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Nick Meynen

Goodreads Author

Born

in Antwerp, Belgium

Website

https://nickmeynen.wordpress.com/

Twitter

nickmeynen

Genre

Nonfiction, Science, Contemporary

Influences

Naomi Klein Dirk Holemans George Monbiot Frank Westerman ...more

Member Since

June 2014

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Nick Meynen (1980) grew up in Antwerp, studied in Ghent and lives in Leuven (Belgium). He also feels at home in Nepal, where he spend 2 years in between 2003 and 2009 as a researcher, volunteer, journalist and founder of a non-profit. These experiences made him see the world from a distinctly non-Western perspective. In the decade since, he merged these experiences with his degrees in geography, conflict studies and journalism to become a professional environmentalist trying to address the root causes of our global war on nature. He works, writes, speaks and acts with environmental and social justice in mind. His writing ranges from investigative journalism to poetry, but literary non-fiction books are his speciality. Following on the succe ...more

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What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Nick Meynen First: get out there. Walk. Fall. Get up. Repeat. Don't talk to people, listen to them. Follow instincts, change plans, get out of your comfort zone. …moreFirst: get out there. Walk. Fall. Get up. Repeat. Don't talk to people, listen to them. Follow instincts, change plans, get out of your comfort zone. All my books start from experiences I've had, often way out of my comfort zone.

Second: work hard. Be stubborn. Persist. My books ususally grow for five to even ten years in my mind. They take around 1000 hours spread over 3 years to write. Almost each and every sentence has been rewritten, up to 10 times for the hardest parts. Jack Kerouac apparently wrote "on the road" in one drugged trip but that's not what writing is about for most people and certainly not for me. It is a lonely, frustrating and hard working job that pays off all of that years after you have labored on it far from any spotlight.

Third: dream big. Start with idealism and ambition. Think triology. Think translations. Book tours. What's a decade in one lifetime? Don't be afraid of dreaming big just because you think that this will only lead to disappointments. No book project ever started by thinking small, at least not with me. Many disappointments will come along the way but just go back to point one. Walk. Fall. Get up.

Fourth: expose your weaknesses early on. Ask feedback and ask to be hard on you. I share very early drafts full of errors, even thought errors. I learn a whole lot by these "written conversations" with friends, family, people I interviewed, editors. My books are living documents until the moment they are printed.

Five. Never mind the spelling nazis. I make spelling mistakes all the time but that doesn't disqualify me from being able to tell a good story. I first go with the flow and keep corrections for later, with some help here and there.

Six. Ignore all of the above :-) Seriously, there's no "how to become a writer in 3 weeks" guidebook. But maybe just remember the first advice. Walk. Fall. Get up. Repeat.(less)

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Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Nick Meynen The easy answer would probably be to name just one flash, a great "aha" moment, which I could then blow up to magical proportions. The more honest ans…moreThe easy answer would probably be to name just one flash, a great "aha" moment, which I could then blow up to magical proportions. The more honest answer is that this idea grew on me as I was busy mapping environmental conflicts globally, as part of my day-job for an environmental non-profit. I came across so many strong stories from people such as Sumaira Abdulali, a women risking her life and winning court battles to stop the sand mafia in India. I also travelled to many environmental frontlines, for example with nuclear engineer Bruno Chareyron as my guide on a toxic tour to an abandoned uranium mine in Bulgaria. Their stories are so inspiring, important, little-known and a great way to lay the foundations for this book. I do what I do in all my books: I use stories, anekdotes, experiences, short reflections and I order them in such a way that slowly, a bigger picture emerges. The idea for this book also grew while seeing ever clearer the many connections between the strong stories I came across and the theories of how our world works. I learned the latter mostly from the geographers, ecological economists and political ecologists that I work with. They often use difficult terms like "unequal ecological exchange", "ecological debt" or "metabolism of the global economy". All of them are fascinating concepts to understand our world, but in need of unpacking. (less)

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Nick Meynen’s books

Average rating: 4.12 · 154 ratings · 23 reviews · 5 distinct works • Similar authors

	Frontlines: Stories of Global Environmental Justice 4.28 avg rating — 79 ratings — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	De val van Icarus. Het virus als kantelpunt 4.10 avg rating — 31 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Nepal Nieuwe wegen in de Himalaya 3.89 avg rating — 27 ratings — published 2010 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Wandelen met Flora 3.76 avg rating — 17 ratings — published 2013	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Nepal 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Nick Meynen…

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Nick Meynen's Blog

As the first UK tour ends, plans are already brewing for tours 2, 3, 4, …

The rebellion against the current war on nature is global. Extinction Rebellion is a great new kid on the block but it doesn’t happen in splendid isolation, neither is this a white class hobby project. The truth is rather the opposite. Here are 3000 “rebellions” https://ejatlas.org/ from all over the world and people such as prof. Joan Martinez-Alier call this proof of the existence of a global mo Read more of this blog post »

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Published on December 10, 2019 00:54 • Tags: activism, environment, extinction-rebellion

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Nick is Currently Reading

Nick Meynen is currently reading

De meeste mensen deugen: Een nieuwe geschiedenis van de mens

by Rutger Bregman (Goodreads Author)

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Nov 07, 2019 05:47AM

Nick Meynen is currently reading

De draagbare Kapuściński: zijn mooiste reportages, gekozen en ingeleid door Frank Westerman

by Ryszard Kapuściński

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Sep 06, 2019 05:06AM

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Nick Meynen is now friends with bram sebrechts
Jul 21, 2025 06:17AM · like
Nick Meynen rated a book it was amazing Muiterij. Hoe onze wereld kantelt by Peter Mertens	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Apr 16, 2025 07:20AM · 1 like · like
Nick Meynen rated a book it was amazing Laten we eerlijk zijn by Anuna De Wever Van der Heyden	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
De eerlijke analyse van Anuna over haar groeiproces van de afgelopen jaren van verzet is precies wat ik nodig had om nu te lezen. Ik wou dat elke activist en bezorgde burger die zich wil inzetten voor een betere wereld dit boek zou lezen. Waren herke ...more
Apr 08, 2025 09:09AM · like · see review