted by Maryam Pasha and Ben Hurst
Communications by Tara Cooper and Issey Gladston
00:00 Climate anxiety opens
00:40 Chapter four reading
06:06 Prize win and origins
07:06 Hum plot breakdown
08:06 Unintended consequences
08:59 Anxiety as fuel
09:46 Beyond simple dystopia
11:42 Speculative fiction labels
13:06 Family power and rights
15:15 Why the Hums
18:42 Motherhood and children
20:18 Nature as commodity
22:25 Why she writes
24:47 Fiction as solidarity
26:55 Air quality trigger
28:52 Climate reads recommendations
30:48 Whats next and AI writing
33:03 Closing credits
Climate Anxiety Opens
[00:00:00] Helen Phillips: When I write about this climate anxiety, it gives me a way to share something with a reader so that we can be together in that anxiety rather than just each being in solitude in that. [00:00:15]
[00:00:15] Ben Hurst: This is Climate Curious, the podcast for people who are bored, scared, or confused by climate change.
[00:00:22] Maryam Pasha: I’m Maryam Pasha, the director and curator at TEDxLondon, and the co-host of this podcast alongside the amazing Ben.
[00:00:28] Ben Hurst: Hi, I’m Ben Hurst, [00:00:30] activist and advocate exploring what positive masculinities can look like and self-confessed climate, normy.
Chapter Four Reading
[00:00:40] Helen Phillips: So I’m going to read to you from chapter four of Hum. So just to set this [00:00:45] up a little bit, after losing her job to artificial intelligence, my protagonist May, has finally made some money from getting paid for being a Guinea pig in an experiment that modified her face so that it can’t be recognized by surveillance.
[00:00:58] Helen Phillips: In this scene, you see [00:01:00] her spending that money, perhaps not in the wisest way. So here you go, chapter four of hum.
[00:01:07] Helen Phillips: The ticket booth was on an inconspicuous street, nothing to market as the pathway to other vistas, clumps of damp litter, discarded cigarette butts. Now, whenever she saw a cigarette butt, she thought of that tantrum sigh through a few months back when he wanted to put a cigarette butt, he harvested from the sidewalk into the dollhouse to serve as a paper towel roll.
[00:01:30] Helen Phillips: The line stretched a quarter of the way down the block. She wasn’t alone in seeking the 5% 11th hour in-person discount. She took her place at the end of the line. The heat of the day had a weight to it, an odor, a slight sting in her eyes [00:01:45] from poor air quality. The woman in front of her was pregnant, beads of sweat at her temples.
[00:01:50] Helen Phillips: She smiled at the woman. The smile, the woman returned to her was limp, as though her face wasn’t accustomed to forming such an expression. The woman shifted her weight away from May [00:02:00] and dove into her phone. The line inched forward. She wished she had been able to go to the botanical garden when she was pregnant.
[00:02:08] Helen Phillips: The pregnant woman raised her eyes from her phone shot. Mia, don’t look at me. Look, she hadn’t realized she was staring. [00:02:15] Embarrassed.
[00:02:16] Helen Phillips: She focused her gaze on the screen mounted above the ticket booth, which was playing the promo for the botanical garden on a loop. She had watched it countless times before, but she never tired of it.
[00:02:27] Helen Phillips: The closeups of ferns and flowers, the [00:02:30] stone bridge over the brook. The tree sagging with fruit. The waterfall white spray on green rocks, the bedrooms, their little jars of lavender, their wooden furniture and blue bedspreads. A handful of birds taking flight from a lilac bush. [00:02:45] And that promo could be infinitely augmented by her phone, by the effervescent social media posts of the guests She likes.
[00:02:51] Helen Phillips: She likes, she likes, she likes, she likes, she likes, but in truth, she could hardly stand to look at them at all. On any other day, she wouldn’t [00:03:00] torture herself by seeking out such images. These selfies, and just a little moment of bliss shots gushing forth from those vacationing at the botanical garden jam.
[00:03:09] Helen Phillips: Packed with flora fauna, plates of richly colored food, earthenware mugs filled to the brim wooden [00:03:15] boxes of truffles. Hands overflowing with berries, feet wading into clean water. Children running through meadows, human faces, and various states of relaxation. A resplendent hum bearing a bowl of peaches.
