The After-Normal: Brief, Alphabetical Essays on a Changing Planet

Research Background: This book of essays responds to the contemporary situation of ecological crisis, and Haraway's injunction to "stay with the trouble," against both denial and despair. Many science writers, philosophers and journalists have disseminated the facts and their implications, including Tim Flannery, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Clive Hamilton. However, the scale of the "hyperobject" (Morton) of climate change has enabled vested interests to forestall effective responses, and affective awareness, and nonfiction writers are seeking new ways to contribute to public discourse. Research Contribution: The After-Normal is an abecedarian work of brief essays written as call and response between two authors from opposite sides of the globe. The research explores how an improvised, collaborative creative action of essaying could enact Haraway's notion of ecological "response-ability" through attending to human and nonhuman "matters of concern" (Latour) at all scales, from micro to macro. It shows ways the lyric, personal essay can bring a self-reflexive and affectively attuned criticality to the broader field of environmental writing, braiding observation, speculation, humour, grief and wonder. Research Significance: Ground-breaking in its form, The After-Normal is published by Rose Metal Press, a leading US independent publisher of innovative hybrid genres, whose titles have been winners and finalists for many awards. Co-author Nicole Walker is recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts award and is a noted author in Best American Essays; author of 6 acclaimed books of creative nonfiction, she also co-edited the influential anthology Bending Genre: Essays on Creative Nonfiction (Bloomsbury). Early reviews and interviews for The After-Normal have appeared in journals including Publishers Weekly, The Believer, Arizona Daily Sun, and Essay Daily, and individual essays published in Speculative Nonfiction.