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CLIMATE
STORIES

What is your climate story?
Telling and understanding our stories of experiencing the climate crisis is a powerful way to build resilience and ignite action.

Starting in 2022, MCAN has held workshops for youth on Crafting Your Own Climate Story, led by teaching artists from The Telling Room. Creative writing is a valuable outlet to share personal impacts of climate change, help process climate anxiety and grief, build collective resilience, and inspire us to action to confront the climate crisis.

Enjoy these youths’ stories!

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Crafting Your Own Climate Fiction

Do you want to influence the world with your writing? Are you passionate about climate justice? In this online workshop, Maine Climate Action Now and The Telling Room invite youth writers to craft their own climate fiction ("cli-fi"). We’ll find inspiration in our own climate experiences and in the work of cli-fi writers like Kim Stanley Robinson, Ursula LeGuin, Sam J. Miller, as well as Maine’s own youth cli-fi writer, Leela Marie Hidier. We’ll build a solid writer’s foundation with fiction tools such as character development, world-building, narrative structure, and voice. Participants will have the opportunity to explore dystopian, utopian, fantasy, speculative, and surreal climate imaginings. This is a chance to transform climate anxieties into transformative stories.

Who:  Youth 14-30 years old 

When:  Tuesdays, Oct. 10 - Nov. 14, 7:00 - 8:30pm

Where:  Zoom (online)

Cost:  FREE with $135 optional stipend

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Adrian Madanes

Santa Barbara

Maine Youth for Climate Justice (Social Media Lead)

Age 21

Summer 2023

Workshop with the Telling Room at Waterfall Arts in Belfast, ME

Etta Hughes

Stop. & Foot Bridge Over the Passy: One Million Shades

Ecology Learning Center, Unity

Age 15

"Ignorance is a privilege given to few but claimed by many."

– Laura Hepner

Laura Hepner

To the Leaders of a Broken World

Watershed High School, Camden

Age 15

Phoebe Dolan

The Polls of Our Future

Maine Youth Power (Co-Director)

Age 25

"But perhaps someday you will sit

On your crumbling porch sinking into the sea

And wonder where these birds are

Tiny bundles of fluffy feathers and energy

Perhaps you will miss them."

– Scarlet Labbé-Watson

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Scarlet Labbé-Watson 

To the Owners of Plush Summer Cottages

Watershed High School, Camden

Age 17

MCAN ran two four-session workshops in 2022, Crafting Your Own Climate Story, with teaching artists from the Telling Room. Youth participants from across the state crafted their personal climate stories, learning and sharing an understanding of their individual place in the climate crisis. These youth writers showed their care about the place they live in and observed the changes around them. All our stories will connect us through understanding the effect the climate crisis is having on our lives and will inspire us to action to confront the climate crisis. Enjoy these youths’ stories!

Fall 2022

Virtual workshop with the Telling Room for youth across the state

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Alyssa Soucy

A Sewist Finds Hope in the Climate Crisis

University of Maine

Age 27

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Frances Burke

Summer Storm

Traip Academy

Age 15

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Ian Seckler

The Memory of Nature

Traip Academy

Age 15

"He looked back, savoring the green grass, the crashing waterfall, savoring the memory of it all. He then turned back and walked up the stairs, through the hall, and out the door into his polluted, dry world."

– Ian Seckler

Jerovain Nganzobo

Climate Story

University of Maine at Machias

Age 25

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Makili Matty

Rooted

Traip Academy

Age 15

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Meredith McGonigle

Hiking During the Climate Crisis

Traip Academy

Age 16

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Tony (Winston) Antoine

Memories

MCAN/MYCJ Climate Justice Co-coordinator 

Age 28

"No one wishes for their home to crumble

nor to shift with the swelling tides..."

– Makili Matty

Spring 2022

Our first workshop, 'Telling Your Climate Story', with the Telling Room for youth across the state

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Abigail Holubrinkle

An Eye For An Eye

Narraguagus Jr/Sr High School

Age 15

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Brisa Ortiz Garcia

Pockets of Peace

Narraguagus Jr/Sr High School

Age 16

"Natua's fury burned hotter than magma. She was brutal. Plague after plague, each more threatening than the last. The ground shook, oceans churned, fires devoured everything. Even the plants and animals answered her call for vengeance, eager to bite back."

– Abigail Holubrinkle

Isabelle Rogers

Eraser

Sunrise Movement Franklin County/MYCJ

Age 21

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Jeni Nganzobo

The Change in the Environment

University of Maine at Machias

Age 23

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Luke Sekera-Flanders

Water Predator: Privatization and Theft in a Climate of Uncertainty

Age 18

"The relationships we made in the nearly 4 year legal battle grew into a resilient network of communities across the state. We have seen many victories since, all crucial steps in the direction of water justice."

– Luke Sekera-Flanders

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Mark Hurlbert

Basement Flood 

Narraguagus Jr./Sr. High School

Age 14 

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Tamra Benson

We’re Here to Heal Each Other

University of Maine at Orono (2023) / Maine Youth Action

Age 21

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Yani Nganzobo

My Story - Climate Change

University of Maine at Machias (2022) / Color of Climate-Gateway Community Services 

Age 23

"A little girl sits on the ground in her backyard, tiny fingers deliciously intertwined with the soft blades of grass. The world belongs to her, and she belongs to the world."

– Tamra Benson

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