[00:03:28] Helen Phillips: Next guest, please said the [00:03:30] hum inside the ticket booth, its voice a notch louder than normal. Its eyes on the friendliest setting. She pulled herself out of her phone and realized that the hum had already addressed her more than once. Her legs were unsteady as she stepped up to the window as [00:03:45] the facial scan failed.
[00:03:46] Helen Phillips: Surge of fear, guilt as she requested fingerprint and placed her hand on the hums torso. Green light of recognition. Hello, may Webb The Hum said she found herself short of breath. [00:04:00] Gem would be so upset, worried about money, the kids would be ecstatic. How many visitors May four. Any children May two ages May eight and six.
[00:04:14] Helen Phillips: Full [00:04:15] names May Lou Webb Clarkk and Cy Webb Clarkk and the other adult May Gem Clarkk. How many nights May? Two or three. Three or two, she hadn’t yet decided, had been rolling. The [00:04:30] question around in her mind for days two meant Jim would be slightly less distressed. Three meant more joy. Three meant her profligacy was undeniable.
[00:04:40] Helen Phillips: Three, please. She said basic or deluxe. May basic please. [00:04:45] You are a lucky person. May the Hum said we just had a cancellation for a three night basic for two adults and two children. Entry is tomorrow at the Westgate at 7:30 AM Do you approve this transaction? May still. Short of [00:05:00] breath. Do you approve this transaction?
[00:05:02] Helen Phillips: May the hum repeated After waiting the proper interval, I approve. She said. And the money vanished from the account. Congratulations. May the hum said. She smiled wildly.
[00:05:13] Helen Phillips: We recommend that you purchase one of our traveler packs May. The essential traveler pack includes sunscreen, insect repellent, tweezers, alcohol swabs, two matching bandanas, two flashlights, a packet of band-aids and a stainless steel water bottle.
[00:05:26] Helen Phillips: Yes. She said, I want that. However, in your [00:05:30] case, considering the children, I highly recommend you upgrade to the enhanced Traveler Pack may. With the enhanced, you’ll find that the sunscreen and the insect repellent are organic, and it includes spare batteries as well as four matching bandanas, and for the essential is fine.
[00:05:43] Helen Phillips: She said, [00:05:45] do you approve this transaction? May I approve? She didn’t even have to think about the money. If she didn’t want to. It was taken from her so silently, so swiftly. The essential Traveler Pack is on route to your home. May. May, you have the time of [00:06:00] your life.
[00:06:03] Josie Colter: Wow. Thank you so much and congratulations.
Prize Win And Origins
[00:06:06] Josie Colter: You have won the Climate Fiction Prize. Thank
[00:06:09] Helen Phillips: you.
[00:06:09] Josie Colter: 2026. I’m
[00:06:10] Helen Phillips: so honored to be here
[00:06:12] Josie Colter: and yeah. How do you feel? How, how does it feel? [00:06:15]
[00:06:15] Helen Phillips: It’s thrilling. I was very anxious about climate change when I was starting Hum. That was part of the impetus for the book. So it feels extremely full circle to have, have won this incredible award [00:06:30] that is concerned with climate.
[00:06:32] Josie Colter: It is, yeah. It’s so amazing. And it’s also gonna be a great resource for people that feel the same way. Um, what, when did you actually start writing it? When did you start feeling that way?
[00:06:42] Helen Phillips: Well, I’ve had climate anxiety for a long time, [00:06:45] but I started this book in the fall of 2019. Mm. Um. And that I actually, the first step of the book was reading a ton of books and articles about climate change and artificial intelligence and surveillance.[00:07:00]
[00:07:00] Helen Phillips: So there was a real research stage before I even put fingers to keyboard.
[00:07:05] Josie Colter: I love that.
Hum Plot Breakdown
[00:07:06] Josie Colter: And for people that haven’t read the book yet, we’ve got a protagonist May who is a mother. She loses her job to artificial intelligence and she’s desperate to resolve her family’s debt. She also becomes a Guinea pig in an experiment that alters her face, so it cannot be recognized by surveillance.
[00:07:23] Josie Colter: Um, may then splurge is a significant portion of these hard, hard won funds to gain access to one of the last [00:07:30] remaining green spaces called the Botanical Gardens. In doing so, she powerfully depicts humans intrinsic yearning for nature and clean air as not just desirable but crucial amidst commodification and pollution.
[00:07:44] Josie Colter: [00:07:45] Um, yeah, it’s a super powerful book. It’s kind of utopian and dystopian. Um, and there’s like alarmingly quite a lot of humor in it. Like I did find myself laughing quite a lot. Oh,
[00:07:54] Helen Phillips: good. That’s very important. I’m glad you that that was a big value for me.
