Summer, 2023. Nearly 4 years after the global pandemic began. Solid, Broken, Changing‘s launch was still on hold. Then I read Becky Chambers’ A Psalm for the Wild Built. And every other book she wrote.

Becky’s style of sci fi fantasy was a revelation to me. To others as well it seems. Fantasy writer Alexandra Roland coined a term to describe such storytelling: “hopepunk.”

Hopepunk says that genuinely and sincerely caring about something, anything, requires bravery and strength. Hopepunk isn’t ever about submission or acceptance: It’s about standing up and fighting for what you believe in. It’s about standing up for other people. It’s about DEMANDING a better, kinder world, and truly believing that we can get there if we care about each other as hard as we possibly can, with every drop of power in our little hearts. —Alexandra Roland ariaste

I wrote Solid, Broken, Changing because I needed its story for myself. Given all I was learning about the Anthropocene, I needed stories that celebrated the brave strength and risk it takes to creatively respond to massive change, radical difference, and disturbing new material realities of life on Earth. I wanted stories about characters who embrace learning when faced with difference, and who find new friends when sheltering with strangers.

While writing Solid, Broken, Changing, I worried that there wouldn’t be an audience for it. Its story didn’t seem. . .brutal enough. At that time, I didn’t know hopepunk was a thing. Who knew that speculative, futurist sci fi could feel both gentle and fierce, like Chambers’ stories felt? Who knew that sci fi fantasy could feature characters like Becky’s: flawed yet compassionate beings who unflinchingly gave kind regard to others—no matter how queer or “different”? Who knew that such themes and sentiments won major sci fi awards?!

Hopepunk and Becky Chambers’ books were, yup, revelations. They were balm. Salve. And butt-kicking enlivening. They lifted me out of pandemic-induced grimdark. And I decided to give Solid, Broken, Changing a proper launch. 

But not as hopepunk. As wayfindrpunk!