[00:07:59] Josie Colter: Yeah. Which was a [00:08:00] really nice feeling. Oh, or ma also made me feel slightly uncomfortable, but we’ll get into that.
[00:08:04] Josie Colter: Um, all
[00:08:05] Helen Phillips: of the above. That’s
[00:08:05] Josie Colter: good. All of the above.
Unintended Consequences
[00:08:06] Josie Colter: And also, uh, something you mentioned last night, the ceremony was that it’s, uh. A book exploring, you know, unintended consequences as well. Is that right?
[00:08:15] Helen Phillips: Yes, very much so. I think that in the book as a whole, you see a society that is a few steps farther down a path than we are in terms of climate change and.[00:08:30]
[00:08:30] Helen Phillips: The chaos of tech being unleashed. Mm. But you also see that those unintended consequences in mae’s own life with some of the choices she makes, for instance, in trying to connect with her children and separate them from the devices that [00:08:45] they are addicted to, which I’m sure none of us can relate to. Um, there are some real severe consequences that follow from that.
[00:08:53] Helen Phillips: Even though she’s really trying to do something generous and beautiful, it doesn’t quite pan out the way she had hoped.
[00:08:58] Josie Colter: Mm-hmm.
Anxiety As Fuel
[00:08:59] Josie Colter: And should we maybe start with, uh, the feeling and the emotion that you actually started with writing this book? Do you wanna tell us a little bit about that? What one of the main driving reasons was behind why you wrote the book?
[00:09:12] Helen Phillips: Yes, so, so. [00:09:15] Writers have many different sources of inspiration. For me, my, one of my real primary sources of inspiration is my anxiety. And when I was setting out to write hum, I was anxious about climate change. I was anxious about artificial [00:09:30] intelligence. I was anxious about surveillance and consumption culture and really writ large the future we are creating for our children.
[00:09:38] Helen Phillips: So all of those. Anxieties, for better or worse, propelled me into writing this book.
[00:09:44] Josie Colter: [00:09:45] Hmm.
Beyond Simple Dystopia
[00:09:46] Josie Colter: And you said you didn’t wanna create like a total dystopia. Um, and there’s, you know, half friendly robots called hums. There’s kind of half sinister cuddly toys called bunnies that the kids carry as trackers. Um, you also bring a lot of humor throughout the book.
[00:10:00] Josie Colter: Um, you know, how, what, what is a speculative future and yeah. How does a speculative future fiction book differ to dystopia?
[00:10:10] Helen Phillips: Well, I, when I was setting out to write hum, I actually very. [00:10:15] Explicitly thought to myself, I don’t want to just write a dystopia. I think that’s too simple. In a way, I think the future is going to have all of these interweaving elements that are, that have unintended consequences in many different directions.
[00:10:29] Helen Phillips: So that [00:10:30] complexity was really important to me. I didn’t wanna flatten this issue. Um. And maybe we’ll talk more about the hum later in the interview, but definitely the, a lot of the technologies are both soothing and [00:10:45] sinister throughout the book, and, and I wanted that to be there. I found a quote early in the drafting process that I use as the epigraph for the book that I feel is really relevant to this sort of utopian dystopian question.
[00:10:57] Helen Phillips: So it’s, this quote is from Paracelsus who [00:11:00] was a, um. Alchemist and physician in the 14 hundreds was not talking about technology, but I feel like this quote is really relevant. Paracelsus said, poison is an everything and no thing is without poison. [00:11:15] The dosage makes it either a poison or a remedy.
[00:11:18] Josie Colter: Hmm.
[00:11:19] Helen Phillips: So to me that, that quote really makes me think about how are we going to dose our technologies?
[00:11:26] Helen Phillips: How are we going to dose our use of our planet? [00:11:30] Technology is going to stick around. Humans will continue to use the planet. How can we have a more thoughtful relationship with it so that we are having it be a remedy, not a. Poison.
[00:11:40] Josie Colter: Mm. Yeah. I love that.
Speculative Fiction Labels
[00:11:42] Josie Colter: Speculative futures, like, is that an emerging like art form?
[00:11:47] Josie Colter: Like what are, how are people, is this an emerging art form that’s, that’s bubbling up because people actually are like, oh, it’s our role as writers and creators to present imaginative futures that are not just black and [00:12:00] white. They’re a bit more gray.
[00:12:01] Helen Phillips: Yes. I don’t know actually the history of that particular term.
[00:12:06] Josie Colter: Yeah,
[00:12:06] Helen Phillips: I find it a useful term or useful label, I guess, for my own work because. I don’t, I think this book [00:12:15] has elements of sci-fi, but I’m not sure I would really call it a science fiction book. I don’t know. Some of, I, I struggle with these labels because, I don’t know, I just write the book as accurately as I can and then people can find different things and it, maybe they find it to be science fiction, maybe they find it to be a [00:12:30] thriller.
[00:12:30] Helen Phillips: But for me, the most accurate term that I would use is speculative fiction. It’s not entirely set in our reality. It has elements that are different of, of a different, slightly different world, but it. It’s not completely [00:12:45] outlandish and writing in that space, it’s not reality, but it’s not so far from reality that almost just in a cr for me as a creator, that’s a very exciting space to be in.
[00:12:57] Helen Phillips: Mm-hmm. I’m not bound by the rules of how things are [00:13:00] now, but I’m also really interested in reflecting something about the way things are now.
[00:13:05] Josie Colter: Mm-hmm.
Family Power And Rights
[00:13:06] Josie Colter: And you also said that. You know, driving interests behind it were, you know, the rise of authoritarianism, um, the rise of like algorithms and artificial intelligence and like the convergence of all these things with like the climate crisis.
[00:13:21] Josie Colter: Mm-hmm. Like do you think tho those were like the main driving interests and then paired with your own kind of. Equal anxiety. And also the book [00:13:30] is written from the point of view of this family. We follow this family around. And you also have a family. Like do you think that that was, you had a personal vested interest in as well in exploring this plot?
[00:13:40] Josie Colter: Maybe?
[00:13:41] Helen Phillips: Yes. Ooh, that’s a big question. There are a lot of elements there. [00:13:45] Um, at Base, it’s a book about a family at base. It’s a book about a woman trying to connect with her partner and children. Um, and really messing that up sometimes and trying to do so in a world that in many ways is bent against [00:14:00] connection because it’s hard to connect to the natural world under these circumstances of decline in the natural world, it’s hard to connect when everyone is glued to their devices all the time.
[00:14:11] Helen Phillips: Um, it’s hard when they’re facing economic hardship [00:14:15] because she’s lost her job to artificial intelligence, and her husband is a gig worker who has very uncertain. Gig work that would not provide health insurance and those practical things that I guess in the UK you all have health insurance, but
[00:14:28] Josie Colter: yeah,
[00:14:28] Helen Phillips: in the US we have to worry about that a [00:14:30] lot.
[00:14:30] Helen Phillips: Yeah. Um, so it really is a convergence of that very interpersonal, familial relational. Story with this, this broader context. I don’t, [00:14:45] authoritarianism wasn’t front and center in my mind compared to climate change and artificial intelligence, but I feel like there is a natural convergence of all of these concerns because for me, the basic question [00:15:00] is who has power and who is going to ensure that?
[00:15:06] Helen Phillips: The basic human rights of everyday citizens are fulfilled.
[00:15:10] Josie Colter: Hmm.
[00:15:11] Helen Phillips: Or who is not going to see to that?
[00:15:13] Josie Colter: Hmm. [00:15:15]
Why The Hums
[00:15:15] Josie Colter: I’d love now to flip into one of the characters that I kind of fell in love with and also felt a little bit odd about falling in love When, which was the robots called the Hums, which of course is also the title of the book.
[00:15:27] Josie Colter: Little Sigh. The Boy adores them. He’s so excited [00:15:30] when they come around for dinner, even telling them that he loves them. Um, there’s an incredible scene where a hum gets hit by a car and all the other hor hums kind of swarm to its side in like such a humanistic and like bodily embodied way, like the thing is bleeding or something.[00:15:45]
[00:15:45] Josie Colter: But they’re also the root cause of the mother May CCTV exposure when you know she’s perhaps looking into the face of losing her kids. Did you call them hums? Because it’s both a noise that’s like got a soothing quality, but [00:16:00] also it’s like an unsettling noise of like all the electric vehicles we’re now hearing, like Yeah, I love that creative choice.
[00:16:07] Josie Colter: Like why hums?
[00:16:08] Helen Phillips: Yes. Oh, I have so much to say about the hums. So firstly, thank you for your insight about the title and the name of the hums, because that’s [00:16:15] exactly right. I, I came up with it. Title very early in the process. Some of my titles, like for my book, the Need, it was the Last thing I came up with.
[00:16:23] Helen Phillips: But for this book, I came up with the title, I knew it would be called Hum very, very early. And that was actually a really important guiding light to [00:16:30] me as I was writing. Firstly, it’s a version of human right, so it’s very it, it borrows three letters from human. So that was part of the motivation, but also very much so.
[00:16:41] Helen Phillips: This duality a hum can be. A nice thing [00:16:45] you hum while you’re doing the dishes. A parent hums to a child or it can also be an incessant, annoying machine sound in the background that never quite goes away. And I absolutely wanted the hum to have both of those qualities. So throughout the book, my ideal would be that the [00:17:00] reader is at sometimes terrified of the hum, at sometimes thinks the hum is adorable, thinks the hum is totally sinister, thinks the hum is really wise.
[00:17:11] Helen Phillips: I want you to have this huge range of. Emotions about the [00:17:15] hum, because that’s how I feel about technology. Here I am in London. It’s very comforting to have my phone helping direct me down the streets. You know, my, my phone is my friend, but if I’m trying to listen to what my son is saying after school and I’m looking at my phone and I get distracted [00:17:30] from what he is saying, my, my phone is not my friend.
[00:17:32] Helen Phillips: So that complexity of our relationship with our technology was really fundamental to the book for me. And there are. Moments in the book where the hum. [00:17:45] Especially ones Mai pays to turn off its advertising feature, which is a big, a big part of the experience of being with hums is that they’re constantly advertising stuff to you and trying to do it in a really seamless way.
[00:17:55] Helen Phillips: Again, potentially relatable to people who have been on the internet where we get these [00:18:00] targeted ads. Um, but when she pays to turn off the advertising feature, the hum becomes capable of a very high level of empathy and conversation. So once you step outside the advertising capitalist. [00:18:15] By paying the hum.
[00:18:15] Helen Phillips: So there’s obviously an irony there, but the hum is capable of really channeling a lot of wisdom towards May. So it’s the hum is supposed to be a very complicated figure. I’m glad you [00:18:30] fell in love with the hum.
[00:18:30] Josie Colter: I love them. And I’m just waiting for some fan fiction which, which bring these hums on other journeys and adventures that we can follow along with.
[00:18:39] Josie Colter: I think it would be so good. Um.
Motherhood And Children
[00:18:42] Josie Colter: Alongside climate in AI family is also a major central theme, and the book is written from the point of the view of the mother May, who’s just lost her job to AI and undergone this kind of facial de recognition surgery, I guess. Um, which means that she can evade CCTV, um, you know, did the plot speak to personal experiences you’ve had with like pressures of motherhood or pressures of motherhood that you’ve seen?
[00:19:06] Josie Colter: Um, you know, is that something that was important to you to bring through?
[00:19:12] Helen Phillips: Yes, family [00:19:15] and motherhood are very central to the book. Um. It’s certainly not autobiographical because these outlandish things, thankfully have not happened to me. But the feeling that you want to do right by your children, which I think is a pretty [00:19:30] universal human feeling, and that you’re not able to, that the circumstances of your life, of your planet make it impossible to give them everything you want to give them, I think is um.
[00:19:43] Helen Phillips: That is an animating [00:19:45] concern of the book, and I did actually dedicate the book to my two children because I think whether you have children or not, you. Feel concerned about the future of humanity on Earth. Um, [00:20:00] but having children makes it very, very specific. You’re actually really picturing the faces that you’ll be sending into that future.
[00:20:06] Helen Phillips: Mm. So yes, the, the theme of family, of, of motherhood and of trying to do right by your children is an [00:20:15] animating, uh, force in the book.
[00:20:17] Josie Colter: Yeah.
Nature As Commodity
[00:20:18] Josie Colter: And nature has this almost kind of DFI quality in the book where there’s this central kind of botanical garden where the family goes on holiday too. And it’s seen as quite like an aspirational thing within the society that we’re in.
[00:20:34] Josie Colter: Um. But actually even the rocks are like plastic and the CCTV tracking your every move. So it’s not perhaps the paradise that you might initially think. [00:20:45] Um, and you, as you say, you draw a really thin line between nature and commerce and kind of transactional, uh, capitalist qualities. Is that where you think we’re headed or are we already there?
[00:20:58] Helen Phillips: Well, I, [00:21:00] I don’t think we’re already there and I hope we don’t get there and maybe we’re partway there. I, I think that. Everyone should have access to nature, to green spaces in some form. [00:21:15] The, the botanical garden was inspired by my experience living in New York City, obviously an urban center, and, um, the power of going from an urban center and entering into a green space.
[00:21:28] Helen Phillips: In my case, I live in [00:21:30] Brooklyn, so. Prospect Park and Greenwood Cemetery are large green spaces near me, and there is a really extraordinary quality when you cross that border from the cityscape into a place where there are trees and greenery. [00:21:45] It’s, um, a physiological shift that happens that is. Very important, I think for all humans to be able to experience that.
[00:21:54] Helen Phillips: So protecting certainly city parks and protecting wilderness areas [00:22:00] is a high value of mine. I don’t, I don’t think that that’s, I don’t know how explicit the book is about that. Maybe it’s a little bit the subtext of the value placed on that botanical garden, but I certainly don’t think that you should only be able to have access to those green spaces if you can.[00:22:15]
[00:22:15] Helen Phillips: Spend a huge amount of money as Mai does, and money that she earns in a fairly sinister way by undergoing an, uh, experimental procedure. Mm-hmm.
Why She Writes
[00:22:25] Josie Colter: And I’d love to flip now into like some questions about your creative process [00:22:30] and like why you write. Um, I think we have so many listeners that either love reading or love writing and would love to know a little bit more about like the roots into that.
[00:22:39] Josie Colter: So I guess like in a very blunt question, why do you write?
[00:22:43] Helen Phillips: Why do I write? Well, I [00:22:45] actually think in order to answer that question I have to go way back to my childhood because from. Truly the age of six. As soon as I could write a story, I wanted to be a writer. So I have, I am in the lucky position of having had a, [00:23:00] what felt like a vocation from a very young age that I’ve actually been able to, um, continue with my whole life.
[00:23:06] Helen Phillips: Um, I grew up in a household, my older sister was severely handicapped. Mm-hmm. And. I think [00:23:15] that early on writing was a place for me to process some of my feelings about that. And then when I was 11 years old, I lost all of my hair due to the autoimmune condition alopecia. Mm-hmm. And that was quite a challenging time [00:23:30] to lose my hair and to feel so physically awkward and so different from other people.
[00:23:35] Helen Phillips: And when I was 13 years old, in response to that hair loss, I gave myself the New Year’s resolution to write a poem a day. And for many, [00:23:45] many years I wrote a poem every day. Um, so for me, writing has always been a place to process my anxieties about personal things or about. More global things.
[00:23:56] Josie Colter: Mm-hmm. I love that.
[00:23:58] Josie Colter: So it went from [00:24:00] poetry to novels to
[00:24:05] Helen Phillips: Yes. Probably
[00:24:06] Josie Colter: just all sorts of, but you, do you feel like you’ve really found your flow in novels now?
[00:24:10] Helen Phillips: I, I love writing short stories too. Okay. Um, and [00:24:15] sometimes I even feel like they can be a place for me to experiment with ideas that will show up in my novels. Um, so I do go back and forth between the two, but I think there’s nothing for me, there’s nothing like.
[00:24:29] Helen Phillips: The [00:24:30] depth of relationship that you have with a book when you’re working on it over so many years and spending so much time in that world and, and conjuring that world. Um, but then a short story can be a delightful little affair to [00:24:45] have too.
[00:24:45] Josie Colter: Yeah. So,
[00:24:46] Helen Phillips: yes.
[00:24:46] Josie Colter: I love it.
Fiction As Solidarity
[00:24:47] Josie Colter: And in terms of, you know, you just actually touched upon like building worlds and.
[00:24:52] Josie Colter: Do you think that fiction is a really good place for people to be able to go and explore kind of climate [00:25:00] realities that can often be very distressing and, and dystopic in a kind of more. Controlled or like supportive environment. Um, ’cause you could kind of read alone, but then you could also talk to people about what they thought about the book.
[00:25:12] Josie Colter: Like do you think it’s actually a really good medium for these [00:25:15] sorts of climate narratives to be surfaced out and explore together
[00:25:18] Helen Phillips: for readers and for writers?
[00:25:20] Josie Colter: Yeah.
[00:25:20] Helen Phillips: Yeah. I, I do think so. I, you know, I think that. As I said, with anxiety as my starting place for writing the book, certainly it’s not [00:25:30] as though writing this book dissolved all of my climate anxiety.
[00:25:33] Helen Phillips: Mm-hmm. I did more deep research into it. I came to understand it more so my anxiety became less ambient and more specific.
[00:25:42] Josie Colter: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:43] Helen Phillips: Um, which [00:25:45] feels better to me. It feels like I’m understanding the reality a little bit more. But when I write about this climate anxiety, it gives me a way to share something with a reader so that we can be together in that anxiety [00:26:00] rather than just each being in solitude in that.
[00:26:02] Josie Colter: Hmm.
[00:26:03] Helen Phillips: Um, and there are books of climate fiction that I love that give me a sense of, not any solution, but just solidarity and acknowledgement. Of the concern. And I [00:26:15] feel like living together in, in a reality where we’re acknowledging that is really a valuable starting place.
[00:26:22] Josie Colter: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:23] Helen Phillips: And I think that for writers writing about climate change and for readers reading about climate change, there can [00:26:30] be a cathartic quality to engaging with this subject matter and realizing that other people are concerned about it too, and feeling like.
[00:26:41] Helen Phillips: There’s some kind of communal response that might be [00:26:45] possible.
[00:26:45] Josie Colter: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And I loved what you said about ambient anxiety versus like specific anxiety.
Air Quality Trigger
[00:26:55] Josie Colter: On the topic of specific anxiety, were there any like things that really set you off on like, oh, that’s really triggered me?
[00:27:01] Helen Phillips: One thing that I did come across was in David Wallace Wells book, the Uninhabitable Earth, which is a nonfiction book about climate.
[00:27:14] Helen Phillips: He [00:27:15] has a section about air quality and I, you know, we get a little preoccupied with the rising oceans because that’s very dramatic, certainly, but air quality is. As he points out, very [00:27:30] concerning. And really, it’s every single breath you take, you can’t stop breathing. You can’t get away from that air, air quality, poor air quality.
[00:27:38] Helen Phillips: And so you’ll, you’ll notice in the book that one of Mae’s children, her daughter Lou, is very preoccupied with [00:27:45] the air quality and. They, they have sign, they have not great air quality. Some places in the world every day have poor air quality. Um, and in this reality, they have poor air quality and that anxiety really strikes the [00:28:00] child.
[00:28:00] Helen Phillips: Um, then in, I believe it was June of 2023. We had a day in New York when there were fires burning in Canada, and the air quality was, I don’t know what metric you all use here, but it was 450. It was very, [00:28:15] very, very poor air quality and it had never been seen like that in New York City before. And I rushed my children home from where they were and everybody had to shut their windows.
[00:28:24] Helen Phillips: And my editor texted me, my American editor for hum, and said. I feel like you’re a, you [00:28:30] know, the, your hum is so prophetic. How did you know? And I just wrote back, people are are already writing about this and thinking about it. The, the scientists already know about this air quality issue. So that was one that felt a little too close to home.
[00:28:43] Josie Colter: Extremely that visible. Mm-hmm. [00:28:45] And just visual.
[00:28:47] Helen Phillips: Yeah.
[00:28:47] Josie Colter: Yeah.
[00:28:48] Helen Phillips: And you have to breathe. You can’t not breathe. So,
[00:28:50] Josie Colter: yeah.
[00:28:51] Helen Phillips: Yeah.
Climate Reads Recommendations
[00:28:52] Josie Colter: I loved that you just mentioned another author. Have you got any favorite books or recommendations that [00:29:00] you’d love to share with our listeners? Like the, you know, if they enjoyed reading your book, other things they might wanna read or look into, or just like seminal texts, you always go back to,
[00:29:08] Helen Phillips: well, one of my all time favorite books and I’ve mentioned it.
[00:29:13] Helen Phillips: Uh, in many interviews, but [00:29:15] I will always, uh, share. This book is Fever Dream by Samantha Sch. Webl, an Argentine writer. Um, it is. I believe it’s, I, it is climate fiction. It’s about the effect of toxic chemicals used [00:29:30] in agriculture, but it really sneaks up on you. A lot of the book is also about maternal anxiety, and I, I like that book is climate fiction because it’s very subtle.
[00:29:40] Helen Phillips: It’s not just in your face. It’s really insidious and almost [00:29:45] visceral the way it creeps up on you. And a short story, my favorite short story. That I’m thinking of right now about climate change is the story exhalation by Ted Chiang, and it goes quite far from our present reality. It’s about an alternate [00:30:00] society and these robots in this society.
[00:30:03] Helen Phillips: But by the end of the story, you realize that the whole conceit is a metaphor for climate change that also sneaks up on you. So I guess I have a tendency, I’m interested in those works of climate fiction that don’t declare themselves [00:30:15] as such, but you come to understand it over the course of reading. Mm.
[00:30:18] Helen Phillips: And and I should mention, um, as, as I spoke before about the research I did when I was working on Hum, the final 12 pages of the book are. A bunch of in notes and a [00:30:30] bibliography for further reading, acknowledging all of the different writers and, um, research I read when I was working on the book. So I would also recommend all of those works.
[00:30:39] Josie Colter: Okay, great. Definitely everyone delve into those. ’cause there’s so many like rich references and [00:30:45] resources for further reading. Um.
Whats Next And AI Writing
[00:30:48] Josie Colter: And yeah, like what’s next? I know that you’ve just won an amazing prize. You are also a professor. You are got a really busy life. But what’s next? Um, what gives you courage to keep creating?
[00:30:59] Josie Colter: [00:31:00] Um. Yeah,
[00:31:02] Helen Phillips: well, courage to keep creating. Yes. But maybe more so just ongoing anxiety to process. Yeah. Um, so my next book is set in the even more distant [00:31:15] future possibility than ham and, um. I won’t say too much about it, but it, it concerns a society where many people have made the choice to upload their brains to the, uh, cloud [00:31:30] and the fallout from,
[00:31:31] Josie Colter: from that choice.
[00:31:33] Josie Colter: Wow. I mean, that also just feels extremely relatable with how much AI is being used more and more when the outsourcing.
[00:31:40] Helen Phillips: Yes. I, it’s, it’s funny writing in the slight future or [00:31:45] trying to write what you might call futuristic fiction now, because reality catches up so quickly to what we can imagine.
[00:31:51] Josie Colter: Yeah.
[00:31:52] Josie Colter: And just one last piece of final advice actually for people that, ’cause I’m, I also love writing and people have said to me, oh, so do you [00:32:00] just use AI for that? Then I said, no, I, I love writing. What was like, what would be your advice for people that are like, oh, I don’t need to write anymore ’cause I just use ai.
[00:32:09] Helen Phillips: Well, that’s funny. I, I’m, I’m not surprised you’ve heard that question. [00:32:15] Um. Writing is my favorite thing I do with this human brain I’ve been given. It is so hard. It’s so interesting. It puts me in such a flow state. That would be the last thing I would want to give up to [00:32:30] artificial intelligence. It is the most exciting thing I can do with my brain.
[00:32:36] Josie Colter: I love that. Well, thank you so much for your time.
[00:32:38] Helen Phillips: Thank you. Thank you so much for the thoughtful questions. It’s a pleasure to speak with you.
[00:32:42] Josie Colter: Thank you so much. And yeah, to everyone [00:32:45] listening, Helen is one of, well, you’re the winner, but there’s also, you are one of six of the writers and novels that got shortlisted for the Climate Fiction Prize by Climate Springs.
[00:32:55] Josie Colter: So there’s many other excellent books to delve into and definitely go check them out. [00:33:00] Day. Thank you.
Closing Credits
[00:33:03] Maryam Pasha: Thank you for joining us this week. We really hope you’ve enjoyed this episode.
[00:33:06] Ben Hurst: If you did, please hit the follow button to make sure that you get next week’s release. While you’re at it, please leave a rating and a review.
[00:33:14] Maryam Pasha: [00:33:15] Now let’s shout out to our fabulous team behind the poll
[00:33:18] Ben Hurst: executive, produced by Josie Colter,
[00:33:20] Maryam Pasha: produced by Ben Beheshty.
[00:33:22] Ben Hurst: Music, also by Ben Beheshty,
[00:33:24] Maryam Pasha: communications by Tara Cooper and Issey Gladston.
[00:33:27] Ben Hurst: Curation by Deesha Chandra,
[00:33:29] Maryam Pasha: hosted [00:33:30] by Ben Hurst.
[00:33:31] Ben Hurst: I’m Maryam Pasha.
[00:33:32] Maryam Pasha: And remember,
[00:33:33] Ben Hurst: stay curious.
